Are Women’s Only Clubs Sexist?

The New York Human Rights Commission is investigating women’s club The Wing – why? For alleged gender discrimination.

The co-working space and private members club was founded in 2016 and offers women a space to work and socialise, men cannot become members, they can’t even pay a visit as a guest.

The investigation will involve meetings between The Wing staff and the human rights commission, a spokesperson for the commission said: ‘We are looking forward to working with The Wing to ensure that they are in compliance with the law.’

It all seems very amicable so far, The Wing is referring to the investigation as a ‘collaborative process’ reports Jezebel. And Karen Dunn, who is representing The Wing has said: ‘All that’s happened is that The Wing and the Commission have agreed, mutually, to sit down and have a conversation.’

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Are women’s only clubs illegal?

Legally it’s a little questionable; laws in force in New York mean that you can’t discriminate against people based on factors like their gender, race or age in public places that provide services. Some businesses have been able to get around this as they are small very private clubs – meaning they have fewer than 400 members. The Wing has 1,500, according to The New York Times.

Are women’s only clubs sexist?

This raises an interesting question about gender discrimination, namely are women’s only clubs sexist?

If we’re talking in technicalities then probably yes. The term sexist can be defined as; ‘Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.’

So not letting someone into a club because of their gender is sexist, however when you take the current climate into consideration; for example the #MeToo movement, it seems counter-productive to clamp down on women’s only spaces when there are almost daily news stories about women being harassed and attacked in work places by men. The definition itself reflects the fact that women are usually the group being discriminated against, not doing the discriminating.

Safe spaces for women are important, it seems extremely out of touch to be spending time trying to investigate them. Remember the President's Club debacle? Journalists uncovered the harassment and propositioning women working at an men-only charity gala had to endure - women suffer more harassment and violence at work, that's one of the reasons why these safe working spaces are so essential.

The laws against discrimination in clubs and businesses were clearly intended to make sure women weren’t kept out of places because of their gender, not to disrupt the safe space aimed at housing the group that is most often discriminated against in wider society.

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.