Imagine the look on the face of the teeshirt store clerk when I had that phrase ironed onto a teeshirt in 1980.
I certainly don’t want to go where I’m not wanted, but how do they get away with that? On what legal basis can they do it?
If it’s a privately funded event, they can do whatever they damned well please.
No, they can’t. I will do some research to find some some cases where private men’s clubs were ordered by courts to open up their events or services to women. It is not cut and dried. Especially if they open up an event beyond their membership, but discrimate on which part of the public they let in. Like I said in an earlier post – I don’t think there would be any issue if this were a “members-only” event, but apparently it’s not.
I guess the question is whether anyone who is currently not allowed to attend this event would even want to fight for the right to go. In this day and age, it sounds kind of boring to me, personally.
I think the argument w/regards to the private men’s clubs was that they were being used for political and economic networking — not just now and then but as a fundamental aspect of what went on there. So they weren’t really “social clubs” but rather constituted the environment in which business was conducted.
Anyone might choose to disagree with that argument, but I believe it was the argument that was made and was the basis of the decision.
I know the analogy to men’s clubs is not partvularly good. I think some were forced open at the threat of losing tax-exempt status. Others offered services open to the general public, like a restaurant attach to a golf course, which were such a large part of the organization that they someow were deemed to no longer be “private”. IANAL and I don’t know the legal particulars.
But I do know that being "provate is in and of itself not enough to make discrimination legal. If I am the sole owner of a large apartment complex, I can’t exclude black tennants merely becase I want to. There are an ebless number of private usinesses that cannot discrimate against classes of citizens because they don’t like their class.
Looking through the Festival website, I don’t see a single word in tthe FAQ, ticket info page, registration form or “first-timer” page which indicates men may not enter. I f I had sent a check to the festival in good faith and them been barred at the gate, I would be VERY pissed off.
I’m going to start a GQ thread about under what conditions some one or some group can discriminate based on gender.
Many years ago there was a Holly Near concert here and I bought tickets for my husband and me. I knew her music before she was way into women’s/lesbians’ issues and always thought she was a very talented singer/songwriter. I think my husband would have enjoyed her music too, but he never found out. We didn’t know until we got there that men weren’t allowed for the first half of the concert they certainly didn’t tell us when they sold us the expensive tickets). It was too cold outside and he didn’t want to wait around, so he went home. Holly apparently didn’t know about the exclusion either, because after the intermission she said, “I wondered why it was an all female-crowd! If I’d known about this, I wouldn’t have saved all my dyke songs for the second half.”
I thought those days were over, but I guess not.
There have been two press-releases regarding the policies used at this year’s festival.
The first was apparently released by Camp Trans, which was then followed by a release from Lisa Vogel , the MWMF producer, owner of the private land, etc.
Two different interpretations of the same event… Which version will ultimately reflect the reality on the land? Each side is spinning the facts its way… but spin is made of words in air… the real truth is on the ground, in the hearts and minds.
As for admitting guys, Lisa Vogel states: “At other times, Camp Trans activists have advocated opening the Festival to all sexes and genders.”
Hmm, the parallel with hymen…maybe this is a good alternative.
Yeah, I thought the thread would be about someone admitted as a performer, not a spectator. The first restriction makes more sense than the second.
Says the director of the festival: “We refuse to be forced into false
dichotomies that equate being pro-womyn-born womyn space with being
anti-trans; indeed, many of the womyn essential to the Michigan
Festival are leaders and supporters of trans-solidarity work.”
This is like saying, “Just because the Elks Club doesn’t allow blacks to join doesn’t mean we are anti-black. Some of our best friends are black!” And then she goes on about “celebrating diversity” (especially within the “queer community.”).
I have mixed feelings. I don’t think men - or whomever else is not allowed to attend - should fight to be part of something that isn’t designed for them or wouldn’t even probably hold any interest for them. On the other hand it bugs me when people claim to “celebrate diversity” while creating “spaces” for a bunch of people who are basically alike and officially disallowing certain members of the population to come in. It seems so insecure and feeding into powerlessness. There are different viewpoints on this topic and I got bored with “women-only” (I can’t say womyn; that just sounds silly) deal about 25 years ago.
This kind of makes my opinion irrelevent anyway, because I would never go. So you can ignore this and carry on!