Fathers not allowed

I think one of the equivalent groups I went to in the UK (though run by a charity, not publicly funded) had a similar rule. This wasn’t particularly due to concern about ethnic minorities, but that they had women coming along who’d suffered domestic violence or for other reasons wanted a ‘safe space’ and would have felt uncomfortable talking about personal matters with men present. One additional thing to bear in mind is that for groups for those with babies or very young children, the mother may still be breastfeeding, which may make some women feel particularly uncomfortable with strange men present.

I can therefore see justifications for having *some* groups which are women-only, but I think there should also be ones which clearly encourage fathers as well. In fact there might even be advantages if there are groups which are specifically encouraging and targetting men as well as women. Currently, many fathers feel uncomfortable going to any parenting groups, since they are so female-dominated.

but it does restrict the options of more progressive heterosexual couples to equally shared parenthood,

Not to mention tipping some heterosexual couples at the margin away from more progressive roles and decisions. Their progressivism isn’t fixed, and the more things in life that flash the “it’s easier all around of the mom takes care of this” sign, the more couples will take the “mom takes care of things” route.

JTL’s point is a good one. But what to do? If there’s a large portion of a community which practices gender segregation and state compulsion is not available before or after formal school age, all the options are bad. Perhaps the power of money to melt all that is solid into air? Special tax breaks etc. only for parents who attend non-gender segregated (pre-)playgroups?

i agree that two types of spaces – one woman-only and one for both – certainly seems like the better idea. However, i would disagree that women-only institutions like this are fundamentally un-liberal (i know ‘progressive’ is the word being used): i see it as a perfect display of pluralism. Sometimes good europeans (of the laicist streak) are so adamant about everyone being open, that they close themselves off to perfectly legitimate forms of cultural difference. But competition certainly would be healthy!

Harry, I think the UK or USA and the NL are different. We don’t have significant numbers of working poor (yet) and class is not so much an issue here; but we do have large numbers of ‘socially isolated’ mothers with children who are living in families that practice gender-segregation. Hence I think that it is fair to say that these kids are the worse off in society, and that the bargaining aspects that you refer to will never be a real option for these mothers (these are first generation, often unskilled, immigrants.)

I also thought that the municipalities should simply have mother-only playgroups one morning a week and mixed playgroups another morning (or two). But I guess there are financial constraints since these are subsidised activities…

Our local swimmingpool has a women-only timeslot once a week, where these women can take swimming classes. I have no problems with this at all, since it leaves sufficient options for mixed swimming, and the more an activity becomes ‘bodily’, the more I can understand why sex-segregation can be defended. Hence I agree with Magistra regarding *some* parentgroups being restricted to mothers only – but not for 18+ months old kids.

All right, rereading my last sentence, I see that it revealed my gut-feelings. I guess the feminist in me is upset with this playground denying access to fathers. The liberal-egalitarian in me tries to find justifications for why it may be defensible in terms of the benefits to the worst-off or to liberal toleration. I suppose the feminist in me is stronger than the liberal-egalitarian – at least in this case.

Good question, Pete. I don’t know about what would happen in this case, but one may be suprised about what courts decide. A Dutch man once took a Dutch ministry to a European court since that Ministry had reserved places in its nursery to female employees only. The Court ruled that the ministry was allowed to do so on grounds that it wanted to increase the number of female employees. I found that a very disturbing ruling, and it was not even clear that it was contributing to the allegedged gender-equality goal, since it meant that, given the shortage in childcare provisioning at that time, wives of male employees where more likely to be shouldering the entire burden of child care responsibilities…

There is research indicating that paternal childcare competencies are shaped less by ideology than by practice. No big surprise, and one of the things it leads to is the sort of situation Harry mentions – in which shift work means that many working class fathers who hold traditional gender/parenting attitudes actually end up doing far more frontline parenting (as opposed to being supportive dad on the sidelines) than more ideologicaly progressive dads.

More interestingly, there’s research in the UK indicating that active fathering really has to be worked at, because maternity leave and other factors (including part-time work for mothers and long hours for fathers) set up feedback loops in which the mum’s greater contact with the baby leads to greater competency, which then encourages dad to step back during difficult situations, which means he never develops his competency… and so on, in a non-virtuous cycle. This happens even when couples say they very much want to equally share the parenting. Just as mothering becomes a gendered competency, fathering becomes a gendered incompetency.

I do have qualms with gov’t programmes that encourage that dichotomy, but Ingrid’s right – in terms of real world gains/losses, this is a tough one.

“Since the kids of these ethnic minorities tend to be among the worst-off in society and we can safely assume that they are benefiting from joining a playgroup…”

Just because they get some benefit and are in the worst-off position does not lead to any clear argument for accepting the policy. If the benefit to the children is marginal compared to the no play group scenario while the cost to fathers of an additional barrier to their participation is more significant then the preference for ‘no men’ may be unreasonable.

We certainly do not allow just any kind of preference to be weighed into our reasoning about what is justifiable. If a group of men have a preference for no woman being involved in their medical care should we make an all male staffed hospital?

As to the specific case at hand, this is not about the benefits to children, which are marginal, but about the social isolation of some Muslim mothers. Ingrid’s suggestion that the policy might get at the problem of gender segregation for these women or their children can’t be right for the obvious reason. The problem of social isolation for these women is certainly real, but I am also sceptical to the idea that this problem makes the policy reasonable.

Now on to this

“One additional thing to bear in mind is that for groups for those with babies or very young children, the mother may still be breastfeeding, which may make some women feel particularly uncomfortable with strange men present.”

This is just obnoxious. If you want men to taken on an equal share of child rearing and other work in the home then it is wildly unfair to demand that they make themselves scarce when women are breast feeding. Parents with young children spend time in places were there are other parents with young children, i.e. at the doctor’s office, day care, baby swim, and in many many other social settings (basically nobody else can stand them so they are stuck with each other). Given that under current conditions women are off work with infants much more so than men magistra’s (and Ingrid’s) proposed reason for banning men from pre-playgroups would apply to many other situations and would put men into unfair social isolation. ARGGGGG! Phew, now I feel better.

Having men take on work outside of the paid labour market will require some compromise and will require women to take on some costs in addition to the obvious benefits. Think about that for two seconds please.

Is that a fact that this rule is for the benefit of minority cultures, or is this just what your neighbor thinks it’s for? Because, you know, what Magistra says in #1 seems much more plausible.

I am fascinated to find that Ingrid’s liberal-egalitarian side pushes her to defend the preservation of traditional gender roles, in the name of protecting the worst off. I understand the logic, but at the same time it goes against my understanding of the stereotypical liberal approach to this case, namely, to put less weight on the value of the cultural circumstances of these women.

Thought #1: The “worst off” are not necessarily poor, patriarchal immigrant families, but the women within the poor patriarchal families who are systematically denied social opportunities via the various pressures their families put on them. Making life easier for worse-off families by giving recognition and institutional support to the practices that make females in those families *worst* off is not necessarily a liberal-egalitarian approach. It isn’t clear to me that in the long run, it truly aids the worst-off.

Thought #2: Although there have been many liberal arguments about primary goods versus capabilities versus whatever, fundamentally liberals should be committed to solving inequalities by giving people money or whatever is closest to money. Making it easier to be a member of a specific culture, because people in that culture tend to be worse off, isn’t how it’s done. Let me give an example. It involves Nazi, but just to be clear I am not comparing traditional family structure to Nazism *at all*.

Imagine a prosperous, diverse country named Ollandhay, where most people are extremely well-off but about ten percent live in poverty. Of these ten percent, a very large number (almost all) are Nazis, and Nazi parents refuse to participate in any group activity unless all the other parents are straight, white Christians. The Nazis are worse-off, yes; by assumption, in Ollandhay the non-straight, non-white, non-Christian people are quite successful and happy; so by providing pre-playgroups that are only for straight white Christians, Ollandhay can improve life for the worst-off at the expense of the better off, which is what liberal principles tell us to do.

What do your intuitions tell you about this thought experiment? My intuition: the exact way we actualize liberal principles in society should not be contigent on the cultural affiliations of the least-advantaged. We should be giving the least-advantaged the resources they need to be able to make life’s choices (how to raise a family, what kinds of people to consort with, what to believe, what hobbies to have) as freely and confidently as the more prosperous. The fact that most of the disadvantaged have begun to make cultural commitments before we decide how to help them doesn’t signify.

Thought #3: I think it would be better to apply the tools we use to think about creationism in the schools, rather than the tools we use to think about tax policy, health policy, education policy, etc. Arranging an educational institution in what to liberal/progressive/rationalist types seems like the “obvious” way is deeply troublesome for religious fundamentalists: it makes them uncomfortable, it challenges their faith, it publicizes a lack of public respect for the scientific implications of extreme fundamentalist beliefs, and it may cause marginal members and families to deconvert.

This doesn’t seem to be helping much with opportunities to a decent job out of social isolation. I doubt this has anything to do with minorities. I’m sure minorities have their own private clubs with their traditional rules enforced just the way they like it.

Counterfactual- if it could be proven that a large group of white racists existed who would not attend job training programs unless those programs were racially segregated, would this justify the use of government money to fund racially segregated programs?

If not, what is the difference? I can think of only two possibilities. First, we might think that the women in gender segregated cultural groups are victims of their culture, and therefore not to blame for (what are purportedly) their own desires for gender segregation, whereas white racists are not victims and are therefore responsible for their own racist beliefs and the consequences of those beliefs. Second, we might think that racism is morally bad, while gender segregation due to sincere religious commitment is not morally bad.

Would we agree to fund the racially segregated job training program? Or if not, what would our reasoning be?

As a dad of small children (ages 2 and 4) who has spent plenty of time at such kiddy-based social activities, I would not be overly put out if *some* such activities were closed to me because of my sex, since there are several legitimate reasons etc etc. But I would start feeling discriminated against if *most or all* such activities were so restricted.

Trying to put myself into the shoes of the other side (ie, women who want women-only kiddy-based social activities), I’d have to think the bar should be set rather higher: I’d feel discriminated against if *no* such activities were women-only, so I’d like *some* of them to be, but it would be unreasonable for me to expect *most or all* to be.

In short, there can be legitimate reasons to discriminate, but the effects of such self-discrimination should be roughly proportional to those reasons — ie, not too intrusive on the rights of everyone else. And (not mentioned much above) this standard should be much tighter when it’s the state doing the discriminating.

Maybe Holland is densely populated enough that a policy of some groups being women only works – men can conveniently go to other playgroups. But in most countries it would really be unfair – country towns and even sprawling suburbs are likely to have only one such playgroup.

Single fathers do it tough. As well as having all the problems single mothers face, they (and their kids) face real social isolation and distrust precisely because they’re relatively rare. This policy puts an unfair burden on them, as well as sending a truly dreadful signal. I say the gender segregationists can go to hell – their arguments are no better than those of the racial segregationists.

Sk: Don’t hold back, tell us how you really feel!
Or, you know, not.

In a large Canadian city, we have a number of playgroups that include new immigrants from very modest countries as well as gay dads, lesbian moms, caregivers from countries at war, grandmothers and grandfathers who only speak Chinese, and many others whom you wouldn’t expect to find together.

They are all trying to raise kids, and that is a universally difficult task.

This is incredibly bad but representative of how sexist has turned 180 degrees.

Any of the reasons they can mention for this are non starters as such facilities are funded to be child centred – not parent or mother centred. Therefore, it’s important to get the CHILD to the playgroup, regardless of who brings the child.

In a nutshell, playgroups are child centred meaning they are there to benefit children – not to benefit parents or mothers(although there are secondary benefits for parents).

As a matter of interest, do all those of you who oppose women-only playgroups also oppose men-only childcare groups? There is at least one support groups for fathers in our town. I don’t know if they have a formal ban on mothers attending, but I could understand if they did decide that (e.g. if they thought it would make other particpants uncomfortable). Is that also wrong because it discriminates against women? And if you feel that is acceptable, why are all-women parenting groups not?

Is this all male parents group a state financed project, were the state forbids female participation?

Multiculturalism, feminisim, equality: pick one.

“The other is to work with the communities/groups involved and try to get them to change their minds. This is a less ‘principled’ approach, but seems to me to have more potential than demonisation. If you want to use the racism comparison, it’s the difference between condemning white people in a particular area as racist and working with them to try and persuade them that the BNP (or other racist parties) are not the answer to their problems. If having women-only groups means you can get poorly educated immigrant women to meet women with different views and hear new ideas, then it seems worth doing that.”

Like many ‘solutions’ the bolded section makes great sense in a vacuum, but isn’t so exciting when the proposed solution means discriminating against another group. If you can practically have women-only groups and men-included groups I’d agree with you. But if you can only afford/have enough people for one group, it is clear to me that the policy of excluding men isn’t a good one.

As for the practicalities of having mixed and single-sex groups, I live in an English town with a population of about 30,000. I would say there are probably at least 20-30 toddler groups, playgroups and pre-school groups in the town. A couple of single-sex ones therefore wouldn’t cause major problems. Given that most immigrants (at least in the UK) live in urban areas of this size or above, I suspect you could get some kind of equitable provision possible.

What part of the Netherlands do you live?

In Haarlem most of the play groups I know are run by volonteers, in a ‘stichting’ (non-profit organisation). The board usually consists of volonteer parents who define the rules and who employ the care-takers. Care-takers ought to be qualified.

I’ve been in one of those boards for a few years and contact with the commune was minimal and only had to do with their educational policies. We rented from the commune and got some subsidies because we fitted in their policies but all administration and human resources was for the board. As were the rules, times, schedules, buying furniture, paying taxes & insurance, educating the care-takers, etc. The payment we asked from parents was the income, together with the subsidie, and we just had to make sure we had enough paying kids to balance finances.

Also people here seem to confuse play-group with daycare. Though officially kids in the Netherlands are not oblidged to go to school till they are 5, 99% go as from their first birthday. Play-groups are intended to have kids play a few hours (usually three) with other kids. It is not day-care and is not supposed to support working parents. Day-care does that, and is available all working hours.

In the play groups I know from own experience (I live in Haarlem), as well as the day care centre and primary schools, there is no different treatment due to gender. If assistence was needed, or a volonteer, they were as happy with a guy as with a women. In practise that means it is still mostly women, but more and more men take part – thanks to the Dutch preference for the 4-day working week I think.

As of comment 53, there’s been nothing that considers the effect of segregation on children.

I’m left wondering who these play-groups are for. The parents?

As someone said earlier, the parents already have socially segregated places to hang out. So the real issue is hidden: it’s about who controls the development of children. Parents and only parents? If so, abolish publicly-supported play groups. And schools, while you’re at it.

If, however, the state has a mandate for developing citizens, it has an enormous latitude for stipulating acceptable behaviour. One way it does this now is by banning unruly children from school. Are unruly children disproportionately from disadvantaged families? Yes. Should government make adjustments to accommodate those children? Let me rephrase that. Does government make adjustments to accommodate those children? No.

The state has great latitude – and some authority – to define and regulate discrepant behaviour. This would apply to parents as well as children. If the state defines ‘well-behaved’ in a particular way, woe betide anyone (child, adult, racist, working-class-hero) who fails to abide.

What some underclasses in poor-to-middling areas of England are thinking is that the language of coercion is used against some underclasses but not others. The police aren’t using softly-softly tactics in Handsworth, whereas they are in Sparkbrook. This reinforces some longstanding animosities.

To recap, there is an issue of who has a controlling interest in children, and how that control is shared. There is also an issue of consistency, which is what most of the debate here has focussed on.

Helen- imagine that 20 years go by, and things haven’t changed socially for muslim women. Do you change the policy?

Helen- imagine that 20 years go by, and things haven’t changed socially for muslim women. Do you change the policy?

That doesn’t happen in practice, as you know. The next generation may miss out on a few mixed-sex playgroups, but they will be in compulsory education soon enough. (There are single sex schools, sure, but the most disadvantaged won’t have access to them.) The Greek Italian and Vietnamese gen-Ys I ride the train with every day bear scant resemblance to their more traditional grandparents.

Remember Kate, we’re talking about some least-worst solution, not a good solution. My take on the least-worst solution would be to agree for the suggestion to have a few women-only groups for women who seriously think they haven’t a choice and take the mixed groups as the default.

I am not convinced that making gender segregation a more financially viable and socially accepted phenomenon will assist this process rather than retard it.

It’s not. It’s keeping it as a less-preferred minority option. If a woman fears repercussions at home if she goes to a mixed group, that puts her in the same bucket (approximately) as rape or incest victims that might choose a female only support group because it’s simply all they can do.

Here in Australia, with every new class of immigrants, there has been a fresh moral panic of “they’ll never work here!!” followed by a couple of generations, whereupon the children/grandchildren become perfectly comfortable in society, and – unfortunately – often join the chorus against the latest newcomers. Historica amnesia is encouraged here.

“Apparently the justification is that otherwise mothers from certain ethnic minorities, where gender segregation is an important issue, would not attend with their children.”

As several people have pointed out in the comments, gender segregation may be desired/implemented for several reasons. The “apparently” in the original post implies that the justification given has not been confirmed but is complete hearsay. Also, is it really a fact that the mothers from ethnic minorities (i.e. Muslims) would NOT attend or is that merely conjecture? It would be helpful if such things are clarified.

Having said that Helen, I am sure you will gladly give up your right to vote in the event Muslim men become offended by your female presence at election facilities. Correct?

The double speak by so called feminists on this discussion is astounding.

It seems that the point being made over and over here is that gender roles, gender biases and gender discrimination are OK as long as:

1) No woman is adversely affected.
2) Only men are adversely affected.
3) No man is given special privilege.
4) Only women are given special privilege.

I am a lifelong feminist and I can tell you that NONE of these four exceptions are compatible with true feminist doctrine. If you want to call yourself a “womanist” that’s fine but please don’t call yourself a feminist and proceed to endorse or excuse gender biases and gender discrimination.

And before anyone attacks me let me say that I am a gay, single, full-time father of two children. I KNOW what orientation AND gender discrimination feels like. I experience it EVERY day from men AND women and from private AND public institutions.

If you think being a single mom is the most difficult job in the world, just try being a single dad!

I was not trying to argue simply that men should be discriminated against. My argument was that while most playgroups/parenting groups should be mixed, it made sense to have one or two which were women-only and that it *also* made sense to have one or two that were men-only. If there are fathers’ groups that want to exclude women specifically (because that would muck up the group dynamics or deter men from talking freely) that is a form of positive discrimination that would seem reasonable to me.

Zeke@68: Last week I read about two young men who made it a habit to rob gay men. The police wanted to solve the case, and went on the local tv-channel to ask for support. They specifically asked for people to rapport if they were attacked.

Since they realized there might be a threshold in making a statement, they emphasized that they had assigned a special group of gay policemen they could make the statement to.

Am I anti-gay if I think it is a good thing to ‘discriminate’ in this case? If they have special female police officers for rape victims, is that contrary to feminist doctrine?

Maybe I’m being less than enlightened here, but if people don’t like the mores of the Netherlands, why did they move there? I personally find it a bit irritating when families immigrate to a new country to take advantage of the benefits that country has to offer, and then get irritated when things are different. I wouldn’t move to Saudi Arabia and expect them to change their behavior to suit my ways. Why is the converse acceptable?

aaron_m@73; the next sentence in Zeke’s post was “I am a lifelong feminist and I can tell you that NONE of these four exceptions are compatible with true feminist doctrine.”.
My point is that sometimes the benefits of making a difference outweight the disadvantages.

Dutchmarbel

“My point is that sometimes the benefits of making a difference outweight the disadvantages.”

Nonsense!

You advance an idiotically ungenerous reading of Zeke’s post to make it seem like he would be committed to the view that male police officers are discriminated against when only female police officers are used to interview female rape victims.

Furthermore, you insinuate that the examples you give are some how related to the issue that Zeke was addressing, the issue being when one sex is denied equal access to a public or private resource because of their gender. The comparison you make does not hold at all.

It would, potentially, be possible for the state to attack the problem of cultural resistance from the other end, by (1) making attendance at mixed-gender play groups compulsory; (2) setting the penalties for non-attendance high enough to overcome Muslim cultural objections; and (3) enforcing those penalties vigorously and unapologetically. This strategy would encounter its own difficulties; aside from the obvious political objections, it would require a much greater bureaucratic coordination and commitment of state resources than establishing segregated play groups. Also, if “play group refusers” are imprisoned, the short-term damage to their children and society might outweigh the short-term damage that would result from gender segregation. As long as an alternative strategy is available, though, gender-segregated play groups aren’t “necessary;” they’re simply the path of least resistance.

“Is there any more constructive response that anyone can suggest?”

Stop using persuasion on Muslim women, and start using coercion against Muslim men.

magistra:

“…please tell me how they will encourage immigrant women to abandon gender segregation and be willing to go along to such mixed groups?”

They don’t. They won’t. This is unfortunate, but doesn’t rise to the level of requiring discriminatory policy changes.

If a certain population refused to join groups with pro-social and wholly-adventageous results because they don’t mix with, say, certain other races or ethnicities, would you recommend that there be groups in which those races/ethniticies aren’t permitted?

If whites, for example, won’t send kids to public schools with blacks, should there be white-only public schools, if we believe the children would learn -less- racism at white-only public schools than white-only private schools? These white-only public schools would improve social integration, and be benefitial compared to the only realistic alternative, but still … do we adopt them?

Of course, that’s a loaded analogy. But less loaded … what about Christian fundamentalists, who won’t send kids to public after-school programs with secular kids? Should we have Christian-fundamentist-only after-school programs, in order to help (and ‘mainstream’) those kids? Or do we demands those families find their own programs, or none at all? How patronizing is our desire to ‘mainstream’ them, and are we indulging in an offensive behavior by offering these single-ethos-only programs?

I would not allow my daughter to attend a playgroup where fathers are excluded. It’s bad enough that the media portrays fathers as incompetent parents who don’t understand children — there’s no need to reinforce that by excluding fathers who want to parent their own children.

This is akin to when my daughter and I are out and women I know say, “Oh, are you babysitting today?” No, I am damn well not babysitting. This is my daughter, and I am her father, and I do not babysit my own child.

The idea that we should reinforce the prejudice that fathers are not equal parents because someone has that prejudice is ridiculous! Why not exclude blacks from playing because someone is from 1980s South Africa? Why not exclude people of one religion because someone else might take offense?

It’s just reinforcing prejudice, and I wouldn’t participate in that.

As a male single parent of now grown children, I often encountered prejudice the effect of which was to reduce the options available to my children. It made me mad then and it makes me angry now, even for something as remote as European play groups. The answer to how this should be addressed is pretty much the same as that given when a traditional male activity excludes women – get over it guys and make room. It is right in both places.

I don’t see the dilemma. It’s wrong to discriminate based on sex. Minorities who are averse to mixed-sex gatherings must either change their beleifs or live in isolation of mainstream culture. If anything, this policy makes the taboo on mixed-sex gatherings into law. Why not go all the way and forbid women from driving cars or having jobs in order to accommodate gender-sensitive cultural taboos? Good greif, where is your common sense?

I recall an old saying–“your right to punch me in the nose ends where my nose begins.” In this context, a religious group’s right to practice their religion in a public setting ends (or should end) where my right to practice my beliefs ends. In this case, the children of rational and reasonable people may be deprived of opportunity so others can impose their religious practices. People who expect religious toleration have to understand that they must give as well as receive this tolerance. If they can’t do so, they aren’t ready for living in western society. This isn’t limited to Muslims, but applies to fundamentalists of all stripes. Rational thought does not have to bend to accommodate the irrational.

How about an utilitarian/economic analysis: the benefit of the policy is that the children at single-parent-sex playgroups grow up better integrated and are less likely to become criminals as a result (feel free to read “socially maladjusted citizens” if that makes you happier). The cost is that a different group that is already severely discriminated against has their discrimination reinforced. The question is: does the benefit outweigh the cost?

To me, men-as-primary-caregivers is something we want to encourage, and the discrimination they face is substantial. There are, however, very few of them (this is part of the problem), and they are not very visible (another part of the problem).

Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of sexist immigrants, which means that even a minor benefit to society on a per-head basis outweighs quite a lot of cost per head to the men as primary caregivers group.

I expect that feminists who are mostly concerned with women will favour the women-only preschool, while equalitarian feminists will favour integration. But both sorts will hopefully be open to argument. Anyone not counts as a bigot in my book (try looking up what the word means if you find that offensive).

No, I don’t have an answer. I’m someone who intends never to have children and can’t really “put myself in the shoes” of someone who does. Sorry.

Oh one more thing, btw-
My husband was the primary caregiver to our 2, then 3 children the entire 2 years we lived abroad in the Gulf (Qatar), while I worked. We are American, muslim converts. The criticism, suspicion, and negative energy we all had to endure from this was unbelievable. Arabic society has deep-seated cultural norms regarding the roles of men and women, and we were defying most of them!

I am not a scholar of Islam so please forgive me for any inaccuracies I may communicate regarding this information. Please know they are my inaccuracies, not my religion’s! Ok, so Islamically speaking, a woman is free to work, it’s her choice, but if she does all the money she makes is for her (her own “mad-money” or “stash” so to speak), it should not be used to support the family because that is the man’s primary role.

Culturally speaking, Arabic culture puts heavy heavy shame on any man that stays home with the kids and only his wife is working. In their minds he is using her, he’s up to no good, etc. There is nothing “virtuous” that he could possibly be doing, especially if you employ a housemaid (which I did, she was my newborn baby’s Nanny!) if you get my drift! This culture absolutely positively cannot see the issue any other way…

My husband could not go to my son’s school for any reason, even though he was the children’s primary care giver because I was at work. He was under no circumstances allowed to enter the front gate of that school, let alone go inside the school. The principal would call me at work so she wouldn’t have to talk to him on the phone!

You have to understand that these may be women that have never, ever shown their faces to any man that is not in their immediate family….And now they may be living in this new Western country, with their faces exposed. What an enormous change, let alone having to show their breasts while nursing their baby in a play group.

That is how extreme this “ethnic minority’s” culture can be….

So I totally know from first-hand experience what it’s like to have a Mr.Mom in an unfriendly environment.

If the discussion was purely “should men not be included in playgroups”, I would be totally like “of course they should, segregated playgroups are an unfair and ridiculous idea!”…

But I discerned that is not really what is on the table…It seems clear to me that the purpose of this 1x/week segregated offering of a playgroup was an attempt by your country’s gov’t to assimilate the “ethnic minority” muslim women into the mainstream culture… not simply to offer a playgroup to the general Western public, and oh yeah it’s no men allowed.

Let me know if more clarification is needed..
Peace-

Who cares anyway? The one group that we can always discriminate against is men in general and white men in particular. There may be 5 female only fitness centers in town but let one woman want to use the gym that the men go to and now the whole establishment and it’s clientele must accommodate her or the feds will make your life miserable. Why should this be different?