I don’t doubt that you’ve all encountered what I think of as ‘Cultured Spaces.’ These are spaces that are set aside exclusively for the use of one particular group to the exclusion of all others. You often find them at universities – rooms for women, for queer and transgendered people, for members of particular religions. Often they are not rooms that serve any particular function beyond privacy (although rooms for religious groups often blur this distinction).
I’ve often found myself in two minds about this. I hate that these things are exclusionary, but then, I’m also aware that, as a wise friend of mine once put it: “maybe someone needs a space I’m not in. ” What to do, what to do…