It has come to my attention that there are a few men who are a little bit miffed that they can't come along to the women's sister activist days over the next couple of weeks. I'm pleased that they want to get involved in the women's campaign, but I'd like to explain why it is that the days are women only.

It is also important that I note that this year is the first time that the women's campaign has run these activist days, and I had already intended to get the feedback of the women attendees about the possibility of opening these events to men in the future. There are certainly women within the women's campaign who believe that we should open some events to men. But, the decision about including men must come from the women within the campaign, rather than from external pressure.

The women's campaign has been built on the principle of self organisation.

That is because women only spaces recognise that women must define their own experience, and must generate their own power. The women's campaign fights against women's oppression, as defined by the oppressed. Men aren't oppressed because they are men, and therefore they can't fully understand and appreciate women's experience of sexism. That doesn't mean that men can't fight against sexism, of course they can, but it does mean that at events like sister activist, where the campaign will be discussing campaign priorities, and sharing experiences of sexism, that men shouldn't expect a right to participate.

I have copied below the text of a blog I wrote on the topic of women only spaces a few months ago:

We live in a patriarchy whose institutions are not geared up to the empowerment of women, that privileges the male voice over the female and that tends to set women in competition against one another. Although women have made inroads into this formerly masculine space, gender and representative equality has not happened yet.

Women need a space in which we can articulate our aims for liberation away from the men who, if not direct perpetrators of sexism, symbolise the patriarchal systems against which we struggle. Furthermore, no matter how pro-feminist the man, it is impossible for him to understand our experience and therefore it is not right for him to try to speak for women.

My main experience of woman-only space comes from attending the last women's college in Oxford, St Hilda's. While I was there, debate raged furiously about whether women still needed a college for themselves.

Hilda's traditionally attracted strong, vocal women, who weren't afraid to speak their minds. A lot of these women were uncomfortable with the idea that they needed a safe space to be 'protected' from the nasty outside world. (Of course, anyone who thinks that collegiate Oxford bears any relation to the real world is having a laugh.) But, for the most part being at an all-woman college made no difference to people's ability to enjoy the full student experience - sport, arts, politics, sex and study.

What always stopped me from agreeing with those women was the amount of stereotyped attacks Hilda's would attract in the student press and on gossip websites - and how fascinated everyone seemed to be about our sex lives. We were nuns, lesbians, nymphomaniacs, hairy feminists, sexpots and so on and so on. One columnist in the student paper even speculated on whether our menstrual cycles were in sync. Meanwhile, in other colleges, women never managed to make more than a quarter of college presidents and consistently achieved lower exam results than men. The amount of fear, and the sense of threat, generated by a women's college's very existence proved to me that there was still a place in Oxford for women to define their own university experience.

Of course, I run the risk of being slightly out of touch with current thinking on gender - does woman-only space reinforce an outdated gender binary? I personally see woman-only space as a place where women who identify as women are welcome although I'm aware that the idea of identifying as a woman is very debatable.

Creating woman-only space within our organisations and institutions can serve a very practical feminist purpose. For those of us who are outspoken and accustomed to activism it is hard to imagine how it feels to be only just coming to a feminist consciousness - moving beyond our own individual stories and seeing our experiences in the context of discriminating and oppressive gender systems. Woman-only space allows us to define our feminist agenda, seek the support of our sisters, discover that our experiences are not uncommon, engage in a process of finding our voices.

But it also helps us to listen to another's voice and acknowledge each other's difference, learn to disagree and yet remain allied and to have our disputes and debates away from the eyes of those who seek to see dissent as fracture and exclusivity.

Making ourselves known as women speaking out on issues that predominantly affect women, such as sexual violence, demonstrates that we do not need a man to speak for us, or lend sanction to our words. Especially when we campaign for our right to walk the streets unmolested and without fear, that also means 'without a man to protect us'.

There are many things that men can do to support feminism. When walking behind a woman on the street on a dark night, cross over. Help to raise male consciousness of the problem of sexual violence. Take women seriously when they describe how it feels to be in fear - even when it seems unnecessary or paranoid. Organise a Reclaim the Night march for men, highlighting the problem of violence in the streets in the form of knife crime and pub brawls - issues that disproportionately affect men. Speak out about the pernicious associations between masculinity and violence. These can be easy or hard things to do - and they are not things that women can do for men.  At the same time, men can't end the oppression of women - women have to do that for themselves.

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/oliviabailey/276662.aspx