Why women create their own spaces

This Saturday morning, the Spring Sun floods Belleville, a district trendy in eastern Paris. However, Solene, 19, prefers the dark setting of his gym, in the basement of a bodybuilding club. Conscientiously, the young woman continues the pulls by means of a state -of -the -art pullee machine. Around her, other Parisians lift dumbbells and run on a treadmill, against the background of catchy music.

The room has the distinction of being reserved for women, and Solene goes there twice a week, to flee neighbors in exasperating machine. “When I go to a mixed gym, some guys are unpleasant and give me the feeling that I have nothing to do here,” says the student. They reread me insistently or criticize my way of using a device. I am entitled to reflections like: “You must not start with this charge” and “it’s weird for a girl to build her arms, normally we muscle the legs …” In fact, I just want to be quiet! In the Solene sports complex, a reception agent is facing the staircase that leads to the room to ensure that no man intertwined.

This bodybuilding space is far from being the only one to close its door to male gent. Since the end of the 2010s, a multitude of cultural activities have been placked from the mention “reserved for women” and aroused the enthusiasm of young generations. Like the evenings “La Bringer”, organized each month in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) or Lyon (Rhône).

Created at the initiative of Clarisse Luiz, 26 -year -old communications manager, they party in a 100 % female setting. At the exit of the bar, the participants can call on the women’s transport platforms on the wheel or Uber by Women, to return to a taxi with a driver, not a driver. Provided you are patient, because waiting times for this specific service can be very long.

On the transport side, the SNCF offers compartments reserved for women in the wagons of its night lines. The municipality of Metz, in Moselle, went so far as to create parking spaces reserved for drivers in the city’s underground car parks. Located a few meters from the entrances and exits, these locations aim to reassure the inhabitants, after a rape was committed in August 2024 in the garage of a Messin shopping center.

Varied motivations

Speech circles, transport methods, travel groups … These non -mixed initiatives are multiplying, carried by various motivations. Some meet a commercial goal – the sector is potentially lucrative. Others meet the need to protect women in the face of fear of sexual assault. Of course, the non-mixing does not date from 2025, and its history is a bit paradoxical. At school, where she remained in force until the 1960s, she corresponded to a sexist division of male and female roles. At the time, we thought that boys and girls were to be prepared for distinct social functions in society. In feminist circles, non-mixed appears in 1793 with the society of revolutionary citizens, then became a broad claim in the 1970s. The movements of struggle for the rights of women, blacks or LGBT people were then in full effervescence in the United States; In France, activists of the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF) were criticized for criticism, accused of being “anti -men”.

Geneviève Fraisse is still a young philosophy teacher when she joined the MLF in 1973. The movement organizes non -mixed meetings to approach political news and private life. “We were talking about what women could undergo at home, – domestic violence and the unequal distribution of domestic tasks,” says this figure of French feminism. For us, it was obvious that these discussions should be held between women. It was not a question of excluding men but of expressing themselves in a setting where speech could be freer. In the society of the 1970s, this form of activism was perceived as a break with established standards.

A quest for safety

Fifty years later, the gaze of opinion on non-mixedness has evolved. It is now better understood, in the era of the #MeToo feminist movement, which makes it possible to measure the extent of the violence of which women are victims. “When women do speech circles or activities between them, they feel more easily confident because they know that no man will interrupt them, judge or attack them,” says Alessandra Machado. Aged 52, this Brazilian expatriate in France founded the Pass’elles association in Lille in 2010. She offers sports and cultural activities to which men are not invited, such as Latin dance, meditation, or even learning bicycle sessions for precarious people.

“Many participants are women, from immigration to working -class neighborhoods,” continues Alessandra Machado. On a daily basis, they often undergo racism or misogyny. It is therefore important that they have a space away from any form of oppression. The founder to pass’ them recognizes it: in ten years, she has encountered strong criticism and has been regularly taxed by “anti -men”.

For a chosen diversity

In fact, unmixity can arouse a form of misunderstanding, especially in the generations of women who preceded the #MeToo movement. It can be perceived as a form of inter-self, which encourages to live without men, even to make them systematic “enemies”. Is there not a risk of weakening the feminist fight by excluding certain actors, when the question should concern everyone? Isn’t there not a risk of disseminating an even more sexist vision of society? And then, why would it be up to women to regroup with each other, and not men to modify their behavior so that they feel fully safe?

“With us, no one is closed. We are constantly reflecting on the mix of our events, ”answer Lisbeth and Nino, members of the Marseille collective unleashed. This group, born in 2020, organizes feminist outings by bicycle, to reclaim a public space which it deems still dominated by men. “If most of our meetings are in chosen mix, some are open to everyone, especially a family audience, therefore mixed. Because for the vast majority of activists, unmixity is not intended to exclude men, but to serve as a tool. It is part of a transitional process, with the hope that one day, a more egalitarian society will be born. And that men and women will live together, in perfect harmony.