In the first episode of this trilogy we zoomed out at some overall benefits and problems of gender-separate spaces, and separatism generally. In this second episode we go deep into the details — the specific, often-overlooked drawbacks that can come with them, and that we need to solve.

I walk through eight particular problems that tend to arise when we do our psychological work, support, self-development, or political conversation in spaces that deliberately exclude one gender. These include:

• The quiet message that only people of our own gender are safe
• The slide into “all of them against all of us” thinking
• The one-sided lens that distorts how we see the world
• Missing each other’s stories (and then wondering why the other side doesn’t understand us)
• Reinforcing the very gender categories we say w ...