Are women’s networking groups in fact the new gentlemen’s club? Are we narrowing gender gaps or creating further divide? 
These are the questions running through my head as I sit at my emails and receive my 5th invitation to a special women’s event this week. Is it my circle or my imagination or are things really in the flip.
In the ‘old days’ there were gentlemen’s clubs, men’s lounges, smoking rooms…. sayings like ‘man and wife’.
Sometimes I see the world like a pendulum. We swing one way, something happens, we correct ourself, we swing back, sometimes (often) over correcting.
I know having recently been approached by many men about offering a similar program to 10thousandgirl, I am in the process of creating an ageless genderless ‘10thousandgirl’ (obviously with a different name) and in addition, not as a replacement to the women’s only programs that currently exist. I am acutely aware that we continue to experience mass gender divides in the household and workplace within Australian society and that the inequality and subjugation of women around the world is still extreme, unfair and profound.
We rarely hear of the sex trafficking of men.
But at the same time I am aware of over correcting and not entering a world of reverse discrimination. What are your thoughts?
In looking to the future, should we be encouraging more women’s groups, events and support mechanisms or should we be creating more neutral genderless opportunities going forward? Will we over correct in our women focused efforts or are our femme centric efforts indeed fair and due?
Written by a pondering Zoe Lamont on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
