No Men Beyond This Point
Mixed media installation and performance - 2024
What is a woman and why it matters? Without a clear definition of “woman” there is no feminism, no sex-based rights. Definitions are linguistic boundaries. Defining a word is placing a semantic limit around its meaning. It delimits what the word means from what it does not. Apples aren’t oranges. Men are not women. “Woman” has a specific meaning which by definition excludes those who are NOT women. People who insist that men can be women often accuse us of gatekeeping the word “woman”. Indeed, this is what we are doing.
Beyond the obvious, “a woman is an adult human female” the questions of definition, women’s boundaries, and women’s rights to self-definition are all interwoven. These are political questions. Our rights to exclude men from the definition of “woman” precede our rights to exclude said men from our toilets, fitting rooms, sports competitions, lesbian dating apps,
women-only gatherings, women’s shortlist, rape crises centres, women refuges... Language is important partly because our laws are based on it. Partly because language describes reality. If the language is made unclear, reality (our reality as women) will deteriorate. Blurred language means blurred boundaries. Who benefits from women having blurred boundaries?
The word “Woman” is a woman-only space.
By placing a boundary around us and restricting entry to women alone, we place a symbolic boundary around us AND around the definition of woman. When we safeguard our space, we also safeguard our meaning.
The topic of women’s spaces is not specific to the trans-debate. It is a radical and Herstorical ongoing feminist discussion as to whether or not women are allowed to be, just to be, without men. Feminist utopia novels such as “Herland” By Charlotte Perkins Gilman date from 1915. Daly, Frye, Hawthorne, Rich, and Raymond ... all discuss its significance. The term “separatist” is
a term that usually brings a lot of strong feelings, especially negative ones, alongside adjectives such as “unrealistic” and “unpractical” and of course “man-hating”.
But as Dworkin once wrote, without women’s spaces, there is no feminist consciousness; separatism is a key principle of feminism. The very act of thinking without men is an act of separation. This project is a way to reflect on the political significance of women establishing our own boundaries and saying no to men, in practice rather than in theory.
This piece was presented as part of several direct action / art performance in the UK including at FiLiA Glasgow 2023 and Hampstead Heath Women’s Pond in July 2024.
