Canada: Students' campaign for women-only gym hour gains support, opposition

Article here. Excerpt:

'A student-led campaign at Carleton University to reserve one hour of gymnasium time for women only is gaining supporters, and some detractors.

The campaign was launched in early November by the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) Womyn’s Centre, in partnership with the campus Muslim Students’ Association, the Graduate Students’ Association and a campus residence association.

Program co-ordinator Sydney Schneider said a survey circulated on campus generated 1,200 responses, most of them “overwhelmingly positive,” but the campaign is meeting with its share of detractors as well.

A counter-petition on Change.org has garnered 130 signatures, and some students on campus have expressed their dissent in other ways, with several reports of campaign posters being vandalized and torn down. Schneider called that response “disheartening.”

“The concept of segregating men and women in any way is inherently sexist,” states the petition, posted two weeks ago by a user named Candice Smith, who claims the student activists behind the campaign are using “twisted statistics in order to manipulate the student body.”'