'Women-Only' Mentality Can Lead to Segregation Rather Than Equality

Article here. Excerpt:

'Gender inequality exists, so it’s understandable that women are joining forces to empower one another. But when does it go from being supportive to morphing into a "women-only" coterie that isolates female workers from their male counterparts? We want equality, ladies, not a sorority.

Women have made huge strides over the decades. “In the United States and a number of other countries, women now actually surpass men in educational achievement,” according to a post on Harvard's blog, and recent studies show that women are also giving men a run for their money in the business world. Kudos to females who didn’t take “no” for an answer and who fought for an education -- because it worked! How about all those mothers who are defying the odds and successfully returning to the workforce post-baby, juggling a family and a career?

Thankfully, women aren’t just sitting around complaining about injustices; they’re turning it into fuel for their fire to achieve their goals. However, females seem to be setting themselves back in their efforts by promoting segregation instead of equality between genders. Just look at all of the sites, organizations, and blogs in existence today that are for women and women only.
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Women-only offerings can be beneficial as stepping-stones for women to ease back into the working world and possibly establish a support system, but as far as a long-term solution, we hesitate to say it’s a viable (or wise) option for women seeking gender equality once and for all.

In order to successfully close the gender gap, women must ditch the “girls rule, boys drool” mentality and start joining forces with their female and male counterparts. This is not to say that women should unsubscribe to all of their women-only clubs, but they should be careful not to convince each other that depriving themselves and their careers of male influence, on any degree, is healthy for anyone. Women will always turn to each other for support, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that one gender can survive without the other -- and that goes for all aspects of life.'