The implicit presumption here is that if you were a woman, your life experiences would otherwise be identical and those experiences would result in you feeling that way. I highly doubt that to be true.

I suppose you could say that growing up as a female with the attendant experience (harassment, unwanted touching/comments, assumptions about your role, etc) wouldn't change your opinion, but without having actually lived those experiences I wouldn't put much stock in that comment.

Now there are women who do feel that way and I respect those opinions. But as those groups do exist (and btw, a group geared toward women is not the same as "female-only") there are clearly lots of women who don't feel the same. The conversations between those two groups of women are worth listening to.

Maybe harassment is an issue, not that I've experienced it in my country, but creating seperate groups and focusing on gender even more is just making the entire issue worse. It won't stop any harassment in public spaces either.

I don't go because I need or want any special accommodation for gender, nor do most other women I know.

We prefer woman-only events because attending mixed events is made uncomfortable and annoying by a small minority of unpoliced men. I mean, what are we going to do about that, make a scene because some poor guys are unusually awkward and persistent (as pop culture instructs them to be)? Easier to just skip them and find our community elsewhere

I don't think the world needs more segregation between genders and I find any attempt to do so ironic as it is the exact opposite of any gender equality from my view.

I'm sorry that people is harassing you or that you've had bad experiences but I think most people have had bad social experiences even if the details is different for the genders.

The irony is that being around other like individuals brings people together, and people naturally like that. The issue isn't that you're joining up with other similar people, but with keeping dissimilar people out.