Women-only space

Toilets

In almost all countries, public toilets are segregated by sex.

Menstruation

Some menstrual taboos require a woman to stay at home, or avoid certain places such as temples, but other cultures assign a particular place to segregate herself from her community, for example the chhaupadi (menstrual huts) of Nepal today, or The Red Tent, a fictionalised version of Old Testament-era customs. The anthropologist Wynne Maggi describes the communal bashali (large menstrual house) of women in the Kalasha Valley (northwestern Pakistan) as their 'most holy place', respected by men and serving as women's all-female organizing centre for establishing and maintaining gender solidarity and power.^[10]

The seclusion of girls at puberty (i.e. menarche) is another such custom.

Motherhood and lactation

The lactation room is a modern, mostly American phenomenon, designed for using electric breast pumps and storing the expressed milk. In many countries, spaces for women to nurse their babies can be known as breastfeeding rooms or nursing areas. The period of postpartum confinement was traditionally a time for new mothers to learn to care for their infant from older and more experienced women.

Land and shelter

A family outside their hut in Umoja village

• Womyn's land, stemming from separatist feminism of the 1970s
• Anti-war activism such as Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in the UK and Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice in the US
• Umoja, Kenya, a village of women and children fleeing domestic violence
• Women's shelter, a place of temporary accommodation for women fleeing domestic violence, e.g. Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter
• Some homeless shelters are just for women, e.g. Rosie's Place
• Most rape crisis centers

Places to wash

A restored lavoir in Belgium

Public nudity is in many cultures restricted to single-sex groups. So public baths may separate men and women by time or by space.

• Turkish bath, hammam, see especially its function as a gendered social space
• Mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath

Specific examples include:

• Frauenbad Stadthausquai, a public bath built in Switzerland in the late 19th century for women, and which still operates as such
• Hampstead Heath Ladies' Pond, a reservoir in a London park

In many cultures, laundry was seen as "women's work", so the village wash-house (lavoir) acted as a space for women to gather and talk together as they washed clothes.

Education

• Girls' schools, i.e. single-sex education, see also Category:Girls' schools
• Women's colleges and universities
• Finishing school
• Sororities

When formal education was banned by the Taliban, underground schools sprung up, such as the Golden Needle Sewing School for writers to secretly discuss their work.

Religious places

• Women's mosques in China, and more generally the women's space in most mosques, see Gender separation in mosques
• Gender separation in Judaism, as for example the Mechitza used to demarcate women's space in a synagogue
• Convent, the home of Christian nuns
• Double monastery, with separate space for monks (men) and nuns (women)
• Beguinage, all-women accommodation in the Low Countries

Health care

Historically, some health care services for women (particularly around childbirth) were staffed by women. As women gained increased access to education in the late nineteenth century, hospitals hired female physicians for female patients; nurses by this point were almost exclusively female.

• Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital is named after one of Britain's first female physicians
• London School of Medicine for Women, the first medical school to train women as doctors

During second-wave feminism, health activists set up feminist health centers, particularly in the United States. Some places are for women from one background, such as the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center. Some holistic care centres are for mothers and their children, such as Nkosi's Haven in South Africa.

Businesses and services

• Women-only bank
  • See also the kitty party, an informal savings club
• Women's parking space
• Women-only passenger car
• Women's clubs that have or had their own premises (parallel to a gentlemen's club), and more recently women-only restaurants and networking events^[11]
  • see List of women's club buildings as part of the US Woman's club movement
• Of this international list of women's organizations, some have their own premises; others such as the Women's Institute offer their members a women-only space for the duration of the meeting
• Community centres focusing on women, such as The Women's Building in San Francisco and Pankhurst Centre in Manchester
• Sex shops catering to women, such as Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium
• Feminist bookstores may have women-only and mixed-sex times
• Gyms^[12]
• Spas^[13] (see also section on public bathing, above)
• Hotels, either by floor^[14][15], or as the entire business (e.g. the "urban retreat" and spa the Luthan Hotel in Riyadh^[16], capsule hotels in Japan^[17])

Lesbian services

• Cruises and vacation resorts such as those operated by Olivia Travel
• Lesbian bars such as the now closed Candy Bar, Soho
• Lesbian Herstory Archives

Military, policing, and prisons

• Some countries operate or operated separate services for women, such as the UK's Women's Royal Air Force, see Category:All-female military units and formations
• Women's police station
• The incarceration of women is in most countries in single-sex prisons, or female-only wings within larger men's prisons, see Category:Women's prisons

Cultural events

• Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (closed after 40th anniversary in 2015)
• Nyansapo Festival, an Afro-feminist festival in Paris in 2017
• Mountain Moving Coffeehouse, a weekly music night in Chicago (1974-2005)
• Race for Life, a British charity event that raises money for cancer
• Marches to protest and celebrate, such as Take Back the Night and the Dyke March
• Yamurikuma, a gender role reversal festival of some Xingu tribes
• The Fainting Club, a supper club described as an old boys' club for girls

There are many other festivals, conferences, etc. that focus on women's achievements and women's issues, but allow anyone to attend, from the Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848 to today's Women of the World Festival.

Religious festivals

• Thesmophoria in Ancient Greece
• Jivitputrika
• Karva Chauth, celebrated by Hindu women in Northern India

Celebrations

Many celebrations, especially around rites of passage, are marked by a girl or woman and her female relatives and friends. For example, many cultures have a party before the wedding for the bride, in Western culture known as a hen or bachelorette party.

Sports

Many amateur and most professional sports are segregated by sex.