The Productive Pessimist's focus is on "living the problems to bring through the answer." That focus statement acknowledges three things:
1. There's always more than one problem
2. There's usually a single answer which covers all the problems
3. The best answers come from those who've lived the problems personally.
This focus means we often find ourselves at odds with the more prominent non-profits of the UK, who do very well because businesses like to believe they "can't possibly afford" to pay for services - until their friends, network contacts, and family members are providing them as a business - but like to show their generosity and social engagement by publicly donating to well-regarded, prominent charities in some way, and the British public like to console themselves that the "lower taxes" they insist on every election are an entirely reasonable demand, because the voluntary sector will just mop up all the various socioeconomic messes that central governments should be paying for, meanwhile providing a way for "these benefit scroungers to earn the money they get off tax payers like me, who are struggling ourselves!" without ever having to consider why British businesses are quite so unable to provide sufficient paid employment to meet the population of the country they've chosen to do business in, and how the State is expected to remain solvent if the view of people "earning" the right to be able to afford to live with modest decency is to do unpaid work in exchange for a small, fixed income paid by the State.
Being reliant on successful funding applications means that small-but-prominent charities make the decision to pretend there is only ever one problem, and one solution - because "it will cost us X amount of money to implement Y solution, which is the sole answer to Z problem, which we identified by asking a very specific demographic of the community, whom we knew would think very like us, what they felt the problem facing them was."
Usually, seeing "single problem, single answer" is something I'm able to pass by, because I understand the forces that are compelling that dishonest narrowing of focus.
Recently, however, the charity Make Space for Girls finally overstepped the bounds not just of honest dealing, but, in the current climate, with the way certain types of women and girls are being directly targeted and legally discriminated against, and the way that girls express their girlhood is being forced into the most narrow possible option, of basic human decency with a post claiming to "justify the importance of our mission".
The post showed a hand-written note, in writing which was very strongly feminine-coded, which read "Spaces where the male species isn't playing football", which was presented by Make Space for Girls as "the overriding response we get when we ask girls what they want from outside spaces."
There are a lot of problems with this statement.
1. There is no "male species" - we are all part of the human species. I was also raised that it is inappropriate to refer to women and girls as "females", and, as I have progressed through adulthood, have recognised the validity of that raising for myself - 'female' is being used as a weapon of exclusion, in a way which harms and isolates people who not just "identify as" women, but are treated as women - in the worst possible way that term can be understood. People who live as women, in a coherent, entirely explicable presentation and lifestyle.
It is no more appropriate to refer to boys and men as "males."
2. Not every child who enjoys playing football is male, or wants to be.
3. Not every child who is, or wants to be, male enjoys playing football.
4. "Making space for" one group by pushing out another has never gone well. It has been tried, in many different ways, some more violent than others, all across the world, throughout human history. It never ends positively - not even for the group that space was made for.
5. Football is actually excellent for bringing people together - the World Cup has just finished. Even though it's been the most subdued World Cup I've been aware of, and I'm generally not especially interested in other people doing sport, I've seen how people used pubs as the community social spaces they're supposed to be, have seen how employers recognised the essential humanity, and human needs and preoccupations, of their employees, have seen how people who otherwise would have had nothing to say to one another have started conversations with people it wouldn't previously have occurred to them to talk to. If there's one thing the UK needs right now, it's groups of people who wouldn't normally speak to each other coming together, and learning that they're not actually as different as they've told themselves they are.
This final point brings me to the main issue with the whole of Make Space for Girls' focus; it's not making space for girls in a way which enables them to feel confident, safe, influential, relevant, and powerful in their communities, nationally, and, potentially, globally.
Instead, it is reaffirming to girls the belief social media and male violence has given them - that they can only exist and be safe if men are absent.
That ensures girls and women never learn to actually engage with men in a way which sees a different communication style, a different priority of focus, as neutral, and in a way which can both compromise to meet that difference, and quietly force that difference to compromise to meet them.
Insisting that boys and men need to be absent in order for women and girls to "have space" ensures the only boys and men girls and women will encounter in public life are the worst kinds of men - the aggressive, entitled, selfish, "rules are for other people, boundaries are snowflake bs!" men. Because the better men will have respected the insistence that "girls and women are uncomfortable. They deserve to feel safe in these spaces, so you need to leave. Your goalposts and skateboard ramps need to come down, immediately. Girls and women need spaces to sit and talk, and you must not be anywhere in their vicinity, because your presence is uncomfortable for them!" It increases the frustrations of boys, particularly, which harden into feelings hostility towards women and girls, which, to those boys and men, feel justified - girls and women are the reason you're not allowed to play outside anymore. Girls and women literally don't even see you as human. Everyone is doing everything for girls and women, and you're just being told that your "privilege" - regardless of your race, your class, regardless of how much debt you or your family are in, regardless of whether you're cis or trans, regardless of whether or not you have an objective disability - means you can "just get" anything you want - you hold out your hand, and society "just provides, because you're male"- however consistently society persists in not actually working that way at all.
It also reinforces to girls and women that they must rely on other people to make things happen for them. That they can't just independently turn up and claim space; someone has to take that space from others, and give it to them. That reinforces the idea that women and girls aren't capable of leadership, of taking initiative, or of holding an internal locus of control, of being active participants in their own lives.
The problems aren't "males prevent girls from enjoying outdoor spaces", and the answer isn't "force boys away from outdoor spaces, so they can be given to girls."
The problems are:
. There is a persistant assumption that "girls like sitting and chatting, and quiet, genteel play, while boys are loud and active, and those styles of play are fundamentally incompatible."
. There is an underlying belief that "loud, active play" is somehow a "rehersal for male violence", and therefore obviously and inherently wrong.
. Society, guided by the media and the government, is increasingly narrowing what forms of expression and enjoyment are "appropriate" for women and girls, and, through this process, are forcing women and girls back into "quiet, soft, gentle, not having large numbers of peers around them" boxes, which make it easier to manipulate and control those women and girls.
. Nobody in the UK has enough access to outdoor space in which they are able to feel comfortable whilst behaving lawfully - this includes adults, and boys.
. The belief that outdoor space is a scarce, limited resource, which must be jealously guarded, and aggressively acquired for those who "deserve it most" - with "deserving" coming exclusively through being seen as being lesser, as suffering more, and being more at risk.
The answer is to recognise that there are many different and equally valid ways to be a girl, a woman, a boy, or a man, as well as many different and equally valid ways to express the experience of not quite being either, whether physically or mentally, and to create free-to-access, genuinely open public spaces which welcome all the ways human beings are capable of being human, expose different human beings to one another, and, through that exposure, bring all human beings closer together, and, as an inevitable consequence, actively claim and protect open space for human play and self-expression, and therefore protect nature for biodiversity, by ensuring open space which is clearly and regularly inhabited by a wide variety of people, is protected from the aggressive concreting over of every splash of green which dares to present itself in the UK.
In a practical sense, the answer is open spaces separated for active and non-active play.
In the USA, which has a longer history of formal dog parks, these parks are often split into separate, securely differentiated, areas for small breeds and puppies, and larger breeds. This isn't because larger breeds are always aggressive to smaller breeds, smaller breeds can't stand up for themselves, and larger breeds shouldn't be at a dog park; it is because larger breeds, and adult versions of larger breeds, can very easily, and unintentionally, injure smaller breeds, and puppies of their own breeds. Even though many dog owners have both small and large breed dogs together - I myself have a Staffie/Collie cross, and a Chihuahua/Yorkshire Terrier cross; and the Chorkie is very much the more active and dominant of the two! - separating by size in public play spaces is the most reliably way of avoiding unintentional injury.
Remaining with dogs for a moment, it is relevant to observe that Boxer dogs are frequently avoided by all other dogs, of any size, because their style of play is very different to that of most other breeds.
Returning to human beings, and particularly to children and teenagers, separating open spaces for protected, defended, ensured active and non-active play, rather than for "girls" and "boys" serves the same purpose - a boy sitting quietly watching bugs will not be crashed into by a girl racing after a ball, and a group of girls engaged in conversation will not have to be anxious about balls being booted about in close proximity. Boys who want to practice actually talking to girls can find space to do so within the non-active area of a space, where quieter conversations are normalised (though, importantly, not prioritised), while girls looking for a lively ball game, and not finding enough other girls to get one going, can join boys in the active play space.
Trans people don't have to out themselves by "explaining" their gender - they can simply go, as themselves, to the area of a space which is designed for the style of social engagement they are seeking.
Non-binary people don't have to agonise or fight over where they belong.
People can express the full range of their identity - just because they were in the inactive play area on Monday, there's no reason they can't head to the active play area on Wednesday, because they feel more lively, or vice versa.
Creating protected times for different age groups extends this further - very young children play differently to older children, teenagers play differently to both groups, and adults are very much discouraged from playing at all, even though their wellbeing, mental health, and activity levels would all improve - with attendant cost savings to the State - from being able to play.
An example time-protection might look like:
Monday-Friday 7am-10am: Under 5s, with adults in supportive attendance
Monday-Friday 10.30am-12.30pm: Adults
Monday-Friday 1pm-3.30pm: Under 5s, with adults in supportive attendance
Monday-Friday 4pm-6pm: Under 16s (adults in supportive attendance for younger under 16s)
Monday-Friday 6.30pm-8.30pm: 16-19s
Monday-Friday 9pm-11pm: Adults
Saturday 7am-10am: Under 5s, with adults in supportive attendance
Saturday 10.30am-1.30pm: 12s and under, with adults in supportive attendance
Saturday 2pm-4pm: Adults
Saturday 4.30pm-7.30pm: 13-16yrs, adults in supportive attendance for younger teens if required
Saturday 8pm-10pm: 16-19yrs
Sunday 7.30am-10.30am: Under 5s, with adults in supportive attendance
Sunday 11am-1pm: Under 12s, with adults in supportive attendance
Sunday 1.30pm-3.30pm: 13-16yrs, adults in supportive attendance for younger teens if required
Sunday 4pm-7pm: 16-19yrs
Sunday 7.30pm-10.30pm: Adults
Having attendants who are empowered and supported to regulate and enforce these separations of both age groups and activity levels, as well as youth and family workers, for all non-adult age groups, creates both psychological safety and jobs.
Enabling adults to be present in supportive roles, but with children encouraged to play independently, means parents and other guardians are able to create the "villages" they need to support them in supporting the children in their care, which can help those adults identify job opportunities, social support, and wider opportunities in their local area.
Charities whose focus is on providing practical assistence to social gaps, such as food banks, hygiene banks, financial literacy organisations, and disability organisations, could maintain a regular, visible, and engaged presence at these play sites, at the times which are most relevant for their key demographics, making it easier, and less intimidating, for those in need to make first contact with those who can support them.
All outside spaces should have indoor spaces, which facilitate a range of indoor play/socialisation options - just talking, reading, art and crafts, card games, board games, and screen-based games - whose provision matches the timing separations of the outside spaces, so that socialisation doesn't become weather-dependent.
These spaces should be directly on public transport routes, within walking distance of council/social housing estates, and in proximity to free parking areas. They should be well-lit, with secure, clean toilet facilities, and cafe facilities which offer a diverse range of non-alcoholic drinks throughout the full opening period, including into the "Adults Only" time periods. (Adults having social spaces which don't centre alcohol is as important as children having spaces to play.)
Most importantly, they should recognise, and affirm, that personality is not gender. Girls can be loud, boistrous, active, and disorganised.
Boys can be quiet, observant, and gentle.
You are not a boy because you prefer active sports.
You are not a girl because you prefer reading, art, and soft conversations.
You are a boy because you identify with all of boyhood - including the downsides, such as being seen as a "nuisance", believed to be a "threat", unless you present the most feminine version of yourself, being assumed to "not be very good" at conversation, to "not have good social skills."
You are a girl because you identify with all of girlhood - including the downsides, such as being assumed to not enjoy active play, being assumed to be interested in "dolls, dresses, and pretty things", and being judged as "lacking something" if your social skills aren't flawless.
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