[jackowayed]

I think that a lot of people hold very strongly the ethic "one should never treat someone differently based on their gender" extremely strongly even at the expense of other valuable ethics like "we should strive for a society where women are equal to men".

As a result, people frequently come to ask "how could a group that excludes men possibly be ok, especially as a solution to 'sexism'?" The answer is that ethics are not as simple as "X is always bad". Ethics conflict, and then you have to weigh which one it's better to relax in that situation.

Even if you don't agree in this case, I hope most people can acknowledge that a reasonable person who believes that gender should not dictate what one can and cannot do can weigh the pros and cons and determine that the harm of excluding men from certain spaces is outweighed by the good of giving women a safe space where they feel more comfortable speaking and connecting, which may have the power to help erode the gender inequality in our industry and society.

It's a case of competing ethics, both of which most people support, that reasonable people can come down on either side of.