Women in Sheds

Opening up a Men’s Shed to female members is a decision made by each individual Shed committee and can be made for a variety of reasons – pressure from funders who do not understand the meaning of equality, to generate income from renting out the Shed premises to other community groups, people who believe Sheds are just hobby/workshop spaces and do not realise it is a protected and single gendered health initiative helping men live better quality lives etc.

There are many organisations, such as The Women’s Institute, offering a space for women where they can be themselves surrounded by other supportive women. So why not for men? 

The SMSA’s sole focus is that this is a much needed male health and wellbeing Movement and actively promotes this model offering “a welcoming, friendly and supportive place for men—from all walks of life, with time on their hands and age 18 or over—to come together for friendship, camaraderie and to learn from each other”.  That said, the SMSA as the national body which is quite different to individual Men’s Sheds is certainly not waving a ‘No Women Allowed’ flag or against women—quite the contrary as many women have been involved in the success and growth of this unique Movement since day one and that is widely recognised and celebrated as they often can see men needing this level of support. The SMSA welcomes all men and women over the age of 18 and living in Scotland to join the Association for free as an individual member of the SMSA and be a supporter of the Scottish Men’s Sheds Movement and men’s wellbeing. 

The Association is not a regulator of Sheds and it is up to individual Sheds how they run their activities to meet the needs of all of their members to improve their health and wellbeing. It is a topic that should be discussed as an entire Shed membership and support requested from the national Association if required.

The number of ‘Community Sheds’ has increased over the last few years—at the time of writing, the SMSA reports 43 mixed genders Sheds in Scotland. Some Community Sheds wish to share the Shed facilities with female Shed members and/or assist them to build their own projects with their supervision in place as an asset to their community. It needs to be recognised that when genders mix there are different outcomes which can lead to the exclusion of the very people it is intended to be for.

Garnock Valley Men’s Shed (GVMS), has a sign up in their front entrance from its Trustees entitled ‘Why Not Women?’ which was adapted from a version at Three Towns Men’s Shed to answer this question in their communities. As stated in bold in the first line, “We are not anti-women… our Shed is designed to allow men to be together and talk about things that are important to men.” GVMS’s Trustees’ top priority is the health and wellbeing of men and socially isolated men and state that anything that stands in the way of that objective is discouraged.

Whatever your personal thoughts on this matter, the decision to have women in Men’s Sheds is made by the individual Shed Committees themselves to reflect the health and wellbeing needs of its members.

Each Shed is unique, with diverse memberships and individual differences, but we are all here for one simple reason—to improve the health and wellbeing of men across Scotland—so let’s not forget why this movement exists like the SWI is created for women and keep doing what it says on the tin.