As a youngster, I applied to Oxford University. The college I applied to wasn't interested, but another college that I hadn't applied to invited me for interview and then said they'd like to offer me a place. I paused, looked around me, and apologetically said no. I said if they'd been a mixed college, I'd have said yes, but as an all-female college, it was too much like school.
I went to a girls school with a partner boys school. Mixed classes and activities felt so much safer and when in the sixth form I was allowed to sit in the boys' prefects' room (I was a prefect at the girls school) I felt more relaxed. I also liked going to the joint prayer group.
It wasn't the boys on mixed school buses grabbing my satchel and throwing it off the bus. It wasn't the boys climbing over the top of the lavatory cubicles to get at me to beat me up. It wasn't teachers at the boys school being nasty and blaming me when I got bullied. It wasn't the boys stealing my school exercise books, rubbing out the teachers' pencil marks and substituting lower grades in ink, e.g. teacher pencils in A, girls rub out and ink in E.
And it was my male child psychiatrist who gave me the foundations of feminism. No, really. He was the one that gave me the sense that I could do things others thought I couldn't. I was ahead of my era in what I did in martial arts. Some of the things I did with the army, a lot of people still don't think women do. Years later, it was a female psychiatric nurse who did the worst to undermine me, although male mental health professionals also damaged me.
But that doesn't mean I don't see a need for single-sex contexts. When leading local community action years ago, I organised events for lots of different women to come and say what they wanted, not what men said women wanted, and not what other women (including me) who had different things we wanted might otherwise assume all women wanted. So I understand and accept that lots of women, for a variety of reasons, feel more comfortable in a women's environment, whether that's a safety issue, or a matter of what they're used to or other reasons. That's no different from women wanting separate seating in their synagogue, chapel, mosque etc.
I think that for a lot of people, a woman often feeling safer in a mixed environment doesn't compute. I've just been hurt too many times by other girls, other women. That doesn't make me not accept that there are women that only usually feel safe in a women-only environment and consider it important to find ways to accommodate their needs.
Personally, therefore, my instinct is wherever possible to look for solutions that are about practicality and choice. E.g. a local community centre. Two women's loos accessed by shared main door. Go through door, zigzag tiny corridor. Go through another door. Go past basins, mirrors etc. Two tiny cubicles.
If they changed the layout to cut out the zigzag entrance and shared handwash etc., they could have two cubicles, over twice the floor space each, each with its own wash basin its own lockable door leading onto the main corridor. I know a supermarket that's done that. It's brilliant. By cutting out those shared handwash spaces and extra doors & corridors, it's got a couple of generously sized rooms. No need to argue if they're male or female. One's got a changing table as well. And somewhere off the floor you can put your bags so they don't get soggy. (Guess what, men, whilst we women slag you off for missing and wetting the floor, there's plenty of women's loos with puddles round them.) Extra bonus - they're now large enough for two people if someone wants/needs an escort, carer or parent. You don't have to queue for the disabled loo any more, wetting yourself whilst non-disabled people squeeze into their tiny cubicles.
That doesn't mean nothing single-sex shared, just exploring how we can, wherever possible, make things win-win.
But I think I'm in the minority with a win-win approach on this. That doesn't suit politicians or tabloids.
