There is a push for men-only work spaces because apparently women are scary.

Women, we’ve come too far, achieved too much and pushed men so far they are now finding it hard to get a thing done at work.

To the rescue are two young Aussie tech guys who have found six investors for their company Nomadic Thinkers, which will focus on creating a perfect male work environment devoid of women and complete with a cafe, a gym and eventually a barber and a physio. The Brisbane entrepreneurs told Junkee they thought of the idea as an “innovative way to address male related social issues”.

Men need suffer no more.

Matthew Mercer and Samuel Monaghan are the “brainstrust” behind the idea.

Mamamia Confessions: Sometimes I wish I was a man when…

By creating Australia’s first co-working space exclusive to men they feel they will be solving problems most men didn’t even know they had:

In their male-only environments, men will:

• Get more work done than they would in coffee shops or at home;
• Be happier and less prone to depression;
• Are less likely to be violent to their partners;
• Be able to be more vulnerable because they can’t do that with girls around;
• Drink less due to increased happiness, less depression, less domestic violence and increased vulnerability;
• Will find a new identity to replace their former hunter-gather identity that they no longer have.

Samuel Monaghan, co-founder of Nomadic Thinkers which plans to begin operations in January 2017 in Brisbane, says it was their own work experiences that led them to come up with the idea, as well as the experience of one of their mates who “ended up in a violent situation with his wife” in which he “pushed his wife over”.

“Depression and suicide result from a lack of social support and community. Having a space where they [men] can be men is more of a preventative measure,” Monaghan said. “Healthy, happy men don’t hit their wives.”

It's difficult to know where to begin to refute this. There's just too much to say. Firstly it's offensive to refer to a horrific incident of domestic violence as ending up "in a violent situation", like he holds less responsibility over pushing his wife over. It's also completely flawed reasoning to conclude that domestic violence results from depression.

Domestic violence and suicide are two completely different things. One is a crime, and one is a mental health issue.

And you're not doing men any favours by creating a work space that doesn't reflect reality? It's not going to help them live in the real world where, we're sorry to say, women could be anywhere.

Boo!

If only we were just less opinionated, defensive, capable and female.

If only feminism had never happened.

And who exactly gave us the right to work and vote and express an opinion?

The entire concept seems to assume men feel emasculated by women and need to push back against the scary new modern woman encroaching on his turf. But if there were every any turf that men need not concern themselves with losing to women, it's gotta be tech.

Business Insider confirms male dominance in the tech industry, quoting a 2012 report from Dow Jones VentureSource confirming women are "vastly underrepresented in high-level roles at U.S. venture-backed tech companies", with only 1.3% of venture-backed start ups having a female founder, 6.5% of venture-backed startups having a female CEO and only 20% of venture-backed startups having one or more female C-level executives.

It's not even as though women are dominating the tech industry. Far from it. Three in four start ups in Australia are currently founded by men. This lead to the creation of a female only work space in Perth to which I have the same concern.

You aren't doing anything to create equality by creating a false environment in which either gender is not welcome. Men and women need to learn to co-exist. And it's a bit rich to suggest that women have done so well that men are losing their identity, as if there is a finite amount of identity going around and the more women get the less there is available for men.

Instead of finding the concept of a male only workspace silly or funny, I find it chilling. It's a spectacular example of why women have had to fight so hard and so long for our rights. The fact these two Aussie blokes in their mid-twenties are idealising a male only work environment is disturbing.

As are all of their attempts to defend it.

“I’m 25 and I’ve grown up in this culture where we don’t have any rites of passage," Monaghan continued. "In other cultures you go out and hunt in a forest for three days. We just hit 15 and start drinking. There’s a real loss of identity for men. We used to go to war together. Girls do it better naturally, they have tea parties and stuff.”

"We live in a stoic culture,” Monaghan said. “As guys in Australia we’re told to suck it up. When women are around we have trouble being vulnerable. We’re helping men who are professional. It’s a healthy environment for men."

The message implicit here is women don't make for a healthy environment for men.

And I would argue his claim that guys in Australia are told to "suck it up",  if anything the message is finally getting out there that men need do no such thing. Just as women can be strong, men can be vulnerable.

However Monaghan and his co-founder clearly haven't received the message.

The one beacon of light that has come from this entire escapade is that Aussie men who are perfectly happy coexisting with women have been quick to point out the idiocy of the idea. Bondi Hipsters, a social media movement aimed at having fun with the male "hipster movement" have spoken out against Nomadic Travellers after they used photos from the Bondi Hipsters social media account without permission. Dom and Adrian, the men behind the Bondi Hipsters account, spoke out against the idea, stating:

We've been working on a new male-only cologne called "Masxulinity Toxiqué" and your new male-only work space sounds like the ideal place for us to set up shop and work from... We need more spaces for men to be men, because society is crushing our masculinity from every angle - what with our getting paid significantly more for doing the same thing as women, being able to take up whatever opportunities we like in whatever fields we choose, and the fact that we literally run the whole world and all that, but whatevs.

They ended their post by threatening to sue.

And in them, there is hope.

If you find this article triggering due to the issue of domestic violence contact Lifeline on 131114.