Quoted from Frax:

Like seriously, can I give you a high five or something if you ever come to TPF?
The even more janky thing about "Women's Tournaments" is that they *AREN'T* barred from participation in the regular full tournament if they choose to participate in the Women's one. So you simultaneously get cries of "EMAGERD MEN ARE AGGRESSIVE, RUDE, AND SEXIST" (oddly, these are the exact things that most women seem to go for when choosing who to date WTF) and the only solution to this is self-exclusion to a different tournament where men aren't allowed to play...
But then they play in Main, Classics, etc as well (Wait a minute...with MEN?), and lay claim to sexism when things have to fit into a schedule to accommodate all this. If men were the problem in the first place, then why is overlap with other tournaments an issue? Also, as someone that's attended major tournaments before.....things ALWAYS overlap. There's a decided opportunity cost of playing in a Classics finals for me, because many times the finals run during the end of open qualification for the main tournament. I share the opinion that under good circumstances, finals from different groups shouldn't overlap...both for the sake of streaming and because we *all* would like to play in as many tournaments as possible (right?), but there's always going to be a "female penalty" if they're insisting to have these segregated tournaments. They're always going to be at a disadvantage in qualifying for the other concurrently running tournaments because they've expended time and money on qualifying for the Women-only one. Where's the line? At what point are TD's just going to become punching bags? At what point is everything just some sexist thing holding them down? This isn't professional sports. Women are allowed to compete with men here. Thanks to IFPA rules, you can't bar them from participating in the tournaments with men in them if they're playing in the Women's division....... there's a weird dual personality thing going on here.
I guess I've been extremely fortunate. The women I've played with are very strong characters. They were intimidating to play against because they're *that good*. There was no reason for me to judge them as anything other than competitors, and IMO the best solution is to welcome everyone to every tournament, not to create an environment that exists as a wedge between groups, and to remove the people that act inappropriately. I've yet to have ever seen this be an issue in any tournament I've ever been to, which doesn't change the fact that it happens, but it's difficult to understand how these things happen with no personal experience.