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Are Single-Sex Schools Bad For Boys?
Are Single Sex Classrooms Good For Girls?
New York, 10:19 AM
Fri Dec 4
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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Whatever we do, we'll encounter awful people anyway...
12/01/09
I've noticed that guys with older sisters tend to understand women the best, followed (far behind) by men with younger sisters. Guys without older sisters who went to all boy schools tend to be the most clueless. I think friendship can related to that, but I don't think female friendships say that much about guys.
All male environments foster the idea that women (other than your mother) are space aliens in a way all female environments don't foster the same ideas about men. I think the culture of masculinity is the root problem but all boys schools don't help.
12/01/09
It feels sort of like the onus for teaching boys that women are people is being passed off from the shoulders of the media/teachers/culture and onto the shoulders of... young girls?
Who are trying to figure out their own personhood already and maybe shouldn't have that responsibility.
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For example, in a game he has, there are 4 gunners, one of them is female. He chose to play as her, which surprised me. Then he commented on how "hot" she was and made dog-panting noises. I rolled my eyes and said something like, "Yeah, because that's what matters. Is she a good shooter?", to which he said yeah, she's the best in the game and I tried to focus his attention on that.
But he's 9, and these things are already in his head. His brother is rampantly sexist, from what I hear. I've never met the kid, but he sounds like a total asshole.
12/01/09
Setting aside the many issues that this study has, I'd say that I could see the argument that boys may be in greater need of actually being around girls in terms of this kind of socialization, not because one gender is easier to "figure out" than the other, but because of a particular cultural context that is rather male dominated. Even if girls attend single-sex schools, they're still going to be participating in a media and literary culture that is dominated by the male gaze. They're still watching tv shows and movies mostly about men, still reading books like The Odyssey and Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye, and still generally exposed to a (white) male cultural view. The same doesn't go for boys, regardless of their class make up. I could at least entertain the notion that this would be further aggravated by only being around boys in their education as well.
12/01/09
I know that some urban magnet schools are experimenting with single sex education, but with rare execption, the "choice" of educating children in a single-sex environment is something that's out of the reach of many American families.
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Arguments about pay parity and paid parental leave are problems only women in developed countries get to worry about, but I don't think anyone wrings their hands about the fact that women in Afghanistan would be thrilled to contend with nothing worse than non-violent sexual harrassment in the workplace.
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Lots of state funded single sex schools in the UK and Ireland. The study is from the UK.
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In Ireland, some of the most expensive schools were actually the co-ed ones. I'd say the majority of state schools when I grew up were single sex, run at least nominally by priests and nuns.
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My school was much more interested in making sure we had enough portable buildings to teach classes in.
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I've noticed that in this forum, as in real life, whenever one group of people highlights an issue that matters to them, the response is kinda "yeah? well, let's talk about the bad things that happen to me."
Whenever there's a post about a men's issue, there will invariably be a small number of posters who feel like a current injustice to men cannot possibly make up for centurities of injustice for women, and treat it as unimportant. Or a post about the recession will often inspire a little hate towards the not-so-badly-offs.
The point I was trying (badly) to make was that there will always be a group that has something worse than than someone else. And we are ALL much more fortunate than most of the people in the world. That's not a reason for everyone not to want better. It's really sad that public schools in a lot of places are terrible, but that's not a reason for parents who can send their kids to private school not to want them to have the best experince possible. And being concerned about one's own child's school experience, be it private or public, does not preclude concern about other schools.
I just felt, possibly uneccesarily, that regarding an issue as a problem of the "rich" was a way to delegitimize it.
Also, it was something of a knee-jerk personal response. I've had the benefit of many years of private schooling, not because of family wealth, but because of parents who worked incredibly hard and made personal sacrifices, as well as the good fortune to earn scholarships. I've heard the private school = spoiled rich kid comment one too many times and it gets a little grating. Consequently, I tend to be guilty of hearing it in places where it was not intended.
12/01/09
Mmm hmm. And what I think I was saying is that less privileged people are in fact compelled to care about more privileged peoples' "issues", as you put it.
Because it's a survival skill.
12/01/09
I guess I naively think people should care about each other because we're people and we have empathy, not because someone's wealth, social status or power (or lack of it) compells it.
12/02/09
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-my dad went to all-boys schools until college. He is still married to my mother.
-Both my brothers go to or went to all-boys schools until college. They are kinda dickish, especially towards women.
-I went to all-girls schools until college. I am awesome.
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But again, as was said above, this is anecdotal evidence, and the bullying that went on there towards the girls naturally severely distorted my view. I've met many boys at Cambridge who went to single-sex schools - even Etonians, believe it or not! - who are lovely, clever, and often pretty feminist.
12/01/09
The egging on thing is really interesting actually. Most of my guy friends are public school educated and I've never seen a bigger bunch of idiots who love to encourage each other in being idiots. I love them dearly, but seriously, chanting 'Do it do it do it' every time someone comes up with an unbearably stupid plan can get a bit old (if hilarious, for onlookers).
As an aside, I too have met at least one lovely Etonian. However I feel this guy was cancelled by the other Etonian I knew, who may actually have been the Single Biggest Knob-end I have ever encountered in my 24 years on this earth.
12/01/09
I heard a horrible rumour that some of the older Fellows at Magdalene (or it may have been a different college, but they were the last to admit girls, right?) wear black armbands on the anniversary of the college's admitting women? That freaked me out a tad!
12/01/09
I'm biased and jaded though; it's rough for grads, only about a third of us are female, and my department skews heavily male.
Enjoy being a fresher!!! Lots of end-of-term fun is hopefully coming up for you :) Us grads never get to leave, it gets so sad when all the undergrads go home and we're still hanging around like losers!
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