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From: panix!mara@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (Mara Chibnik)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: sexist space...
Message-ID: <1991Mar8.105328.17019@panix.uucp>
Date: 8 Mar 91 14:08:17 GMT
References: <9103062330.aa03738@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
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Approved: ambar@ora.com

In article <9103062330.aa03738@orion.oac.uci.edu>
schoi@teri.bio.uci.edu (Sam "Lord Byron" Choi) considers the issue
of single sex schools.  

I'm going to leave aside the general dispute, which has been debated
here and elsewhere a number of times, and head right for a paragraph
that made me jump in my chair:

>The problem probably lies somewhere in the socialization of young girls (not
>so much the boys I would imagine since there is no real evidence of the
>(males actively telling the females to shutup).  What are we telling our
>daughters that later on makes them so timid in the presence of males?

In other words--and this is really, really important to think
about--the way boys are socialized is just fine, it's the girls who
are broken and need to be fixed.

We socialize boys and girls (and whoever else you can think of) to
believe that there are two modes of being--masculine and feminine--and
that when you belong to a gender class you need to conform to the
appropriate standards of that gender class, and woe betide the
individual who does not.

Part of what this means is that boys are socialized to compete
effectively.  It's part of being masculine.  Girls are also taught
that the successful male competes effectively.  So both boys and girls
are apt to believe that there's some serious disgrace for a boy whose
efforts can be surpassed by a girl, especially in a "masculine"
environment like math, athletics, driving, construction...

What's more, the teachers conducting the classes also believe this
stuff and are apt to steer things (sometimes subtly, sometimes not so
subtly) so that the dichotomy is maintained and even emphasized.
Though the boys may be restrained enough in class to refrain from
actual interruptions, their disapproval can be shown within limits
that the teacher (and other students, etc.) permit (titters, scowls,
whispered exchanges are all common).  And outside of class, well, the
kid who doesn't conform to the gender-defined norms of behavior is apt
to be ostracized.

Still, what especially bothered me in the paragraph I quoted is the
idea that the boys somehow have it right.  And that we, as a society,
ought to believe that the masculine thing, as we've defined it, is the
standard to which all people, male, female and whatever else, should
aspire.

Not everyone believes that.

-- 
cmcl2!panix!mara    mara@dorsai.com    marob!panix!mara    

                     Mara Chibnik                      
     Life is too important to be taken seriously.