Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!aero-c!nadel
From: schoi@teri.bio.uci.edu (Sam "Lord Byron" Choi)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: sexist space...
Message-ID: <9103091235.aa25111@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Date: 9 Mar 91 20:35:38 GMT
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Organization: University of California, Irvine
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panix!mara@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (Mara Chibnik) writes:

>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

>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.

I suppose that is an implication that I didn't really consider too carefully,
however, given the context how would you interpret it?

Given the premises:

1) We want children to speak up in class.
2) Boys willingly speak up in class.
3) Girls only speak up in class when boys are not present.
4) Boys do nothing to prevent girls from speaking up in class.

I don't see how else to intepret this situation other than by saying that
there's something wrong with the way girls behave.  What is bothering
you in all likelihood is that you read this as a general statement about
all male and female behaviors.  Although I didn't state it explicitly, the
assumption was that the context of this statement is confined to this
particular case.

In other words, I am completely confortable with the statement that
the way that we teach our children to behave is not at all uniform and
that at least in one way we must be giving our daughters the wrong
message.  This says nothing about the way we teach them to behave
in different circumstances, which I will admit right now, are often better
than the ways that we teach boys to behave.

>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.

As I argued, you're taking my statement about a particular
circumstance and interpreting it as applying to all circumstances
which is not at all what I intended to imply.

Now there is one big issue that we are completely forgetting by
continuing along this line of discussion.  Namely, the soundness of
premise #4.  (Boys do nothing to prevent girls from speaking up in class).
>From my perspective this seem reasonable.  But then again, I'mnot in
the best position to evaluate this since I only have access to my own
intentions.  The fact is that I could be giving implicit signals which others
are picking up on that I don't really realize consciously.

Let's try to pursue this discussion without being so defensive.  Neither
men nor women, or any individual man or individual woman has had the
perfect socialization.  What we have to do is look at what we are probably
doing wrong and try to fix that.  In some cases it will mean modifying
men's behaviors and beliefs.  At other times it will mean modifying
those of women.  In some cases, both I imagine.

Sam Choi
schoi@teri.bio.uci.edu
(don't be a bozo, my organization doesn't even know my opinions let alone
endorse them!)