Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ora!ambar
From: erm2@midway.uchicago.edu (elizabeth r morgan)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Sexist Space
Message-ID: <1991Mar10.231331.17976@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 13 Mar 91 11:28:44 GMT
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: University of Chicago
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Approved: ambar@ora.com

On reading the responses to the account of the single-sex calculus
class I was in during High School, I think I must not have made clear
what I found interesting about the situation.  I'm going to try again,
first listing my observations in the class, and then trying to explain
what I thought they meant.

1. Women were reluctant to participate in a co-ed math class; I had
not noticed this beforehand, perceiving lack of participation as
"normal" behavior for women, or, rather, not perceiving it at all.

2. This lack of participation was related to the presence of men in
the class; despite the time-lag necessary to internalize the
realization that there were no men in the class, it disappeared when
the men were removed, and reappeared when they were reintroduced.

Now, although I had been seeing women not participate in math classes
for years, I had always accepted it without thinking as normal
behavior for women.  Until I saw that behavior in a woman-only
environment, I hadn't realized that it might be normal beavior for
women, but it was very strange behavior for math students.  The
single-sex class acted as a valuable diagnostic tool for me, and for
other women in the class.

Also, this behavior was not simply shyness or lack of assertiveness.
These women demonstrated appropriately assertive and aggressive
behavior toward other women in the segregated class, and toward men in
classes not in stereotypically masculine subjects like math and
science.  It was also not an academic dislike of the material; they
performed well both in class tests and on the Calculus AP at the end
of the year.  It was a response to the presence of men in a math
class.

I referred to "habitual, unconscious, nonmalicious sexism" because I
don't believe that the women were kept from speaking by any
intentional actions on the part of the men in the class.  I believe
that children, male and female alike, in our society are trained
through such things as patterns of classroom reinforcement, the
presence or absence of role models, and observation of adult society
to believe that math is a masculine pursuit, and that a woman who
excels, or makes herself visible excelling at it is therefore less
feminine.  Such training, if I am correct and it does exist, is subtle
and predominantly unintentional; I believe it would be impossible to
simply decide to stop this indoctrination.

The virtue I see in single sex education is that women in a single-sex
environment will not feel uncomfortable in "gender-inappropriate"
classes, either through their own fears of appearing masculine, or
through the assumption of male classmates that they will be allowed to
dominate.  Women who have never been discomfited by the presence of
men will be better, not worse, able to cope with men in the real,
co-ed, world, because they will not expect or accept sexism, and
certainly won't submit to it without noticing it. I may be wrong in
believing this, but it makes sense to me.

I'm sorry that I didn't address specific comments; I'm still learning
how to use net-news, and I accidentally erased the responses my first
post got after reading them.  I think I answered everything I could
remember, but if I missed anything interesting plaese e-mail me.
Thanks,

Elizabeth.