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From: mitel!Software!hans@uunet.uu.net (Hans Johnsen)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: sexist space...
Message-ID: <6930@tools>
Date: 28 Mar 91 03:25:38 GMT
References: <9103091235.aa25111@orion.oac.uci.edu>
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In article <9103091235.aa25111@orion.oac.uci.edu> schoi@teri.bio.uci.edu (Sam "Lord Byron" Choi) writes:

>panix!mara@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (Mara Chibnik) writes:

>>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 won't argue with the rest of your posting, because I believe you are
more or less right.  I will comment on your premise number 4. It is
incorrect.

I was involved (in a supervisory capacity) in several discussions
among high school students this summer, and I can tell you that the
men *were* subtly preventing the womyn from speaking.  A man would
inevitably interrupt before someone was finished speaking or start
speaking just as the last person was finishing.  It was a moderated
discussion, so the more blatant cases were stopped by the moderator,
but the men adjusted by taking the more subtle approach of starting
immediately after someone finished and managed to thoroughly dominate
the conversation.  And I'll tell you that there were womyn willing to
speak, as there were female hands raised throughout the room. The
moderator, however was not an 'iron-fist' type (and slightly sexist as
well), so the men who were butting in were allowed mostly free rein.

And remember that, even if the students do nothing, the teacher will
have subconcious biases as well.  S/he may be more likely to call on a
male student than a female. If womyn live through twelve years of
schooling where the men are being called on more often, can we blame
them for feeling that their opinions are not wanted or appreciated?

I would also like to address the point (made by someone else) that
this experiment was a failure because the girls failed to speak up
when re-integrated.  How can we expect a 6 month (or was it only 2?)
exposure to an alternative setting to seriously reverse 11 1/2 years
of a sexist setting?  I can tell you that it has taken me 7 years of
part-time (I still had sexist friends) exposure to feminism to
progress as far as I have.  I am encouraged by the simple fact that
the womyn in the class *did* speak up for the first two weeks in the
re-integrated class (although I attribute that mostly to their
familiarity with the teacher, and the men's unfamiliarity).

Hans