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From: rawdon@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Single Sex Colleges
Message-ID: <2293@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 90 01:25:14 GMT
References: <2412@randvax.UUCP>
Sender: ambar@ora.ora.com
Reply-To: rawdon@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon)
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
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Approved: ambar@ora.com

In article <2412@randvax.UUCP> twinsun!usc.edu!karen%rand-unix.UUCP (Karen E. Isaacson) writes:
[Regarding single-sex colleges:]

>For me, the issues raised are both logical and pragmatism.  Logic
>dictates that _any_ form of discrimination is wrong.  So either
>there should be no single sex colleges at all, or we should have
>no problems with men only colleges.  Pragmatism says that women
>only colleges have good results (as several posters have testified),
>and closing them down for "logical" reasons just seems silly.

I agree, but hold that thought and see below...

[Stuff deleted]

>The other thing that has been troubling me about the discussion
>is how quickly we all dismiss the potential benefits to men of
>men only colleges.  There's a tendency to assume we are talking
>about schools like Harvard and Yale that were traditionally for
>men.  And yes, I'd be very disturbed about a "top" school (however
>we define it) being single sex.

Um, I think this fundamentally contradicts your "all or none" statement
above.  I find this to be discrimination on the basis of class ("classism").
If any college has the right the be single-sex, then ALL should.  If one
college is denied the right to be single sex, then all should be.

Personally, I choose the former option, since I feel that preventing a
private college from being able to make this choice is an invasion of
privacy.  (Public colleges should be unilaterally co-ed, since they are
funded, on the bottom line, by people of both sexes.)

>                                 But I don't think either Harvard
>or Yale would revert, even if they had the opportunity.  Times _have_
>changed.  So suppose we aren't talking about Ivy League colleges.
>Suppose we are talking about small regional liberal arts schools
>with good but hardly earthshaking reputations.

I have a question I wish to pose at this point:  Say we have this college
you describe.  Now, say, in fifty years (or some suitable period of time)
it BECOMES a college with an earthshaking reputation like Harvard, Yale,
Brown, etc.  How would you feel about it if it were:

-  Male only?

-  Female only?

>                                                What would be the
>benefits to the students of a school like this if the students were
>either entirely or mostly male?  Would there be parallel effects:
>women at women's colleges learn to be more assertive, would the men
>at a men's college learn to be more sensitive or be in better touch
>with their emotions or...?  (I can't even pose this question sensibly --
>I really don't understand what it is like to be a man in today's
>society...)

Personally, I think I'd be rather bored (frustrated?) at a male-only
college... I also think that attending such a college would not have
helped me overcome certain problems I had relating to women (a basic
adolescent nervousness about relating to the other sex which it took me
an unusually long time to overcome) which WAS helped by attending a co-ed
college.

-- 
Michael Rawdon           | Stardom! Born in a trunk;
Tulane University        | Got my home, got my car, got stability
New Orleans, Louisiana   | Stardom! But I'm hollywood's son:
rawdon@rex.cs.tulane.edu | All alone, don't admire anonymity
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These opinions my own, and are not intended to represent any sort of
objective truth, nor the opinions of any other individual or group.
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