Childhood Gender Segregation

[MikeyDB]

What comes first M. Levesque...

A social paradigm that disempowers women to please men... reduce competition and pomulgate a we-they dynamic that permits discrimination...

 

[hermanntrude]

Is it simplistic because you subscribe to the necessity for women to have to compete in a "man's-world" where differences in genitalia and upper-body design invites a different kind of perception about who a person is and what that person is "best-suited" to aspire to in life?

Were the Calvanists right, and of course the Roman Catholics...women were created for breeding and they should be rightly conditioned to that attitude as early as possible???

Women are "weaker" so the big strong brave 'man' can use his maleness as currency?

women, in general ARE weaker than men, in general. But I don't follow the school of the calvanists. But yes there are times when men and women, AND boys and girls, want to be, or even need to be apart. This should be a matter of choice rather than enforcement.

 

[MikeyDB]

Who created the notion that women needed to "prove" they were competent and worthy of voting?

Who created the glass-ceiling that permits women doing the same work as a man..to be paid less?

Who objectifies women as sexual objects and reaps the harvest of a cosmetics industry devoted to telling women how they should look?

Injustice and inequity on the basis of upper body strength is something practical in the jungle or fifty-thousand years ago...

 

[karrie]

Who created the notion that women needed to "prove" they were competent and worthy of voting?

Who created the glass-ceiling that permits women doing the same work as a man..to be paid less?

Who objectifies women as sexual objects and reaps the harvest of a cosmetics industry devoted to telling women how they should look?

Injustice and inequity on the basis of upper body strength is something practical in the jungle or fifty-thousand years ago...

So, I'll pose the same question to you that I posed to Tonington. Should girl guides, gyms like Curves, women's spas, and female sports teams be abolished to create greater gender equality?

 

[karrie]

But yes there are times when men and women, AND boys and girls, want to be, or even need to be apart. This should be a matter of choice rather than enforcement.

Perhaps this is why I didn't find this one class/playgroup, where I have to actively enroll and pay for my son to participate, to be objectionable. It is a matter of choice, unlike a segregated school system. I don't find groups like Sparks/GirlGuides/Brownies, or gyms like Curves to be objectionable either, but I do find it odd that women complain so loudly if men have equivalent segregated groups for themselves.

 

[hermanntrude]

sexism against men isnt sexism, in some people's minds.

 

[karrie]

sexism against men isnt sexism, in some people's minds.

I count myself a humanist.... judging someone on gender based generalizations is wrong, no matter which gender. But, at the same time, I'm rational enough to know that there are differences that come into play between the two genders, and are simply impossible to ignore at times.

 

[MikeyDB]

So, I'll pose the same question to you that I posed to Tonington. Should girl guides, gyms like Curves, women's spas, and female sports teams be abolished to create greater gender equality?

Life is about choice...not completely and not absolutely certainly but my concern is that we've created a system of prejudice and discrimination based on precepts and arguments that have outlived their usefulness. If the program of "girl-guides" is satisfactory in some particular aspect or with regard to some overarching gender-specificity and that's what you subscribe to on a moral or ethical basis, that is not satisfied by membership in "scouts" or "cubs" or a non-gender specific kind the choice is yours....

If the aspect of a gender specific club or organization proceeds to address gender-role identification, that too is your choice...

I don't like "boxes" and "labels" and it seems to me that if there is good reason for the structure of some social paradigm that perpetuates stereotypical thinking, that system should be held to the greatest scrutiny and assessment.

 

[talloola]

So, you'd abolish girls' hockey teams, girl guides, etc.? I know I posed th question to you before... because it seems sometimes to be that only boys are the ones subject to having to be completely gender inclusive.

I don't believe any girls hockey teams, or any other girls groups should be abolished, and when there
are not enough girls for hockey teams, or other groups etc, they should be allowed to play together,
all of my daughters played ice hockey, rose to a high level, some of the girls who came from other
cities and joined, had been playing with boys, cause there were no girls teams, it was fine with
everyone, and no harm to anyone. When they get older, it is a different situation.

 

[talloola]

okay. im not as old as most of you, but i have an opinion on this. i see a problem from your comment, one allot of us women make...we are trying to tell the men what they need to be now. maybe we should let the men talk for themselves. no way, no matter how much we read about it, will we understand what it is like being a guy and living up to what other guys expect a man to be.only a guy can really know what guys need to be, in my opinion.

I totally agree with you, I'm very tired of women deciding how men should act, and what they
should do to make "us women" happy. Men should feel comfortable within their own skins, and
not have to worry that they are not being "sensitive" enough, etc etc. get the drift?

Maybe women should spend more time growing up and having a stronger grip on their emotions,
so that when men act like men, we can enjoy it, and not "buckle" and "wimper".
We are different, lets stay that way, and enjoy each other "with" our differences.

And, I don't mean that "punching" out some poor woman, to make a point, is acting like a man, so,
lets not go there.

 

[talloola]

ive noticed that too. I remember at my primary school, there was a girls' playground, where boys were NOT allowed, but nothing for the boys. This is reactionist I think, adults reacting to their own feelings about male and female.

My primary school had a playground for each gender, and us girls would not have gone near the boys
playground, and vice versa