Putting a positive spin on it.

[amanuensis1]

I have decided that, if the film of GoF is uncanonically portraying Durmstrang and Beauxbatons as old-fashioned in their lack of co-educational status, this means that the homoerotica in both schools is rampant--and that Hogwarts is by comparison a hotbed of progressiveness and so there's even less homophobia there than we slashers pretend, in our giddy fandom brains.

So meh.

Comments

[cellia.livejournal.com]

How sad is it that my thoughts consisted mostly of, "oh wow FABULOUS hats!!"?

(is that Krum? um, *wow*)

[ook.livejournal.com]

Draco would have been the belle of the ball at Durmstrang!

Argh...now I'm envisioning the gangs of "sisters" at Durmstrang. It would be like "Oz" and "Shawshank," only a lot colder. ;)

[ook.livejournal.com]

I <3 the Beauxbatons girls' school uniforms. The odd hats, the little capes, the silk material that clings to their curvy bodies. :D

[nightbluesprite.livejournal.com]

Agreed. There were SOME boys, or at least, some people from Beauxbatons that Harry thought were boys...

[nightbluesprite.livejournal.com]

Your school sounds awful.

Am I, as a girl who went to a co-ed series of schools, odd for thinking mainly of the interactions I would have missed by going to an all-girls school? I can certainly understand what you're saying about teenage boys, but frankly, not all of them are like that, and I enjoyed spending time with those who weren't.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Of course not. There are always those who aren't like the generalisations I'm making, and I probably missed out on some experiences not continuing my high school education with co-ed just as I missed out on a mass of experiences not starting my high school education with single-sex (I've had experience in both). I don't regret either experiences and can't imagine my life currently without them.

It's not odd, and quite understandable, but I'm talking more about generalised gender and educational reasons to keep the two apart, rather than minority personal experiences. At least in Australia, there is a mass of research that says exactly the same things I do - that boys are privileged constantly in co-education systems (at least, before tertiary education) and that because society is not about to have a gender revolution and change these problems anytime soon, it's better to have the genders seperate for a secondary education experience that's deemed "better" in terms of quantative education and qualitive socialising for both genders.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

And it's not as awful as it sounds. Similar sorts of things happened at the co-ed school after I left (I still communicated with some friends there) but girls could still do thinks like manual-ed, even if they copped a lot of sexist flak from the boys for doing it. A gay boy was expelled after he got into a fight with a straight boy who baited him with homophobic insults (straight boy was allowed to stay, though). Girls still couldn't wear slacks, though I don't know if they tried the bra regulations (which never worked at the single-sex school I went to anyway. I still wore purple bras ;) ). There were as many/more sexist things happening at the co-ed school as there were at the single sex one, and in both it was perpetrated by the students and the staff. I just think those sorts of sexist examples that occur at most single-sex school are far less damaging than the kinds encountered at co-ed schools by most students, but that doesn't change the fact they are damaging (it can get pretty horrible at single-sex boys schools in my area).

[nightbluesprite.livejournal.com]

Looking back, I can see how my schools could have been so much worse. I never paid specific attention to how sexist my school was when I was in elementary or middle school, but I never felt as though girls were held back in any way whatsoever then, and it'd be hard for me to find fault with them now. What you've said makes me wonder about which of our educations was more of the norm in terms of descrimination.

[catrinella.livejournal.com]

Argh...now I'm envisioning the gangs of "sisters" at Durmstrang. It would be like "Oz" and "Shawshank," only a lot colder.

*whimper* I'm not caffeinated enough for that image! (OTOH, I would so read HP/Oz/Durmstrang crossover fic.) And Beauxbatons would be like the Castle Anthrax: "We are but eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between sixteen and nineteen- and- a- half, cut off in this castle with no one to protect us. Oooh. It is a lonely life: bathing, dressing, undressing, making exciting underwear. We are just not used to handsome knights."

[marksykins.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. I'm rather happy that the most oppressive thing that happened in my all-girls (Catholic, mind!) high school was watching a nun put a condom on a banana, then tell us that we should never, ever do this. It was like sex ed by passive aggression. It was mortifying then, but my hindsight tells me that since the nuns weren't allowed to teach us about birth control without lambasting it, that was the only way they could teach us to learn things properly.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

I'm rather happy that the most oppressive thing that happened in my all-girls (Catholic, mind!) high school was watching a nun put a condom on a banana, then tell us that we should never, ever do this.

That is so hilariously brilliant XD. Mine was a Catholic all-girls as well. Except I got in trouble when I put up my hand in sex ed class and asked why the diagram of the clitoris was wrong XD.

[sor-bet.livejournal.com]

men can't be French and elegant?

See, it's thinking like that that got us the Merovingian. Who, granted, was not all bad, at least from a visual standpoint. ;-)

[chrysantza.livejournal.com]

Yes, there was a girl briefly mentioned in GoF but I can't find the exact page now.

[chrysantza.livejournal.com]

Chapter 16 of GoF: "The boy with food all down his front nudged the girl next to him and pointed openly at Harry's forehead."

There's at least one girl amongst the Durmstrang crowd, and I think Harry or someone would have noticed if there were no, or only one, girl.

My surmise as to why wizarding schools were co-ed when so many other institutions of education were not was, among other things, the dangers of children's uncontrolled magic. Witches are just as powerful magically as wizards, and young witches need to be trained so as not to be a danger to themselves or others - unless some cultures have found a way to "squib-ify" girls or suppress their magic, and we have not heard of any such thing so far.

[novembersnow.livejournal.com]

My old-fashioned women's college had afternoon tea every weekday. ;)

[malefics.livejournal.com]

I hope not.

[malefics.livejournal.com]

Hee. I bow to your superior knowledge of the books. :D

And I agree that witches are just as powerful as wizards, and had to be always accepted as so. I do not, however, think that segregation of schools necessarily had as much to do with putting down women as all that. The ORIGINAL segregation of education did, because women didn't go to school at all. They were generally only educated in practical matters.

By the time there were schools for girls, my understanding is that their course content was relatively equal.

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

An excellent view point on the situation! :D

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Which one? Smith had it once a week....

[novembersnow.livejournal.com]

Wells, in upstate New York.

But as of last month, it's no longer a women's college, and all the tea in the world can't compensate for that.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I heard about that! My sincere condolences - I looked at Wells and thought it was a charming school. I eventually went to Smith because it had a bigger library...but any women's college that goes co-ed diminishes us all.

:(

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Ah, they've got so many problems, who cares which school it was. ^_^

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Anything that inspires more fic.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Time for cliche-fic, whee!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Ron's "Whaa?" was so predictable. I just wanna give him a fond smack.