Well, basically, the domination of teenage boys of the co-ed system. In the mixed-gender schooling, boys dominate the playground spaces, they dominate the classroom, they dominate teacher time in and out of the classroom, and 90% of the time school administrators spend on discipline is on boys. As much as the girls are a distraction for the majority of them (ie- an audience to display their burgeoning heterosexual mascuilinity to) the boys can also be a serious distraction to the girls (nevermind sexual harrassment in the classroom). This detracts from the education of both sexes.
I just think they need to be put someplace where they can do all that teenage-boy shit away from girls who are trying to grow up themselves and get a half-decent education. And yeah, this is both personal experience and research I have read into the phenomenon. This whole idea that "girls and boys need to mix to learn how to deal with the opposite sex" is a load of backward heterosexist patriachal bullshit. The only thing girls tend to learn when they're subjected to the co-ed system is how to allow boys to dominate (because of both flaws in the education system and serious social flaws in the wider cultures) and the only thing boys learn is how to get away with shit like that. All it does is perpetuate destructive gender stereotypes and, frankly, casts a rather negative and in most cases, incorrect assumption about girls and boys who don't attend co-ed school (eg - "So-and-so's school is full of lesbians/homosexuals because its not co-ed", "They're such sluts because they go to a non co-ed school and don't know how to act around boys" etc etc).
I'm not saying it's all 100% like this, but overwhelmingly it is. There are some schools (high schools, I'm mostly talking about) where it isn't like this, through both the certain backgrounds of the children and things taught by the school (eg - studies of gender classes alongside sex-ed classes that discuss things like homosexual sex, pleasure, and respect for partners). But sadly, they're the minority.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 02:52 am (UTC)I just think they need to be put someplace where they can do all that teenage-boy shit away from girls who are trying to grow up themselves and get a half-decent education. And yeah, this is both personal experience and research I have read into the phenomenon. This whole idea that "girls and boys need to mix to learn how to deal with the opposite sex" is a load of backward heterosexist patriachal bullshit. The only thing girls tend to learn when they're subjected to the co-ed system is how to allow boys to dominate (because of both flaws in the education system and serious social flaws in the wider cultures) and the only thing boys learn is how to get away with shit like that. All it does is perpetuate destructive gender stereotypes and, frankly, casts a rather negative and in most cases, incorrect assumption about girls and boys who don't attend co-ed school (eg - "So-and-so's school is full of lesbians/homosexuals because its not co-ed", "They're such sluts because they go to a non co-ed school and don't know how to act around boys" etc etc).
I'm not saying it's all 100% like this, but overwhelmingly it is. There are some schools (high schools, I'm mostly talking about) where it isn't like this, through both the certain backgrounds of the children and things taught by the school (eg - studies of gender classes alongside sex-ed classes that discuss things like homosexual sex, pleasure, and respect for partners). But sadly, they're the minority.