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

[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.