Same-sex education recalls past discrimination

I consider myself to be well acquainted with the power of a sewing machine. This is solely… I consider myself to be well acquainted with the power of a sewing machine. This is solely because of the fact that when I first used a sewing machine – the autumn of my freshman year in high school – I broke the needle. In my finger. Needless to say, it was a very painful experience, and I subsequently refused to go anywhere near the dreadful sadistic machine, much to the chagrin of my home economics teacher.

At the same time, I was taking an automotive class in which the instructor taught us how to start and drive a car without a key. This came in handy last year when my own car was stolen and mauled, rendering the key useless.

When I think back on high school, which I don’t do often because it causes me intense psychosomatic pain, these experiences are what stick out as two of the most defining of my educational history. They taught me two important things about myself. First, that I am not cut from the cloth of domesticity that allows me to do anything more Martha Stewart-like than identifying the salad fork without harming myself. And second, that I am pretty well prepared to handle a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme that frequently runs out of gas on the turnpike and has a busted dashboard.

My mother would applaud me for reversing all those heteronormative gender roles.

I’m a huge proponent of overhauling any education system that doesn’t encourage the kind of academic program that I was fortunate enough to have, one in which I was able to learn about – and fail or succeed at – things that are traditionally “masculine” or “feminine.” Which is why I got nervous a few weeks ago when I saw an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about a school district in Georgia that intends to segregate its students by sex.

The article, which was syndicated from the Associated Press and ran in the Post-Gazette Feb. 26, explained that the Greene County school district, which is facing a disheartening increase in drop-outs and low test scores, will separate boys and girls in the elementary schools into gender-specific classrooms and the high school students into gender-specific school buildings.

Superintendent Shawn McCollough said that separating the students would be beneficial for a few reasons. First, he cited the research that illustrates the different learning styles of the sexes, saying that the teaching methods of the classrooms could be designed to fit these learning styles, thus maximizing student potential. Theoretically, this is an admirable reason. But in Greene County, which is a rural school district with a population that is overwhelmingly low-income, the resources to implement this effectively just aren’t there. I can imagine that this situation will most likely end in an unbalance that, consistent with several examples in American history, could be unfair and detrimental to the girls.

McCollough’s other justification was more upsetting. He said that separating students was a smart social policy, as “boys won’t misbehave as much because they will no longer be trying to impress the girls, and the girls will be more likely to speak up in class because they won’t be afraid to look smart in front of the boys.” That kind of generalized stereotyping is a gross cop-out. Women have been fighting for years to earn the kind of respect that would give them enough confidence to not be afraid to “look smart.” It’s completely backward that the best medicine for the social plague of the male superiority complex is to remove girls from the situations in which that respect is earned.

This social conditioning would make it even harder than it already is to allow girls and women to embrace their natural intelligence rather than hiding it away shyly because society tells them they should feel apprehensive about being smart. McCollough’s proposed system reinforces the kind of gender roles that insist that I be a good sewer or be unable to check my car’s oil.

Gender segregation is indicative of the reemergence of acceptable gender prejudice. It seems as if gender oppression is cyclical: Attention is drawn away from the fact that there is a consistent undercurrent of social oppression that disappears and reappears at times of cultural shift, but that is never eradicated. Only in times of great attention – as during the suffrage and feminist movements – is it seen as a problem deserving of non-ivory-tower discourse.

I still have a little scar on my finger from where the needle got caught in my skin more than six years ago. And even though it’s a symbol of my failure at sewing, it’s also a symbol of the success of a progressive pedagogical ideology, one that is endangered by the blind eye that is turned to sexism in Greene County and across the United States.

Send Cassidy a haiku, because she has a lot of homework. Cassidygruber@gmail.com