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1. Three amazing posts about statutory rape and men who hit on teenagers on 29 Feb 2008 at 5:26 pm

   […] suggests a three pronged approach to attacking the problem of men preying on teenage girls. Go read the post for more details about how you can be part of the […]

2. Two great series on Racilious. « Irreverently on 01 Mar 2008 at 5:09 pm

   […] Part One/Part Two/Part Three […]

Comments

1. Alston wrote:

   Does anyone have any data that girls-only schools cut down (or not) on this type of thing?

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 11:35 am ¶

2. Alston wrote:

   Oh, I would like to throw in this article and ask what you readers think of not only a 16-year-old girl dating a 36-year-old man, but the decision by the parents to have the man move in with them.

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 11:52 am ¶

3. atlasien wrote:

   My feeling is that they don’t cut down on it… I went to an all girls environment briefly as a teen and many girls made some really, really bad choices when it came to the few men that were available.

   I have kind of radical perspective on both all-boys and all-girls environments (a lot of people disagree with me on this). I think they’re both unhealthy in the long run. I know there can be advantages, especially for the self-esteem of girls… but ultimately, the goal should be for girls and boys to have healthy social relationships and treat each other like equal human beings, and how can they do that when they’re segregated? It doesn’t matter if you’re straight or gay or trans, you will almost certainly need to relate to another gender for the rest of your life.

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 12:02 pm ¶

4. jessabean wrote:

   I don’t have much to contribute to the discussion except to say that this series has been a great read and I really admire the personal and mature treatment of this topic. You’re an amazing writer, Latoya!

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 12:23 pm ¶

5. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

   Alston,

   First of all, I don’t believe in sex-segregated schools just on general principle - we should fight sexism in co-ed schools instead of going down that road.

   Second, all-girls schools would NOT stop this kind of harasssment, for the crudely simple reason that the older men harassing these young women are not their classmates.

   The girls would still have to walk and/or take the bus or subway to these all girls schools, and they’d still have to deal with the men on their block, and on the streets, and at the mall ect.

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 12:26 pm ¶

6. Wendi Muse wrote:

   i agree with gregory here.
   i went to all-girls school for middle and high school and come from a city where street harassment is limited (ment tend to talk to you instead of at you, where i am from)
   when i moved to nyc, it was a total culture shock, and i think maybe if i had grown up in an environment where i was conditioned to it, it would not have affected me as terribly as it did, and continues to. i am definitely not advocating its continuation by any means, but i think at least exposure to it is a little helpful in the grand scheme of things more than pre-emptive sheltering.

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 12:32 pm ¶

7. Linda wrote:

   Alston,
   that story was disturbing! I can’t believe her parents are letting this happen! That’s just sad and sick twisted!

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 2:01 pm ¶

8. kjalepepper wrote:

   In regards to community awareness, I remember hearing about a 22-year-old guy who dated a 13-year-old. When she eventually told her parents, his family thought she was just a trouble-maker, not because they thought she was lying but because her family was pressing charges. The general opinion was that the guy wasn’t the most mentally mature person himself, so it was okay that he was dating such a young girl. His family of course took his side and thought the girl was a slut.

   Now I know some pretty stupid and immature men, but there is a world of difference between being 13 and immature/naive and being 22 and immature, no matter how you look at it. Perhaps it goes back to the stereotype that men mature more slowly than girls. Or that men are still like children as they grow older. (I’m sure there are studies on this somewhere, and I wonder what this is really all about.)

   The media, however, definitely plays on this idea. It may be somewhat funny in the movie Knocked Up with two adult characters, but it is totally different when one of the “characters” is underage.

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 4:51 pm ¶

9. yazikus wrote:

   This series has had me thinking alot over the past couple of days. One of the recurring questions I have is kind of complicated. It seems as though, in general, all men are attracted to the idea of young innocent girls. Over and over in the comments the women who related their stories mentioned the men asking their dating status, and then asking to be their first boyfriend. And you know, there is the who virgin thing.
   My question is this; Why?
   Why do men want naive, young, and inexperienced girls instead of women. This is not a new trend, it seems like it has always been this way.
   That frightens me.

   Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 5:00 pm ¶

10. anonymous wrote:

    I agree with the posters who’ve said that the underlying problem is one of power…men who want to be more powerful, who want or young and inexperienced women to realize this fantasy. It is a fantasy that society assumes all men have, and should have…not a fetish that men would even expect to be embarrassed about. I’m one of those people who got into relationships with much older men when I was in my late teens… (I was 19, he was 32, both times). The first started off with double mistaken age (I thought he was closer to 24, he thought that was my age too, and since I was working at the time, it was a forgivable mistake)…that ended so quickly that I didn’t really know what happened, but even though he mostly seemed sincere, he used to occasionally speak in this almost threatening way with me, as if he was telling me to be thankful that he had ‘held himself back’ and that I should have been more careful about getting involved with him. The second guy was speaking at my college, and because he reminded me of the first, I specifically told him my age ( I figured out how old he was from something he said in one of his poems). Somehow this didn’t discourage him, and I was so impressed with him (not exactly famous, but almost, and ridiculously good looking) that it didn’t discourage me either. He definitely had huge power issues.

    The thing that gets me now is that once, when my current boyfriend and probably future fiance (who is very sweet, does not have power issues, cooks, cleans, etc.) and I first got together, he said as a compliment “Are you sure you’re 20? You look like you could be 16!” With all the men insisting from age 16 that I could be 25, this seems really strange. I think he said that because a young woman is something that is considered eternally attractive and desirable in this society, even among men who wouldn’t actually entertain the idea of a ‘relationship’ with such a woman. This reminds me that 32 year old #2 once told me that he thought ‘developmentally’ women were best around 18, 19. Uh, that should have been a clue…..live and learn I guess.

    Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 6:16 pm ¶

11. Mina wrote:

    I wasn’t surprised by any of this. How could I be after reading this:

    http://www.endfistula.org/family_planning.htm

    “…In spite of laws against early marriage, 82 million girls in developing countries will be married before they turn 18. About half of all teenage girls will have their first child by the time they turn 18…”

    ?

    Also, I know it’s not just in “developing” countries.

    “Does anyone have any data that girls-only schools cut down (or not) on this type of thing?”

    I’ve heard of some parents sending daughters to girls-only schools then yanking them out years before graduation would be and marrying them off to middle-age men. So girls-only schools don’t seem to protect girls from men any more than “modest” clothes do.

    “Why do men want naive, young, and inexperienced girls instead of women. This is not a new trend, it seems like it has always been this way.
    That frightens me.”

    I heard some guys like it really tight, and just don’t think willing women with aroused and self-lubricated vaginas are tight enough…

    Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 7:20 pm ¶

12. E wrote:

    Latoya, this series has been really amazing, and has managed to articulate so many important points.

    As for the gender-segregated school issue, I agree that it doesn’t seem to do that much good. I went to an all-girls school, and although it denied me contact with most boys and men, it didn’t stop me or the other girls in my class from developing the belief that I needed validation from boys and men in order to be a worthwhile - or even visible - person. So while I may have been less physically vulnerable because of the lack of presence of many males in my life, I was still psychologically vulnerable. As soon as I was placed in a situation where that vulnerability could be exploited, it was.

    Girls may feel more confident expressing their intelligence in a same-gender situation. However, belief in one’s abilities or intelligence are only a part (in some cases, a small part) of self-esteem. This was true for me. It should also be noted that most groups of girls form cliques and use their social power to propagate negative beliefs about gender, sexuality, and self-worth.

    I agree that “teenaged girls need to know that dating an older man will not make them cooler, and that older man cannot rescue them from their parents.”

    Female children and adolescents need to be given many personal qualities to base their self-esteem on. At the all-girls school I attended, there were vague attempts to that, but they were sporadic and badly-executed. I also agree with what you and other commenters have mentioned - boys and men need to be educated about this stuff, too.

    Anyway, thanks again - I think all your recent postings (including but definitely not limited to this series!) are fantastic.

    Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 7:43 pm ¶

13. Torontonian wrote:

    When I was in primary school, probably 7th grade, I remember my friends and I were wondering why the boys our age preferred younger-looking girls. We were in 7th grade, and even then there was a preference for younger-looking, innocent girls! One of my friends asked a guy and got the answer that younger-looking girls look like they are “easier to manipulate”. Reading this series made me recall this, but thinking about the memory again with an adult perspective makes me realized how screwed up that is.

    Also, many commenters of this series are saying things along the lines of “teenagers are stupid”. Remember, this is offensive! Adults know what adults mean when we say that teens are “stupid”, but we don’t articulate it very well and we probably haven’t given much thought to what we mean exactly when we say the teens are not equipped to deal with adult situations. Teenagers are fully-conscious beings, and just telling them that they are dumb and inexperienced will make them not believe you, and they’re probably right in rejecting a poorly-articulated generalization that usually isn’t backed by proper arguments.

    I think one way that teens are not equipped to deal with adult situations is that don’t know their rights. However, this is understandable, since teenagers really don’t have many rights. They can’t vote, they can’t write to politicians and be taken seriously, they can’t sue for sexual harassment, they don’t have a right to hire a lawyer (I don’t think?). I’m glad I’m an adult, because I have adult privileges.

    For the article that Alston linked to, the 16-year-old’s rationale isn’t particularly more air-headed than the the emotional arguments of many adults when they believe they have “fallen in love”.

    I don’t know where I’m going with this, but when we educate teens, we should remember not to patronize them, and remember that their feelings of oppression are based on real oppression. (One of these oppressions is not being taken seriously and being thought of as “stupid”.) Ideally, we would want to educate adults as well about emotionally-manipulative people, but we have less control over them and we can’t force-educate other adults.

    Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 11:34 pm ¶

14. Sabrina wrote:

    There is so much more to sexism than a woman’s comfort interacting with a man. Isn’t it a little narrowminded to say that that is the most important thing women must gain in education? I totally agree that there are limitations to going to all girls schools and women’s colleges and that it might not be for everyone. Nevertheless, they are spaces where some women feel safe. Sexism is a day to day reality for women, but that doesn’t mean that it should be a taken for granted reality, as if it should just be this norm in our lives that we should just adjust to.

    I go to a women’s college and I find that while we may not be as acclimated to sexism (as some comments have suggest we all should be), we are consequently much less likely to believe that we should just accept it as a normal part of our lives.

    Yes, going to an all-girls school won’t stop statutory rape but it can be a space where young girls can possibly better understand their self-worth and/or the underlying factors, especially sexism, behind being pursued by older men. That means that instead of simply acclimating to and internalizing instances of sexual assault, maybe just maybe they will be more likely to report it.

    (Ironically, I don’t like my school all that much but that doesn’t mean that I can’t see where it’s helped me grow as a woman.)

    From: http://www.womenscolleges.org/imperative/default.htm

    Comments made earlier this year by Harvard president, Larry Summers, provoked and reignited dialogue about gender disparities in science.

    During the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of studies that have found differences in the brain – and scientists are now better able to map the brain with some accuracy. The challenge is what to do with this knowledge and how to apply it to the classroom, the workplace, and the community.

    Leonard Sax is a physician and psychologist, and author of “Why Gender Matters.”

    He believes that boys and girls are innately different and that our challenge is to create environments that reflect how brains mature so that differences don’t become limitations and liabilities. (And, I would argue, so that differences are valued as “advantages.”) “If you ask a child to do something not developmentally appropriate for him,” says Sax, “he will fail…and develop an aversion to the subject. By age 12, you will have girls who don’t like science and boys who don’t like reading. The reason women are underrepresented in computer science and engineering” – as we all know – “is not because they can’t do it. It’s because of the way they’re taught.”

    The corollary is true for boys and the way they’re taught reading and literature.

    Research conducted by Deborah Stipek, dean of education at Stanford University, found that by age 12 children have formed firm beliefs about the subjects in which they will excel and those in which they will fail.

    Regardless of one’s aptitude, attitudes about success and failure make an enormous difference in outcome. And when girls and boys, women and men, are shortchanged, we all lose.

    Women’s colleges have extraordinary track records of success in teaching math and the sciences: we graduate women in these disciplines at 1½ times the rate of coeducational schools. Women’s colleges and our women-centered pedagogies, curricula, and environments – including female role models and leadership opportunities – must take the lead as national models not only for the effective education of girls and women, but also to inform, shape, and influence gender-equitable environments in pK-12, and college and graduate school – what the American Association of University Women has so eloquently described as “taking coeducation seriously.”

    In a recent Girls Inc. survey of 2,000 girls and boys in grades 3 through 12,

    75% agreed that girls are under pressure to dress the right way;
    63% agreed that girls are under pressure to please everyone; and
    59% agreed that girls are told not to brag about things they do well.

    How these influences shape the decisions that young women make about their futures should come as no surprise – including decisions about college, in which taking the female perspective into consideration is woefully absent.

    ———-
    From: http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/05/21/why_we_need_womens_colleges/

    A woman’s college, in contrast, is the equivalent of Virginia Woolf’s “room of one’s own,” a college of women’s own, free of many of the inhibiting presumptions of the male-dominated world. With its own powerful traditions, norms, and values, and a sense of wholeness sui generis, a women’s college helps to develop in students a sense of confidence, competence, and agency. Graduates are more able to see gender-repression when they encounter it and to distinguish between personal and systemic barriers to success.

    Women’s colleges are not about separating women from the world but about encouraging them to be active agents within it. Although the colleges educate a tiny percentage of women students, their graduates are overrepresented in positions of influence. Prominent women’s college alumnae have filled both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill in recent years and include Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Elaine Chao, Madeline Albright, Donna Shalala, and Christine Todd Whitman. Four of the 10 women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in 2006 graduated from women’s colleges.

    Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 11:58 pm ¶

15. dramelyrique wrote:

    “It was there - in the affluent neighborhood - that my asian friends dealt with the worst of their harassment. I can remember that each friend, on different occassions, was approached by older white men in their thirities and forties and quizzed about their ethnic backgrounds, ages, and dating status.”

    Not only did this often happen to me in the US but this still happens to me even though I live in Tokyo. Older white men wearing wedding rings, sometimes accompanied by their young children, will hit on me and follow me, hoping that I will carry out their geisha or Japanese school girl fantasies. People often talk about young men traveling to Asia to sleep with as many Asian women as possible or Asian men engaging in enjo-kosai but no one seems to discuss the increasing number of older white men coming here to meet young Asian girls and women. There is most definitely a colonial element to it and I think just addressing statutory rape itself isn’t enough. Many men think it is wrong to approach a girl (or boy) of their race but perfectly fine to have sex with a girl of another race. Others just try to take advantage of the fact that some countries lack strict enforcement of statutory rape and child prostitution laws.

    And even though our laws say it’s wrong for children to engage in sex with adults, our culture (world culture, too) says something different. Most men and women know it’s wrong to have a sexual relationship with a teenager but how many have not viewed one in a sexual way? How many have not been attracted to a teenager? We have to change the way children are portrayed as sex objects in the media. We have to change our attitudes towards sex, love, power, youth and gender. I think you have some great suggestions Latoya but I wonder how many people (men in power especially) are willing to take action.

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 5:55 am ¶

16. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    Sabrina,

    Wouldn’t it be better, in the long run, to fight for the right of women to be respected and safe in co-ed schools, rather than ghettoizing women in all female institutions?

    But there’s a deeper problem here - you seem to be saying (and your quote from Dr Sax seems to amplify this) that boys and girls are supposedly “innately different”, supposedly learn in different ways and therefore the best way to educate boys and girls is in sex segregated settings.

    I question the accuracy of that concept first of all - I believe most so called “innate” gender differences are basically learned behavior.

    Also, I really don’t like the reactionary direction that such thinking leads - some of Dr Sax co-thinkers (including the superintendant of schools of the Province of Saskatuan, Canada) go so far as to say that most women are actually incapable of learning math and science, and should only be taught home ec.

    I’m pretty sure you don’t believe that - but your arguments in favor of sex segregated education lead down that ugly misogynist road.

    Why not fight for non sexist co-education, instead of “seperate but equal” for girls????

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 12:36 pm ¶

17. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    There’s another point here that needs to be addressed - how to discourage older men from sexually targeting younger women in the first place.

    That’s where the problem starts - men thinking that it’s not only acceptable but outright desirable to persue adolescent women sexually.

    How do we reeducate these men?

    Especially since the concept of masculinity that men learn in this country is based in a very fundamental way on the idea that a “real man” is supposed to be sexually dominant of as many women as possible - the more women you have sex with the more of a “real man” you are. And, on the flip side, the less “conquests” you have, the less of a man you are.

    For a lot of guys, particularly those who for various reasons don’t measure up to the standards of this vision of masculinity, the only way they can get anywhere near to measuring up to that standard of masculinity is to go after women they percieve as weak or easily manipulated.

    Considering that broader social reality, it’s not suprising that some of these guys target teenaged girls.

    Just to be clear, this is NOT some “innate”, testosterone-based fundamental characteristic of men that can never be changed.

    This is LEARNED behavior - and it can be UNLEARNED - the only question is how can men be taught a new, less predatory vision of being a man.

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 12:42 pm ¶

18. Cynthia C wrote:

    And don’t forget the fetishization of the young. Remember the video “A Total Eclipse of the Heart”? Totally creepy. And yesterday, Jezebel had a posting from Reuters about schoolboy cafes in Japan where servers are young men who pretend to be boarding school students (and their female clientele “play the role” of benefatresses “visiting the school.”)

    Reuters article: http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUST30561220080229?feedType=RSS&feedName=inDepthNews&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

    Jezebel post: http://jezebel.com/362268/cool-intentions

    Very icky, IMHO.

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 1:21 pm ¶

19. jd wrote:

    Torontonian - why the hell wouldn’t a teen be able to sue for sexual harassment?

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 4:00 pm ¶

20. Mickle wrote:

    I want to second (third? - fourth?) the praise for this series. Thanks, Latoya. Informed discussion of this is much needed, and you did a great job.

    I’d also like to weigh in one the whole sex-segregation debate.

    I think that it can be very hit or miss, and the most important thing needed is an administration and families that believe in the importance of education for girls and that the “boys will be boys” mentality harms everyone. If you have an administration that believes in these things, and enough of the adults (college students or parents, depending on the situation) that back them up, then you can do some good.

    I think this can be easier to achieve in an all girls-environment because you are less likely to have parents defending boys that need help, not excuses, but it is far from a given, and there are drawbacks to sex-segregation, especially when it’s not the student’s decision and the students are still very young.

    I also think that part of the reason why women’s colleges do a better job of this is because they are more self-selective. Not everyone who goes to a woman’s college considers themselves a feminist, but hardly anyone goes to my alma mater unless they are willing sacrifice a certain amount of social life for their education - at least for a few years anyway. More importantly, when it comes to colleges, this decision is being mostly made by the students themselves, not the parents, so it’s the student culture that is reinforcing the importance of education, not just the people in charge.

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 4:04 pm ¶

21. Cynthia C wrote:

    On girls’ schools: I went to one, so I may be biased…they say the women who are alumnae of single-sex environments, especially at the high school level, have much more confidence. In university, they are more likely to speak up (sometimes to the point that professors (politely) tell them to give other students in the class a chance to speak (happened to me), are also more likely to take senior level math courses (girls who went to my high school, in general, took at least two final year level math courses) and seem to concentrate better on academics, because there’s no male distraction. Boys, on the other hand, do better in a single-sex environment earlier in their academic life (considering that boys’ test scores are generally lower, especially in reading/writing. They’re also less likely to sit still. With “boy-friendly” training in the primary grades, they may be better-set for life later on.). Boys in all-boy environments are also more likely to participate in the type of arts that are generally seen as “feminine” by North American culture (e.g. playing flute rather than trombone, for example).

    Of course, the single-sex testing may also be a reflection of class. Most single sex programs are private, tuition-based schools, often costing 20-30K/year.

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 6:10 pm ¶

22. Flbritchick wrote:

    Just want to point (didnt know if anyone else had) out that while I dont think it makes it right, 16 is the legal age of consent in the uk. This means (and again I think its gross now but not then) that turing 16 is seen as a green light for anyone. As a girl gowing up in the uk, I didnt really think about the age gap of dating a 23 year old at 16 as I was legal…being 27 now it horrifys me but you grow up knowing the magic “legal line” is there. Hell my 38 year old boss was getting me drunk at my internship at 16. ick ick

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 7:02 pm ¶

23. Torontonian wrote:

    I thought people under 18 couldn’t do legal things like sue or press charges? For things like sexual assault, the general advice we give to children is to “tell an adult”.

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 7:29 pm ¶

24. Amanda Marcotte wrote:

    Thanks for the series. My co-blogger Pam wrote a post a looooooooong time about about the singer Akon assaulting that 14-year-old on stage. I get 1-2 comments a week still on that post, and 95% of them defend him. All I can think is that if the victim was white, would people still be googling the situation to leave rousing defenses of him? I can’t help but think not.

    Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 7:44 pm ¶

25. Sabrina wrote:

    Gregory, the quote is about how even high level administrators believe these “innate differences” exist and that it is detrimental to a young person’s education. Hence, the stats about young people who have concrete beliefs about what they will be good at by age 12, which goes on to say how this is detrimental to their ability to do well in those subjects. Then it goes on to say that that’s why women’s colleges are necessary to help counteract that and how they have historically done very well proving that there are not in fact innate differences.

    Women’s colleges are one of the only spaces where women have expressed interest in and excelled in math and science. Many many co-ed institutions express a not-so-subtle lack of support for women in these fields of study. Having a space that is supportive does not take away from fighting for better co-ed education. In fact, I argue that women educated in women’s colleges are better prepared to advocate for these issues in co-ed grad schools, not that it should fall on women’s shoulders. But essentially, this is a question of whether women should have the option of a supportive learning environment while many co-ed institutions beginning the slow slow practice of changing. I actually think forcing women to bear the brunt of an oppressive learning environment for the sake of change is backwards.

    Mickle and Cynthia, I totally agree with you both, especially about how the issues of choice, self-selectivity and class complicate things. One thing that has always interested me is how women here at Bryn Mawr develop an interest in math or science that they didn’t previously have, especially for those who “don’t seem the type.” I think that says something about the success of women’s colleges beyond self-selection, though of course there are many women who select Bryn Mawr because of its math and science departments.

    Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 1:35 am ¶

26. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    Sabrina,

    So, basically what you’re saying is that the best way for women students to get into fields they’ve been historically excluded from like math and science is through encouraging them to attend sex segregated institutions.

    Are you even interested in the idea of fighting against sexism in the co-ed institutions? Or are you content to have a small female academic ghetto, surrounded by sexist male-oriented co-ed instututions?

    I agree with you that it will be difficult to fight academic sexism (the world of higher ed is very male chauvinist) .

    I also agree that it is a lot to ask of undergrads for them to be on the front lines of that struggle.

    But, if they don’t fight against academic sexism, and instead retreat to the narrow supportive ghetto of all-female schools, then they will be leaving those battles unfought.

    In other words isn’t it better for the undergrads of today to fight academic sexism?

    Or would it be better if their daughters fought those battles? Or their granddaughters? Or their great granddaughters?

    If the Civil Rights Movement had had your attitude, they would never have sent Black undergrads to desegregate all White schools.

    Would we be better off if they’d refused to fight those battles, on the grounds that all-Black schools were more nurturing for African American students?

    If those students hadn’t taken those risks, and made those sacrifices, those battles would never have been won.

    Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 1:18 pm ¶

27. kina wrote:

    This is not as much about the article as about wording: Arabic is a language, not an adjective to describe someone as. It’s “Arab men” not “Arabic men”. Besides that, the article is fantastic.

    Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 2:02 pm ¶

28. jd wrote:

    Torontonian - I assume you mean that a minor would require the assistance of an adult guardian to do these things, not that they can’t be done - yes?

    Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 8:43 pm ¶

29. bdsista wrote:

    Gregory, I went to co-ed schools, mostly HBCUs, however, I dated guys who went to Morehouse and did very well and know women who went to Spelman and Eastern High school in Baltimore which was all female and did well. I have a daughter who is a follower. I know that, if she is in a co-ed environment, she will dumb down to get the attention of some boy. She will NOT focus on her education if her focus is pleasing a male. She is a pleaser and at 14, she is liking boys a LOT. I have been pushing for her to go to Spelman because I know that she will not have the distraction of a male in class and will be encouraged to develop her mind. There is a whole body of research by David Sadker that shows that male students command and demand attention in classrooms to the detriment of girls. Unless teachers are trained to actively be aware of gender behaviors in classes, the girls get less attention. It is learned and it is perpetuated in schools nationwide everyday. It is unfair to describe all female institutions as segregating and ghettoizing. The research shows that girls benefit. As a parent, I want what is best for my child. My child is not like I would want her to be, she is the way she is and as such she would benefit more from single sex-institution. I do my child a disservice by harboring some fantasy that she will develop another personality. She may in time, but I will not sacrifice her education, growth and sense of self-worth to make a point. Maybe while in an all girls school she will have the support to find her voice and then she can take that to a co-ed grad school. I was very focused as a student and would not let anything get in my way. I turned down one of the most popular guys on campus’ invite to be his girl because I know he would not help me get good grades and achieve my goals. I dated guys who studied and were smart. But my daughter is not me, many young women are not as focused. It does not mean they do not have dreams, but to many young men, a smart girlfriend is not an asset, they want some submissive, pretty arm candy. Well, they can look all they want, but not my daughter and preferably, not anyone else either.

    Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 9:48 pm ¶

30. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    bdsista,

    I agree with you on the problems of coeducation today - that girls indeed do “dumb themselves down” to get the attention and affection of boys who want submissive girlfriends.

    I see this as a PROBLEM, that, with struggle, can be solved.

    I also see that retreating from this problem of sexism in co-ed schools will absolutely not solve the problem - instead it will just make that problem continue perpetually.

    Posted 03 Mar 2008 at 2:23 am ¶

31. NancyP wrote:

    There has been some culture shift since the list of single-sex college grads that Sabrina mentioned. These are all people 50 years or older. There are a lot more female role models out there in coed schools now. It is true that the women’s colleges are good for the shy and timid, in that there is no place to hide. And it is also true that teachers in coed institutions may be hostile to women in particular fields - but it is getting rarer, and frankly, there is a competition for students, since number of students in a major will correspond wiht hte long-term funding of the department.

    I probably would have done fine in either setting, but then again I was the mouthy type, and totally unconcerned about what the guyz thought about me.

    Posted 03 Mar 2008 at 8:00 pm ¶

32. Torontonian wrote:

    jd,

    Yes, a minor would require the assistance of an adult guardian to do these things. This is problematic because it assumes that all adults are mature, educated about the law, and unbiased. This is not the case, and it just becomes another barrier between the victim and her access to the legal safety nets.

    Even among adults, it is hard for an adult to convince other adults that there was a sexual assault, there was racism, etc. Average adults are usually not trained in the law, and hence should not be arbitrators of whether or not a crime occurred. They are subject to social biases, and requiring that a minor recruit an adult ally before they can access their rights is very problematic.

    Posted 03 Mar 2008 at 11:25 pm ¶

33. dramelyrique wrote:

    Did anyone catch the NYT magazine article on single-sex education?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/magazine/02sex3-t.html
    Teaching Boys and Girls Separately　
    By ELIZABETH WEIL

    Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 1:20 am ¶

34. Aquarianbrass wrote:

    Gregory,

    Just because Sabrina and Bdsista support all-girl institutionsf learning does not mean they are not for fighting sexism in co-ed schools.
    The fact is, we can have both and people can choose. This is isn’t like racial segregation because that was enforced by the law. There is no law saying boys and girls have to go to seperate schools.
    And, racial segregation in education still exists both inter and intraschool.
    Besides, there is probably good and bad associated with co-ed and single sex. Its a parents or students choice.

    Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 2:37 am ¶

35. Mina wrote:

    “Torontonian - why the hell wouldn’t a teen be able to sue for sexual harassment?”

    Maybe she’s too young to have a driver’s license, her parents are raising her too far away from any courts or lawyers’ offices for her to safely walk, bike, or take mass transit there, and they call her a slut who deserved it instead of giving her a ride?

    “More importantly, when it comes to colleges, this decision is being mostly made by the students themselves, not the parents…”

    Except when the parents say “we won’t help you pay for college unless we like the school” and the student doesn’t want to postpone college until financial aid offices won’t take parental finances into consideration (in some cases that’s age 24)…

    “I have been pushing for her to go to Spelman because I know that she will not have the distraction of a male in class and will be encouraged to develop her mind. ”

    Are you sure there wouldn’t be a male in her class at Spelman?

    I’ve heard of all-female colleges having cross-registration agreements with coed colleges. For example, Wellesley student can take classes at MIT and MIT students (of all sexes) can take classes at Wellesley.

    Meanwhile, University of Phoenix is coed but has a 100% online option so maybe that would be better for stopping a woman from sharing a classroom with a male classmate?

    OTOH, the schools’ policies might change by the time your daughter enrolls, so you two should double-check all this in a couple of years instead of taking my word for it.

    “I do my child a disservice by harboring some fantasy that she will develop another personality. ”

    Right on! My mom’s still harboring the fantasy that I’ll develop another personality, and it’s pretty annoying since I really like her but I don’t want to be an autistic savant.

    Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 7:13 am ¶

36. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    Aquarianbrass,

    There has been a big move in this country to push towards restoring sex segregated public education. The New York Times had a big article on it the other day - pushing this idea that there are huge innate biological mental differences between boys and girls and that, consequently, they need to be schooled seperately. Those supposed innate differences, of course, are old school gender stereotypes, which are presented as the absolute truth, rather than the myths that they are.

    In that climate, it is a serious problem when prorgressives present the idea that sex segregated education is in any way good or positive - basically, you end up agreeing with the reactionaries and fundamentalists who want to end coeducation.

    And yes, opting out of co-ed schools does amount to abandoning the struggle against sexism in coeducational schools.

    Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 3:04 pm ¶

37. Bq wrote:

    Gregory, I don’t think that my women’s college is part of any sort of right-wing push to make public schools single-sex, or that people here are naive about sexism and don’t fight it. I thought the stereotype was that women’s college students were all “scary feminists” and “crunchy activists”. I have no idea where you’re getting the idea that people here are taught to be naive and passive about injustices. In fact, there are always complaints from the small Republican faction on campus that we’re too left-leaning and aggressive about too many political issues. Who are you to say how I should take on the struggle of sexism, especially since you’re a man? You’re also forgetting that many of the women’s colleges are right next to co-ed schools. It’s not like after a few months of school, women return home in the summers to point at local men and go, “What is that creature?” Sheesh. It’s just four years of one’s life, with summers and winter breaks and all sorts of breaks in between.

    So I’m assuming you have a problem with HBCUs as well? Find them “reverse-racist”? I have a feeling you simply feel an outrage at being “left out” of anything, since you’ve been socialized to have so much more entitlement to various spaces.

    Posted 05 Mar 2008 at 3:46 am ¶

38. Bq wrote:

    I’m really sorry for this derailing…I have no idea what women’s colleges have to do with what you’ve brought up. And yes, assaults do happen on these campuses (mostly by men, though one in recent years was by students on campus).

    This was a great post about something that is downplayed to a ridiculous extent. It disturbs me that there are so many people out there that don’t understand how threatening these encounters are. And I am glad you articulated the power dynamic behind this kind of predation - young girls are fetishized precisely because they seem less confident and more vulnerable.

    Posted 05 Mar 2008 at 3:49 am ¶

39. Mina wrote:

    “You’re also forgetting that many of the women’s colleges are right next to co-ed schools.”

    Often with cross-registration! A Wellesley student can take coed classes and have male and intersex classmates at MIT (if she’s in ROTC, she’s even required to take some classes at MIT).

    Posted 05 Mar 2008 at 7:26 pm ¶

40. Mickle wrote:

    “These are all people 50 years or older. ”

    As that’s partly to do with the greater power baby boomers have, I don’t think that alone refutes the claim that women’s college graduates tend to do better. Although yes, many of that generation would have been going to college right before the Ivy Leagues were finally went co-ed, so that has something to do with it.

    In any case I’ve always seen women’s colleges as one of many tools for fighting sexism, not the ideal universal solution to it. Most women’s college graduates I know would say the same.

    ************

    I think that Sabrina has a good point that students at women’s colleges are more likely to study unstereotypical subjects, and not just because of self-selection.

    I get asked a lot about what I plan on doing with my physics degree - even though at this point it’s obvious what I am doing with my degree and that it has nothing directly to do with physics. A part of that is that people ask that of every college graduate. However, they do seem to expect people to have majored in a science because you have specific career goals - especially if one is female - rather than just because you really liked the subject and the department.

    To a certain degree, this has to do with how we view science vs. everything else. No one blinks twice at my brothers, one of whom majored in economics and worked with computers and the other of which majored in film but works in politics. But they really don’t get me. You majored in physics….and studied architecture……but you are now a librarian? And yet, the brother that does politics specializes in using the internet for fundraising and campaigns, and the one who works with computers does design work as well.

    I think it’s partly the crossover between science and non-science that confuses people, but it’s also the fact that I’m a girl. They don’t expect me to have majored in science to begin with (the looks I get would be hilarious if they hadn’t gotten old decades ago), so when I compound that by being one of the people that is blase about it and jumps around between science and non-science, they get even more confused.

    Women especially tend to underestimate their technical abilities, and consequently need to feel more competent in science than anything else before most will consider majoring in science. The same is not as true for men or anyone majoring in non-science subjects.

    It’s not just that women’s colleges are vocally supportive of their students challenging gender roles, it’s also that the absence of men creates a vacuum where male stereotypes once where. You need someone to monitor the computer lab. You need someone to be the physics TA . And so not only are women like me more likely to take science courses, they are more likely to fill the student positions of authority within those departments. Even the students that liked science but didn’t really think of it as “their” subject before. And it’s these two things, combined with much less sexism within the science departments themselves, that turns out more science majors. And that, really, I think is the trick to the success of women’s colleges.

    “Except when the parents say “we won’t help you pay for college unless we like the school” and the student doesn’t want to postpone college until financial aid offices won’t take parental finances into consideration (in some cases that’s age 24)…”

    Very true, but since this rarely plays out nowadays through parents forcing adult women into single-sex colleges, that doesn’t really affect the attitude of the student body of those schools. It does however, shut some students out that would like to attend and force a lot of students to stay in the closet longer than they might otherwise.

    Posted 06 Mar 2008 at 1:18 pm ¶

41. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    I just wanted to say that this is the best possible thread-jacking ever. Please, by all means, keep the conversation going about single sex education. I am learning a lot.

    Posted 06 Mar 2008 at 1:21 pm ¶

42. LaDonna wrote:

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/11/teen.std.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

    new study about rates of STDs among teen girls, I wish they’d studied how many of these girls were sleeping with adult men

    Posted 11 Mar 2008 at 3:29 pm ¶

43. LaDonna wrote:

    ” To a certain degree, this has to do with how we view science vs. everything else. No one blinks twice at my brothers, one of whom majored in economics and worked with computers and the other of which majored in film but works in politics. But they really don’t get me. You majored in physics….and studied architecture……but you are now a librarian? And yet, the brother that does politics specializes in using the internet for fundraising and campaigns, and the one who works with computers does design work as well.”

    I have an engineering degree and now work as a librarian. This results in lots of blank stares.

    Posted 11 Mar 2008 at 3:31 pm ¶

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