Several other people here clearly think this is stuck in the 50’s. Read up on Harvard Prof. R. Jordan-Young. Her writing concerning dividing people according to gender is very interesting. Boils down to: dividing according to gender makes less sense than dividing according to any other category. So it might statistically make more sense to divide the children who go to the action film based on parents’ income. How would you feel about that?
If it’s ok to divide children according to gender and decide for them what genre of film they might like, why would you not support doing that for other “categories” of children?
Not getting upset over this is the foundation of sexism. Space constraints as a reason to tell girls they don’t like action movies & deny them a school trip? The alternative of not going does absolutely no harm at all. This however, systematically categorises girls and even denies them privileges based on their genitals. It tells them at a young age what is appropriate for them rather than letting them decide for themselves. Everything about it is sexist.
Sure, especially if you can point to any threads you started or participated in seeing as the issue is so important to you.
Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean it’s possible or convenient to do so in every instance.
I don’t really care. They are already doing that btw. This was only done for low income kids, so they effectively have separated the kids via parent’s income. It’s doesn’t really bother me that they did it.
I might support it. What I was objecting to is your contention that what they did was analogous to making Jewish students see Ocean’s Eleven because, of course, Jews like money. It’s such a poor analogy it makes me question your logic.
They didn’t tell any girls that they shouldn’t like action movies. They correctly judged that boys generally enjoy these movies more often.
Of course it does. It cheats some of the student out of any opportunity to go out, something many low-income people do not have a chance to do.
Please. Get off your high horse. As the administrators testified, there are plenty of events and opportunities that are segregated by gender. This was just one of many, that has become public fodder because the image of little girls not getting to see a war movie makes people assume it’s they are just being sexist bullies.
Honestly, taking a such a hard line really limits you. Do you think there should be separate girls and boy sports teams? What about separate bathrooms? I it wrong to have a separate health course for girls that focuses more on woman’s issues? Should woman’s empowerment programs be eliminated? Should boy scouts and girls scouts be one organization? How far do we need to go with this for you to be happy?
Sheesh. Back in my day, when teachers wanted a de facto day off, they brought out a reel-to-reel and showed us lousy movies about gravity and such. At least that didn’t cost the school $50k. Kids today are so lucky. Boys at least.
I love the “Oh, girls wouldn’t enjoy the movie anyway” arguments. I know it’s amazing, but all girls are not the same. I’m sure some girls would have enjoyed the film more than some boys. Who knows what the exact ratio of girls who would like to see it to boys who would like to see it would be?
I’m having flashbacks to having to take Home Ec in high school because I’m a girl, while boys got other options.
But it’s nice to know the dope has sexism defenders to go with the racism defenders. I’d sure hate for any -ism to go without a strong defense.
Speaking as a female pilot (who has had the privilege of meeting and spending time with actual Tuskee Airmen), the notion that girls wouldn’t enjoy movies with airplanes and pilots and so on is old school sexist bullshit.
Unfortunately, also as a female pilot, I regret to say that such attitudes are still alive and well in this world (though, fortunately, they have largely died out within aviation itself).
Then why is there often a divide in male/female attendance to all kinds of movies? Twilight catered to mostly females, for instance. Many actions mostly to males.
This isn’t 1950 anymore, and yet some generalizations hold true, on a per capita basis. (I’m not saying they should be made, but to argue a divide doesn’t exist is silly).
I take it you’ve argued you should be paying higher car insurance premiums then? I’d love to see a cite for that.
Wow, the only time my school ever showed boys and girls seperate movies were those films we had to watch on puberty and sex education. Oh, and the STD slideshow they made the junior class sit through in high school. For some odd reason they only showed us boys the male slides, but the girls were shown both male and female slides.
They are GENERALIZATIONS, and will not hold true for ALL girls. In other words, there are some girls that would have enjoyed the movie, and there are some boys who would rather have not seen the movie.
The bullshit part is assuming that ALL girls are the same, and NONE of them would want to see this movie.
No it’s not. What you said was that it was alright to send the boys to the movie and leave the girls behind based on such trends. In other words, because some percentage X of boys and girls conform to a stereotype it was OK to impose that stereotype on everyone.
Which is ironic, considering the Tuskegee Airmen worked hard to battle stereotypes and prejudice… (as well as help win WWII)
It’s true that women like stereotypical “chick flicks” more than guys do.
But IIRC, there are studies showing that women like action movies just as much as guys do, because they aren’t discouraged from watching them and grow used to them (whereas many guys feel their penises shrink if they believe there’s a critical mass of estrogen in a movie, and so don’t watch “chick” movies enough to like them.) Which makes sense when you consider how many self-described “tom-boys” there are compared to their male counterparts, who have to play with their Easy-Bake-Ovens in the closet under the stairs.
So if we were picking a subset of kids to go to this thing and trying to maximize overall happiness (not just for the boys, but for the girls, too), they would have been better off doing a lottery. With a promise to the unlucky kids that they would get to do something as equally exciting. Like, I dunno, WATCH THE SAME DAMN MOVIE the next day? Was this even considered as an option? If not, they should all be fired.
I could see segregating the boys and girls for field trips, if, say, the boys met with male mentors/role models and the girls met with female mentors/role models. For this movie, though? Uh-uh. As Really Not All That Bright above, it would have made infinitely more sense to just rent The Tuskegee Airmen and show it to everyone. Cost for all schools: probably under $100 bucks.
Yes I did - in fact even at my relatively “keep your head down in the cubicle and never complain about nothin’” workplace, the outcry was so great about the perceived discrimination of take your “daughter to work day” that it changed with amazing rapidity into “take your child to work day.” This apparently happened at several peer companies, and is now SOP - due primarily, according to our local newspaper, to charges of sexism.
Ironically, it seems to have had the reverse effect. Co-workers I know who have sons and daughters, and who used to bring their daughter(s) to work, now only bring the son(s), and say things like “well, girls aren’t interested in science anyways, so my daughter is just staying home and having a vacation day.” Way to be a parent. :rolleyes:
That was the whole reason for “Take your daughter to work” day…the fact that boys were occasionally taken to Daddy’s job (usually not Mommy’s job) to see what Daddy did all day. And daughters were almost never taken to work, because the perception was that girls aren’t interested in male jobs. Taking a child of either sex to work, to see what a parent does, shows the child that no, Mom or Dad doesn’t get to just goof off all day long.
My dad took me to his workplace a couple of times in the 60s, during summer vacation, and a lot of his co-workers made comments about what a waste of time it was to take a girl to work, since I’d just get married and have kids and never have to work in a “real” job.
…and unfortunately, thanks to what some might term “bruised male ego”, we’re back to the good old days.
Personally, I don’t want to see any kids at work on a “general” basis. They make an outrageous disruption in the day which essentially writes off any productivity. Because of my position I keep getting asked to prepare a speech to all the kids, or run a “seminar” for them - all on my own time and own budget - which lately I’ve had to bow out of doing due to my not having any money nor time to spare. And it’s always very disturbing to find someone’s 10-year old sitting down at a company computer during the day downloading pirated MP3s or videos (yes, I have had this happen more than once). And “take your child to work day” was not intended for you to bring your 3-year old to run around with office equipment screaming like a howler monkey being fed backwards into a wood chipper.
Don’t get me wrong - kids who are honestly interested in science and may honestly be considering this as a career, sure, I’ll make a lot of time for them at work. But for the most part, the kids seem either incredibly bored or even lip-curlingly disgusted with the “stupid” stuff mom and dad do to keep them supplied with Hot Pockets, Twilight books, and iPhones.
