All good points.
I’d like to add that you say having smaller hands can be a disadvantage but in my line of work with hvac and electrical actually having smaller hands can be an advantage because you can get into tighter areas.
As do the girls who play on my sons hockey team.
In baseball you see some girls playing with the boys. However most switch over to softball by around age 12 because college scholarships for girls are only in softball.
I’m a 14 yr old boy who wants too learn how to cook and run a sewing machine. Too bad.
But: I’m a 14 yr old girl who wants to learn how to shoot guns and fix cars, I’m set.
I was the only boy in a HS typing class in 1966.
When it came to writing programs, I was done much earlier.
If sexism was over (even for this specific situation), either these types of camps wouldn’t exist, or there would be just as many for boys only. These camps are offered because these girls aren’t being served by the existing systems.
Saying that camps that defy gender roles actually somehow enforce them seems like very twisted logic. No, a camp that offers automotive classes for girls does not send the message that automotive work is for boys.
The myth that sexism is over or that fighting sexism is actually sexist are both big problems with anti-sexist activists of today. It’s really, really easy for those who don’t experience it to think it’s over. Since all our media says that sexism is wrong, and we got the message, we assume that everyone else must’ve gotten the message by now, too.
Sadly, this is not true. It seems to have limited the most overt forms of sexism (and racism and other bigotry), but actually changing everything is hard, and it’s human nature to fall back on justifications and rationalizations to avoid change. As well as to back against those who try to get us to change.
Also plumbing and some other applications.
Folks outside the field have a notion that you have to be this big, brawny guy to do construction and other trade work. No, you don’t, and people in that field come in all shapes and sizes. After awhile, you figure out that having a range of types on a crew can be an asset for dealing with different situations.
There’s a lot about “being a good friend” and “working in a team” and "being a global citizen. "
less about
“sleeping on rocks” and “setting shit on fire” and “building something relevant sleeping on rocks or firestarting”"
Girl scouts, what a $@! snooze.
This. Expecting tweens and teenagers to act with all the maturity of adults in the workplace (who have careers on the line) in regards to sexual harassment just isn’t feasible. Girls need to safe spaces to learn and grow where they don’t have to worry about predatory male behavior.
Oh, now 51% of the population are predators?
rolleyes
Being an adolescent is occasionally easier if you aren’t surrounded by members of the opposite sex. It allows you to focus on what you’re learning, rather than on whether your bra strap is showing while you’re tightening that bolt, or your makeup is appropriate for shop class.
As far as whether there is still some level of inherent sexism that comes across in all levels of society (to the OP’s original point). My son once asked me who my favorite superhero was. “Captain America”. “Mom! You can’t pick him. He’s a boy! You have to pick a girl one.” I laughed and we had a discussion about why he thought that boy superheroes were only for boys. The point being that he certainly didn’t learn that at home (his dad isn’t even into comics). He learned it at school, from his buddies, who, at the ripe old age of 6 or 7, already “knew” what boys and girls are allowed to do.
I don’t see a problem with the camp being offered. I also think it wouldn’t be a bad thing to offer some sort of Home Ec for boys. You only get so far in life if all you know how to “cook” is cereal and ramen. Sewing on buttons and ironing probably also come in handy. I’m hoping to get laundry taught to the Boy before he heads off into the great unknown. We’ll see. If there were a camp, I’d sign him up in a hot second.
Er… it’s women who are 51% of the population. Men are only 49%.
It is also sometimes easier for boys to do the same. And perfectly legal to segregate by gender within a private organization that doesn’t get government funding (and sometimes, depending on the funding, when they do).
Augusta finally started letting women in - less than five years ago, but not letting women in was their right under current law.
Frankly, I see nothing special about girls going to a camp like this. They aren’t allowed in Boy Scouts - so yes, we segregate private institutions by gender. This one isn’t “special” its just targeted towards girls.
Oh you poor little princess.
Their are girls on my sons hockey team who play just as rough and tough as the boys and they even change in the same locker room. If your daughter isnt that tough, she needs to be.
And the thing is those girls playing hockey with the boys will in 20 years be the business women who can work side by side and even over any man and who wont be intimidated by them.
Beside in school they have integrated PE, shop, science labs, and home ec classes and the kids handle it. Yeah maybe a girls bra strap will show and the boys will act stupid but you know, tough shit. Get used to it girl.
If you look at at old newspaper want ads, you’ll see “Jobs For Men” and “Jobs For Women”. :rolleyes: However, there are still situations where employers can request one gender or another - those where the opposite gender does not belong in that place. I saw this a few years ago when a men’s prison in my area placed an ad for RNs to work at their intake clinic - male RNs only.
When I told that story on another board, of course there had to be a troublemaker who must have asked me in 10 separate posts, “But why couldn’t they just hire women nurses and have security guards in the room?” I finally got to the point where I offered to get that prison’s contact information and send it to her so she wouldn’t ask me again, but she finally either backed off or found someone else to harass.
Good lord. Gimme a damn break.
And I have a hard time believing they change in the same locker room.
Maybe you need to get out more because I’m not lying. Granted they only change down to shorts and t shirts if they need to go further they would go into a stall.
…posts like this demonstrate exactly why “girls still need special treatment.” When you are a part of the problem it isn’t a surprise you are oblivious to the need of a solution. You make ddsun’s point perfectly. Its much easier to focus on learning when you don’t have to put up with people saying things like “oh you poor little princess.”
The problem with that comment has already been addressed.
Why? Because girls need to be more like boys? Why?
Some women are that tough and inclined to play rough, but it’s not universal. Why should we hammer all women into becoming tomboys? (Spoken as a life-long tomboy - girly-girls would be as miserable trying to be me as I would be trying to be them)
You don’t have to play co-ed contact sports to be a successful businesswoman or be immunized against intimidation. The emphasis on that sort of thing being the only route to success is one of the problem with our society.
Not all women want to be a hard-nosed fem-executive - quite a few still want to be mothers, homemakers, teachers of the young, and so forth, and society needs those sorts of people, too.
Why should girls get used to boys acting stupid? Why don’t we stop the boys’ stupidity?
See, you are clearly using the boy’s or man’s situation as the default - that’s a problem. Men are only 49% of the population and holding them up as the sole standard isn’t good for the rest of us or for society as a whole. Girls should not have to get used to harassment dismissed as “stupidity”. Boys should be taught that such behavior is inappropriate.
If boys are being stupid/inappropriate you are completely right.
But are they, really?
Telling boys they suck and they should sit still has the potential to be very harmful. Girls/women now do much better in education than boys/men. At the same time, in lower grades there are fewer and fewer male teachers. Could part of the reason for that be that the majority of female teachers are expecting boys to act like girls, and seeing problems in typical boy behavior that aren’t really problems but just normal behavior?
About the 49/51%: 51% of babies born are boys. But men die at higher rates than women. So obviously health care is discriminating against men and this has to stop.
I’ve seen schools where there is hardly a man in the building, even to the middle school level. Not just female teachers but principal, PE teacher, even the janitor. Not a male role model in the building.