Inspired by the 06-26-2014 “Dear Amy” advice column in which a teenage girl expressed concerns about showering in gym class when there’s an openly lesbian coach present. My question: why is it ok for a lesbian to have the run of the girls’ locker room, but not a heterosexual male?
Yeah, if she weren’t the coach that would still be her locker room. Not so for the male.
Not really seeing a double standard here.
What if the kid was a boy, and the coach was a gay male? I’m guessing similar level of outrage. Also similar answer. If he wasn’t the coach that would still be his locker room.
Yeah, I have to agree with Little Cat… it sounds like a consistently applied standard that you have a problem with? Or what are you suggesting exactly?
We all know the answer: The difference is that Men Are Sex Pigs. Gay, straight or bi, Men Are Sex Pigs.
There’s no double standard. I would like to say that the standard is stupid, but even if I wasn’t particularly worried about a teacher doing something overtly nefarious, I must admit that (at least in today’s society) a male is far more likely to surreptitiously bring a camera in or otherwise do something regrettable.
I think that there’s a good chance that separating the sexes is a cause of such behavior among men, but a lot would have to change to test that, not just this one thing.
It seems to me the OP assumes the reason we separate men’s and women’s locker rooms is to avoid sexual titillation. By that standard we should be ok putting gay men in women’s locker rooms and vice versa.
While I see the logic the OP is after I think it remains that social mores of our society has it that naked men and women should not intermingle (except for private sexy time of course but that is…private).
Ideally there should not really be a taboo on nakedness but for now that is what we have.
First of all, lesbian women aren’t the same as straight men, any more than gay men are the same as straight women. (Men are more interested in no-strings sex than women are, and that’s the case whether they’re gay or straight).
Secondly, there’s an inherent difference in muscle mass and strength between men and women, that there isn’t between two lesbian women.
And third, the vast majority of people are straight, and so your chances of unwanted sexual attention and/or harassment, if you’re a woman, are much greater from a straight man than a lesbian women. Institutions like restrooms are constructed based on general norms, not on the exceptions.
Those are three good reasons not to really care about lesbian women in the women’s restroom.
Oink?
How about a transsexual teacher who feels she is a woman but was born with a penis?
So much so that there are jokes about it. I heard this one from a gay friend: “What does a fag bring on a second date? His boyfriend and some ‘party favors’. What does a lesbian bring on a second date? A moving truck.”
Yes yes of course, but why do seventh-graders need supervised locker rooms in the first place? Are they not to have any space free of constant adult supervision, even whey they’re almost adults themselves?
I do think it is sort of a double standard, but it’s for practical reasons - what are you going to do other than have same-sex locker rooms? Have another locker room for lesbians, another for gay men, another for bisexuals, another for trans people, etc etc?
It’s also because you can usually spot a man easily (esp. in a locker room) but you can’t do so with a lesbian. Even butch lesbians, because there are butch straight women too. So a woman doesn’t have that visual clue to make her feel unsafe, and feeling unsafe is a large part of the reason for segregation rather than actually being unsafe. Same for men WRT gay men. (Note: I’m not saying that feeling unsafe is without grounds here).
Unsupervised school locker rooms would be a haven for bullies.
Seventh-graders are hardly “almost adults”; they’re typically twelve, aren’t they? And schools have a duty of care towards pupils; that requires that staff have access to, and responsibility for, all areas where pupils might be.
On the OP, I agree with what others have said; our long-established social convention is to segregate locker-rooms, toilets, etcy by gender, not by sexual orientation.
I get that a seventh-grader might feel self-conscious about nudity in the company of someone who might feel an attraction to a person of her (or indeed his) gender. But, let’s face it, seventh-graders are pretty apt to feel self-conscious about nudity in any company. And I think we help them not by telling them, yes, you are right to be concerned, we must expel anyone who concerns you, but by helping them develop to a degree of self-confidence and self-respect such that contextually appropriate nudity is not stressful for them.
It’s not a double standard. She’s a woman and it is a womens’ locker room.
Bingo. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with who goes in which locker room.
I think that’s overstating it a bit. The reason we don’t generally have co-ed bathroom and locker rooms is that our society is structured around traditional gender norms which have a lot to do with sexual orientation.
Many colleges now allow co-ed roommates on precisely the reasoning that the single-sex model is heteronormative.
That’s not an argument against single-sex locker rooms by any means. But I think you have to acknowledge that sexual orientation of the majority absolutely has “something to do with it.”
Right, but it’s hardly a “double standard” that society hasn’t caught up to changes in gender norms. Double standard implies a deliberate distinction, which is not present here.
Fine, but this has nothing to do with the OP, which was about a supposed double-standard. It’s not a double standard at all.
Yes, I agree. Perhaps I was reading too much into the comment, based on things said earlier in the thread.
And at some point - after proper training and background checks and so on - you do have to trust teachers not to sexually harass their students.