Talking Points #9

“School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap” By Peggy Orenstein


This article is about:

Gender
Equality
Society
Women
Rights
History
Lesser
Male
Female
Education
Gender-fair classrooms
Male dominance

Author's Arguments:

Peggy Orenstein argues that there should be gender equality within the curriculum giving students the opportunity to study both men and women which will allow the students to open their eyes to both genders being of equal importance.

“‘It disturbed me that although girls were willing to see men as heroes, none of the boys would see women that way.’” pg 5

“‘I think that it’s the resentment of losing their place. In our other classes, the teachers just focus on men, but the boys don’t complain that that’s sexist.’” pg 11.

“‘Because I include women, I’m seen as extreme. If I took those lessons out and concentrated only on men’s experience for a whole year, that would be ‘normal’’” pg 14.



As a girl I never really thought of making the curriculum in my classroom more female based, not making it the more dominant gender, but making it equal to the male gender. I think how Ms. Logan did it in her class was interesting making all of the boys do their projects on a female and all of the girls do it on a male. For a girl, to do a project on a male and to dress up like them isn’t a big deal because it happens all the time. When a group of girls have to do a project and one has to dress up like the boy, it isn’t a big deal. But if a group of all boys has to do a project and one has to dress up like a girl, they change the project all around. But since Ms. Logan made it necessary for all of the boys to do a monologue of a woman in history, it wasn’t as big as an issue as it could have been.

I think that it is so funny how much this society has gone backwards when it comes to sexuality and gender. In the ancient Greece, homosexuality was a normal thing, and everyone did it, and it wasn’t as huge of an issue as it is today. Some people shun others who are gay, when it used to be the normal way of life. The same goes for the theatre, who do you think played the women in all of Shakespeare’s plays? That’s right, men! Now when we have to talk about women in history and when these kids had to dress up like them and become the person, it wasn’t considered to be normal. I think that it is a way to teach the struggle that women had and that these young boys can help change the way women are treated. I would defiantly do an exercise like this in my class. It might not be considered normal, or well received by the parents, but at the end of the day if the students learn something from it, nothing else will matter.