Via Amanda, The Happy Feminist's post on the movement to institute gender segregation in public schools is really good. Part of the motivation for separating the genders, as a school district in Louisiana is trying to do, is so that different forms of "character education" can be imposed on boys and girls. Here are the last three paragraphs of her post:
It is a common critique that feminists deny any differences betweenthe sexes. But no serious feminist does. Obviously, neurological andhormonal differences play a role in our behavior and intellectualdevelopment. What feminists say -- over and over again -- is that wehave to proceed with extreme caution in evaluating and acting on thesedifferences. With all sort of overblown and very ingrained culturalassumptions and stereotypes permeating our lives, we tend to assign fartoo much weight and leap to all sorts of unsupported conclusionswhenever we learn about a particular average difference between thesexes. And we tend to forget that the sexes are far more alike thandifferent and that many people don't match the supposed norm for theirgender. These conclusions naturally tend towards the notion that womenare less capable all around, except in tasks like tending home andhearth which happen to be unpaid and unpowerful jobs.
