primalmommy@IVILLAGE.COM on wed 20 jun 01
Jay wrote:
>I really do not believe
>the pigeonholing of sexes can be >validly blamed "on the system."
>Individuals, locales, institutions may >be different, but the person
>really needs the desire to learn, to >be aggressive, if necessary to
>fight for the right to learn.
Jay, I agree; but we first have to be exposed to an option before we develop an interest. Some of the classes I most enjoyed were the ones I groaned, initially, about having to take. And when I taught college students, they were perpetually moaning about how half their curriculum was "irrelevant" to their futures. I knew (and they didn't yet) that most would change majors several times in the following years, and most would not end up working in the career they had envisioned. they also fail to consider that there is life outside of work that might require, say, an appreciation of art, an ability to cook, or some "trade" skills as well.
Jay says: >With all the educational >opportunities currently at our command >with community colleges, non->traditional programs at colleges and >universities, and independent >programs, one can remedy fairly easily >the lack of educational opportunities >caused by sex discrimination in the >past.
Assuming that, once in the workplace or raising a family, the individual has an unlimited supply of time and/or money to remedy what might better have been offered in the school years.
Jay said:
>Here even in the land of Jesse Helms, >we have women learning welding
>through sculpture class, women >building and firing wood kilns at UNC >at Asheville and women are producing >beautiful, magnificent pieces of
>furniture at Haywood Tech...
I am going to be 40 this weekend, and I was not schooled in today's more open climate. I meet, everywhere I go, women whose kids are grown who are continuing their educations, with a great clarity about their goals. We don't have that clarity, though, as kids, which is why it falls upon parents and teachers to make sure we present kids with the "full pallet of colors" to choose from. If women choose traditional female roles, or men choose traditionally male ones, then it is because it's what suited them best, not because they had never been presented with the full menu to choose from.
Thanks for your thoughts... Yours, Kelly in Ohio
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