My blog this week is a two-parter: the first is about sex segregation, and the second is about an interview on Oprah I saw this week.
Part One:
“The basic premise is that boys and girls learn in different ways. Separating classes by sex provides an environment in which boys and girls can be taught in the way which best suits their gender.” I found this statement in the opinion section of The Daily Reveille on Monday, November 23rd, and found so many things disturbing about the article entitled “Is sex segregation actually progress for our schools?” The article explains that the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Vermillion Parish School Board. Apparently, the parish has deemed that the segregation of sexes in the classroom is actually a good thing, and that it encourages this practice amongst its students, despite the fact that the students have the option of choosing to be segregated based on their sex. When did public schools go backward in their teaching methods? I can remember being in middle school and wanting to do better than everyone, no matter their gender, but I certainly didn’t want to be separated from the boys to advance myself.
From what I can gather from the Reveille article, the argument in favor of sex segregation is thus: because boys and girls learn differently, separating them based on their sex, not their educational merit, will help them to learn better and at their own pace. I fear that this argument only encourages the “boys versus girls” mentality that we’ve all been engaged in since preschool, and which we’ve striven to eliminate for years. Isn’t it mentally healthy for male and female students to learn in the same environments, as each gender can gain something from the other? I can’t seem to understand why a public school system would actually want to separate the genders in the classroom. The cynical part of me would say that the school board believes that boys learn faster than girls, and separating the two genders allows for the boys classes to be taught at a faster pace, leaving the girls in the dust and thinking that they are actually less-than competitive in a man’s world. I am not consoled by the article’s statement that the advocation for sex segregation is “based on a set of stereotypes of what an average boy or girl is interested in and how he or she should best be taught.” Can Vermillion Parish please go back and look at the immense progress women have made in being taught the same subjects as men?
Part Two:
I was watching Oprah this week and her guest was ex-porn star Jenna Jameson. Oprah had Jenna on the show to talk about her career in the adult entertainment industry and how she is now retired, and living as a wife and mother. Jameson’s articulate answers to Oprah’s questions gave me a new light on which to look at her. Jameson explained that while she was in the industry, she wanted to beautify the content and make it more real for the viewer, giving them a more visceral experience. When asked how many partners she’d been with, Jenna explained that she never wanted to be intimate with more than 5 men in her entire career, and I found that absolutely shocking considering the amount of films that she had made. She’s the world’s most recognizable “porn star,” and she stated, very matter-of-factly, that her partner in the majority of her films was her husband.
Now that Jenna is retired, she is a mother to two boys, both of a younger than toddler age. Oprah addressed the fact that one day Jenna will have to answer her boys’ questions regarding their mommy’s old job as a sex symbol. Teary-eyed, Jameson stated that she only wants her boys to look at her as a loving mother who made a career for herself, being very in-control of her status. She doesn’t want her boys to think of her as a slut or a whore, but rather as an unconventional businesswoman. I found this to be completely admirable. For a woman to be in such a position of power in the adult industry, Jameson was, and is, certainly at the top of her game.
Cheers,
Patsy
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