Talking Points #9

Peggy Orenstein - School Girls

This article is about...

Power

Sexism

Race

Education

Learning

Equality

Orenstain argues that equality between men and woman are not being taught correctly through the school systems and it is in desperate need to be altered. She also states that due to the over view of a classroom and the prints of a text book children (preferable boys) are not only being sheltered from all the great female hero's in history but are not even interested in learning about them at all.

1. "Woman are one-half of the world's people; they do two-thirds of the world's work; they earn one-tenth of the world's income; they own one-hundredth of the world's property."

2. (describing her classroom)"It is the mirror opposite of most classrooms that girls will enter, which are adorned with masculine role models..."

3. "I wondered how the boys, who could only see male experience as relevant, would ever learn to see girls as equals."

Throughout this article i found myself finding everything that i read completely believable. I can remember back in the 4th grade we also had to pick a memorable hero of the passed to research, present and try the best we could to resemble them. As i remember all the girls did females and all the boys in the class picked males for their projects. I believe Orenstein is not sexist and never intended to be. She is just trying to explain equality to young children so that they understand it at a young enough age to be able to follow it throughout the course of their lives and to reteach it to others.