The Politics of Sex Disparity Of all the institutions that ha | Human Nature

The Politics of Sex Disparity

Of all the institutions that have been developed to improve the relationship between the sexes, co-education is the most important. This institution is not universally accepted; it has its opponents and its advocates. Its supporters’ chief argument is that through co-education the two sexes have the chance to get to know one another at an early age and that this early familiarity can to some extent break down prejudice and save a lot of anxiety later.

The opponents of co-education usually argue that boys and girls are already so different by the time they enter school that educating them together only accentuates these differences since the boys feel pressured. This is because during the school years girls develop more quickly than boys intellectually. The boys, who feel obliged to assert their importance and appear superior, suddenly recognize that their superiority is an illusion. Other investigators have maintained that in co-education boys become anxious in the company of girls and lose their self-esteem.

There is, no doubt, some measure of truth in these arguments, but they apply only when we consider co-education in the sense of competition between the sexes, for the prize of greater talent and ability. If that is what co-education means to teachers and pupils, it is a damaging doctrine. If co-education is to succeed, we need teachers with a better understanding of it. Co-education represents a training and preparation for future co-operation between the sexes in shared tasks. Without such teachers, co-education will fail – and its opponents will feel amply justified in their opposition to it.

Only a poet could capture all the nuances of the whole situation between the sexes. We must be content merely to indicate the main points. An adolescent girl acts very much as though she were inferior, and everything we have said concerning the compensation for physical disadvantages applies equally well to her. The difference is this: the belief in her inferiority is forced upon a girl by her environment. She is so irrevocably channelled into this behaviour that even investigators with a great deal of insight have from time to time fallen into the fallacy of believing in her inferiority. The result of this is that both sexes have finally fallen into the midden of prestige politics, and each sex tries to play a role for which it is not suited. What happens? Their lives become complicated, their relationships are robbed of all candour, and they are stuffed with fallacies and prejudices that destroy any hope of happiness.

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