I sppose I am less of an optimist about the Daly affair. The "two together"
till death do us part Noah's Ark narrative just seems so blatantly
heterosexist, and I think that is is, in fact, heterosexism that is behind
all the brou-ha-ha (sp?) about Daly's pedagogy. Cuz in fact, we don't "need
each other" and are not "interdependent". Thanks to P. White's wonderful
suggestion, I read Karen Gallas' book last nite - "I can be anything...."
and it is really clear that whether it is in Primary classrooms or
Post-Secondary classrooms, powere struggles are rife and straight white
males are still ending up on top. And so it comes as no surprize that when
anyone suggests taking a little bit of privilege away from straight white
males, they bellow and stomp and produce reams and reams of logic in order
to restore order - order interpreted as a cultural logic where they reign
supreme and uncontested.
I have to confron this frequently in my research working with girls, women
and new technologies. Research very clearly shows that is is beneficial to
girls and women to learn to use computers and other new tools separate from
males. Research also shows that females lag far behind in the techno
revoloution. So why is it that folks often go absolutely ballistic at the
suggestion of girl-only or women-only classrooms?
Because we might catch up?
Mary
Dr. Mary Bryson, Associate Professor and UBC Scholar 1999,
Faculty of Education, UBC
Principal Co-Investigator: GenTech Project
http://www.educ.sfu.ca/gentech/