In year 6, I had trepidations about attending an all-girls
high school, since most of my friends in primary had been boys. At Orientation
Night for my future school, I was told that I would soon enjoy being in a
single sex school, because “you can turn up on a bad hair day without worrying
about it!” And at that problematic age twelve, all I could think was “wow,
these girls are so shallow.”
Five years on and I’m head over heels in love with being surrounded solely by girls. When asked why, the first things that come to mind are the same lines I used to hear: “You don’t have to worry about how you look, you can make a fool of yourself in PE, and there’s no competition over a boy in your class. Also you can get changed in the corridors.” And it sounds just as superficial and shallow coming from my own mouth as anyone’s. But I’ve come to realise that these “ditsy” reasons have a much deeper, more significant meaning. An all-girls school is a safe haven. It’s a unique and relieving break from living in a male dominated society, where – on some level or other – girls have no choice but to worry about their looks, their appeal to men, their position as a “girl” rather than a “person”. An all-girls school is an escape from the male gaze.
Aha, there it is: “The male gaze”. Well, what is it?
“The Male Gaze” was initially coined as a
cinematographic phrase by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey, used to describe
the sexist lens through which film was shot. It is still prevalent today, in
the way the camera will subtly-not-so-subtly include a woman’s breasts in a
“headshot” or focus on her during a sex scene far more than her male
counterpart. She also discussed how the gaze extends to include the spectator
of film; how they too objectify women in their consumption of cinema. However
the phrase now encompasses more than just a cinematographic gaze, and refers to
the hypothetical “lens” which all of society is seen through – by our
eyes. The male gaze is not only the way
the world is seen by (usually straight white) men, but that we are conditioned
to believe that’s how it’s supposed to
be seen. And so it’s not just straight-white-men objectifying women, it’s
almost everyone. Gotta love internalised oppression.
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| Laura Mulvey |
What does the male gaze look like?
Most notably, the male
gaze arrives in the form of perceiving women as sexual objects. Everyday
experiences of women who are catcalled, date raped, or vilified for refusing
sex when a guy buys them a drink are examples of men's entitlement to the female
body; an entitlement bred by the male gaze. When boys are conditioned to “get
in there”, and are celebrated for their sexual exploits, women are reduced to
“three holes and two boobs”; the object of men’s sexual subject. Of course,
this manifests in rape culture and slut shaming, but also in smaller nuances of
our lives. If we understand society only through the male gaze, women are
expected to dress and act accordingly. A woman who doesn’t enjoy makeup may
wear it because she has internalised the expectation to be attractive under the
male gaze. For the same reason, girls feel pressured to wear clothes revealing
more than they are comfortable with, or feel stressed at the prospect of sweating
too much during PE. Society is so drenched in the male gaze that even women
perpetuate it, as they have been conditioned to self-hate, and hence hate on
other women. And on the other end, men are conditioned to expect this entitlement. For every post bemoaning a story of “bitches”
who wear short skirts, accept the offer of a free drink and flirt with a guy
but then reject his offer of sex, society deepens its assumption that women
exist to give men what they “deserve”, with no regard to her autonomy over her
body and her choices. Men are taught to see through the male gaze and treat
women’s bodies as if they are owed the right to stare, comment on or touch it
by the normalisation of this behaviour that then perpetuates in a vicious
cycle. Naturally this harms men, who, under the male gaze, can only be accepted as hyper-masculine, sexually aggressive neanderthals. Men who do not display the correct image - particularly LGBTIQA+ men - are shamed for their lack of macho-ness.
It becomes an even bigger issue when looking at it intersectionally. Since the male gaze dictates sexualised beauty standards and desirability, Women of Colour are alienated from the social norm of "sexiness", and what is supposedly required to satisfy a man. This furthers the exoticism of WoC, as they are pushed into a category of "other" and hence "exotic" in order to be submitted to the gaze.
There are many solid and reasonable arguments both for and
against having single sex schools, and the one most often overlooked – and perhaps
most significant – is that all girl’s schools are an opportunity for young
women to at least sometimes avoid the male gaze. This allows them to develop into
people, rather than into sexualised girls who only understand their existence
as the object of a patriarchal lens on society. Of course, this doesn’t mean
co-educational schools are the spawn of the devil himself, but it is an
environment where harmful social norms can manifest stronger and more easily,
requiring great effort later in life to undo.
Let me know your thoughts on single-sex schools and the male
gaze in the comment below J
Hannah
Hey Hannah, love the post again. I have a couple of questions though about the same-sex schools stuff. Whilst I hugely understand what you’re saying about girls feeling far more at ease in an all-girls environment at school, I wonder the extent to which harmful attitudes towards women are cultivated in all-boys schools, and whether, on balance, segregating schools like that is worth it? Obviously co-ed schools aren’t immune from patriarchal tendencies and power structures and whatnot, but you’d think (or maybe hope) that, to some extent, having girls achieving academically and playing sport around young, impressionable boys would have some kind of positive impact on their perceptions of women more broadly. And while of course it’s better for girls *within* the school grounds to have that security that comes with just being surrounded by other girls, when you leave school and have to sit on a bus with a bunch of schoolboys or walk past them on the street, maybe the kind of stewing misogyny that can develop in boys schools would manifest in really nasty ways, e.g. more frequent catcalling, even sexual assault etc. I mean, as you know, I go to a boys school, and while I’d hope that we were sliiiiiiiightly better than your average boys school in terms of feminism/positive attitudes etc., there’s a fair amount of sexist humour and stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteI don’t actually know if I believe this haha, and there are obvs plenty of other reasons that single sex schools may or may not be a good idea, but food for thought. Keep up the good work! :)
Hey Sam, you're legit my best reader haha :)
DeleteI definitely agree that there are heaps of arguments for and against same-sex schools, due to the trade off between a positive separation of women at a vulnerable age, and the discrimination that same separation can cause from men. Although all girls' schools were established with sexist gender-segregation aims, I think society is at a stage where we can endorse these separatist tactics by acknowledging modern attitudes towards its benefits (such as what I wrote in the article, amongst other things). However that doesn't meant it overcomes all adverse effects. All girls' schools have less resources, classes, and lower results for STEM subjects, the PD curriculum puts an emphasis on victim shaming, and disorderly behaviours around food are normalised, etc.
And exactly as you said, separation for women must also mean the same for men, which rarely has positive outcomes.
Basically I think single-sex schools are more beneficial than not only if all boys schools do not exist. Of course this doesn't work too well realistically, for obvious reasons...
So after all that I'm pretty undecided what my ideal education system would look like. I mainly think that the point I made in the article needs a lot more air-time, as when people discuss single-sex schools it is often ignored.
Hope this makes sense, it's a bit roundabout. :)
A question that often comes up is - with the preface that all girls' schools are better than co-ed - should we sacrifice some girls by putting them into the co-ed system to benefit boys, whilst letting others receive the benefits of an all girls' school?
DeleteAnd of course, that preface may not stand; its a very two-sided debate
Yep - although it's also questionable (at least I think) whether or not all girls' schools being generally better than co-ed schools is inherent. I mean, sure you can look at the most successful schools like Sydney Girls, Abbotsleigh, SCEGGS etc. and say "Well they're single sex and do better, it must be a better system", but lots of that might be attributable to the history of the schools, whether or not they're selective, (especially for places like SCEGGS) the amount of donations they receive from old girls and hence resources/facilities etc. All girls' schools could well be better though (I've never actually seen studies about it so idk).
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