Blog Assignment #6 Gender Equality

As I look around at everyone else’s blogs (I do not know if this is cheating), I notice that everyone is generally coming up with the same material in reply to the prompt. In general, everyone’s answers involve some sort of class distribution, or distribution in a sports team or otherwise. I do not agree that this is the proper way to answer the prompt…after all it mentions equal opportunity. There is nothing mentioned about equal performance. The fact that there may be more females in one class does not mean that they are given more opportunities---there is another factor that people are missing/forgetting. Males and females a) have distinct biological and physiological differences, and/or b) have different societal expectations. The opportunities are generally there for the picking. There are no classes that are marked as “girls only” or “boys only”---besides PE. If the proportions are off scale it is either because females are academically more ambitious/smarter than males in some subjects, or that it is not “cool” for the males to excel in certain classes. Either way, no one is putting a gun to their heads, demanding what classes to take and not to take. The doors are there to be opened, but will they open them? The athletic area of schools today is perhaps unequal in its opportunity. Teams are generally divided into gender---similar to segregation. Now I would be perfectly comfortable with the notion that in some sports, the better players are males and the rest are females. If this be the case, classify the male (or mostly male team) as a varsity and the female (or mixed group) as the junior varsity team. The fact that the teams are split in gender suggests that there are different criteria to be met for males and females. A certain female would not be able to meet her potential if she was good enough to play on a male team (by assumption, the better team), and was refused to do so. All in all, the school system has made it its best interest to give favoritism to neither males nor females in the educational system. The only problem I ever had with favoritism was in regards to the dress code. (I mean girls could wear tank tops but guys could not wear muscle shirts??)