Reader Views on Gender-Divided Social Spaces
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Last week, I asked for your thoughts on all-male and all-female social spaces.
Replies have been edited for length and clarity.
Amy was a Girl Scout as a kid and is now a leader of her 7-year-old daughter’s troop. She solicited her daughter’s opinion:
She said: “I love it! I love that it is only girls. I hope Girl Scouts lasts forever and stays just girls.” The gist was that boys talk loudly all at once, over one another, but in a single-gender space she and her friends can listen to the adult, talk amongst themselves, and respond. At 7 she is aware of the differences in airtime that boys and girls get in class, and she values Girl Scouts as a space where she and her friends can have their voices heard.
