When I was growing up, many Catholic grammar schools in Brooklyn had separate entrances for boys and girls. Classrooms were also segregated. This was not my personal experience, but I recall passing by parishes and seeing doors on opposite sides of the building with signs above the entrances that read “Boys” and “Girls,” respectively.
Recently, I was made aware of a progressive school in Manhattan that strives to eliminate prejudices that can exist between men and women, or in this case boys and girls. This is accomplished by pairing 5th graders with 1st graders of the opposite sex. At first blush, so to speak, this sounded amazing. After some further thought, this is bazzo. My mother would not allow her 5-year old baby to be partnered with a 10-year old, particularly to tell her little girl that it’s okay for boys to like pink.
When I turned 17, my family started mulling over who would make the best husband for me. Michael the lawyer? Tony the cop? No, maybe Dr. Vito has a colleague… Oy vey, seriously people?! I averted that fate but I didn’t escape a lifetime of being a good girl, doing my duty to take care of the males in our family, one meatball at a time.
“Serve your Uncle.”
“Help your Mother.”
I thought Cinderella was Italian because (a) her name ends in a vowel, and (b) she was told to ‘do the dishes’ even more than I was. I fought convention and went away to college, but cooking, cleaning and caring for uncles, nephews, grandpas and every other dude in the family just hasn’t been as easy to kick.
Thinking back to those Catholic schools that separated the boys and girls I must wonder what those grown-up men and women make of today’s approach to education and to the battle of sexes that’s taken a whole new turn. The battle isn’t always between men and women. It’s not that girls are good or boys are bad anymore. Girls are boys. Boys are girls. There are no girls or boys. Identify-as and gender-neutral, plus every other permutation in between. Madonna! That’s a lot of separate entrances!!
