Academic

Some Blatant Self Promotion: Single Sex Education and Masculinity

By David S. Cohen

Please forgive me if this self-promotion is beyond the standards of decency. But, if anyone is interested, I’ve posted the most recent draft of an article I’m working on and would love any feedback people might have if they are inclined to look at it. The abstract is below, and the link to the page where it can be downloaded is here. Thanks!

In late 2006, the Department of Education changed the Title IX regulations to broaden the permissibility of single-sex education in primary and secondary schools. The changes took place in the context of a growing concern over the performance and well-being of boys in American schools. This article describes, dissects, and critically analyzes the narrative about boys, masculinity, and single-sex education that surrounded these changes.

The public narrative about the need for single-sex education focused, in substantial part, on what I call the essentialist myth of masculinity. This article catalogs the important components of this myth: heteronormativity, aggression, activity, sports-obsession, competitiveness, stoicism, and not being girls. The article then shows, using education and gender theory, that this conception of masculinity is harmful to both girls and boys. Instead of pushing this form of masculinity, the law and schools should make room for multiple and varied masculinities for boys (and girls).

The article argues that the Title IX regulatory change that allows for the expansion of single-sex schooling can actually work to further empower and entrench the essentialist myth of masculinity, thus violating its own prohibition on sex stereotyping. By adopting strong interpretations of already-existing jurisprudence about gender stereotyping from both constitutional law and Title IX, the article shows how de-essentializing masculinity is possible and preferable in the law. The article concludes that schools that implement single-sex education must do so for reasons other than promoting an essentialized notion of masculinity and that the law must be vigilant in ensuring that schools? implementation not further reify dominant conceptions of what it means to be a boy.

- David S. Cohen

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on February 15, 2008 (boomark / email).