Talking Point #9

School Girls
By: Peggy Orenstein


Premise:
- Schools
- Women
- Men
- Self-esteem
- Gender-fair
- Participation
- Harassment
- Equity
- Empowerment
- Hidden-curriculum
- Women's rights
- Mockery

Argument:
- I believe that her argument is that gender-fair curricula need to be developed and implimented in all schools so that females will feel more comfortable and have more self-esteem in the classroom setting and gain more respect from men.

Evidence:
*Much of her evidence stems off of the practices of Ms. Logan.
-During the discussion about sexual harassment more of the girls were willing to voice their opinions while many boys were lost for words.
-One of the boys in Ms. Logan's class says that he is embarassed at the way that he talks about and treats women. He also says that because of what the girls in the class have said he will try and treat women better.
-She also presents a space where women feel empowered. Her classroom is filled with photos and books about women. Women are able to feel important and comfortable in Ms. Logan's classroom atmosphere.

Comments:
-The article was very good and interesting. At first I was a bit aggravated when I saw how long the article was. After reading it I realized that I breezed right through it. I was such and easy read and was quite engaging. One part that I was very surprised about was how crude some of the language was. When some of the students were talking about sexual harassment they were saying words to their teacher that I could never imagine a sixth to eigth grader saying to any teacher. I also thought it was sad to hear some othe the girls stories about how they feel they have been sexually harassed. I really liked the idea of Ms. Logan's classroom. She seems like she really makes the class fun and interesting. I like that the boys in the class get to have the experience of being the minorities. I was glad to see that because of some of Ms. Logan's practices many of the boys were changing the way that they see women. I think women need more teachers like Ms. Logan in the world.