End gender apartheid in school

A fortnight ago, some self-appointed arbiters of decency stripped a woman in public because of her dressing.

Her shaming was completed when someone uploaded the incident online so that it could live in digital echo chambers eternally.

Most people (I believe) condemned the actions, while a few supported the barbarians.

An online war ensued. I was shocked by the men’s sense of entitlement when it came to women’s bodies. There are, clearly, many men who deny female autonomy by claiming conservative moralism.

A crime that depersonalises a person, like a public stripping, can be considered violence against a whole sex, particularly in our society, where men’s honour is still entombed in women.

Then followed a march declaring women’s right to dress as they see fit. However, it did little to dam the streams that water the rivers of misogyny.

AFRICAN CULTURE

Perhaps the most disconcerting thing was the women who supported these moralising fools.

The problem with African culture is that it tends to demonise individuality and deviation from the norm because it was developed at a time when collectivisation was necessary because communities needed all the available manpower since it lived close to disaster.

Individualism is a gospel of plenty and security, both of which were luxuries for most African communities.

Apart from religion and culture, there is a third source of misogyny that is often overlooked: Education, particularly in high school.

Many public primary schools are co-educational, but when you get to high school, the sexes tend to be split.

Almost all national and provincial high schools are both boarding and single-sex. The logic behind this segregation is that “single-sex schools perform better than co-educational facilities”.

The claim is that boys will be “distracted” by girls. Apparently, men become more stupid when women are around, so this gender apartheid must be upheld.

MID-SEX SCHOOLING

A bit of oestrogen in the room and the male pubescent mind will go into collapse. Boys will be turned into brain-addled zombies due to female giggles, and the girls, meanwhile, will keep getting pregnant.

In fact, I am shocked that the mullahs who hold these views have not called for a ban of opposite-sex teachers in schools.

We know this is rubbish. Finland is one of the best countries to be a woman and also embraces mixed-sex schooling.

It also regularly appears close to the top of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

It is obvious that the environment a person is in and the curricula he or she studies has a larger impact on his or her educational attainment than his or her sex.

The reason single-sex schools dominate the standings when the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education results are announced has nothing to do with sex.

These schools pick the best students from the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education, hire the best teachers and have the best facilities.

SINGLE-SEX INSTITUTIONS
The fact that all national schools are single-sex guarantees that the top school cannot be a mixed-sex institution. High school should not provide a place where perceived gender differences are used as a legitimate basis for discrimination.

There are a lot more boys’ schools with excellent facilities than girls’, so we should desegregate to ensure women enjoy the full benefit of these facilities.

High schools, particularly boys’, are run by hideous sadists. They are filled with misery and privations leavened with the threat of violence.

Boys’ schools are stagnant pools for breeding shallow misogyny, and one way in which the schools could be improved is by including girls.

This would end the excesses of our hideous drill masters. The sub-culture of self-destructive 'machoness' could be curtailed.

The gym monkeys who spend all their time in school exercising to sculpt hideously deformed bodies would learn that there is more to life than muscles.

Also, I imagine, the boys would make more of an effort to smell better if there were girls around.

PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY
More importantly, it would afford men the perspective of a woman and teach them to socialise better as equals with women.

Classrooms offer a place to learn and socialise with the other sex. Besides, the interactions would largely be supervised.

By separating the sexes, we only make views on gender rigid. We communicate the idea that women are different from men, and, somehow, this ends up elevating men since we live in a patriarchal society.

Women almost always end up being demonised as weak.

Our society is rife with sexism, and the answer cannot be segregation. Separation currently emphasises differences and encourages extremes, particularly among men.

It isn’t surprising that a common admonition in high school was: “Wacha umama (Stop acting like a woman)!” Women always end up being denigrated in these artificially masculine environments.

Gender bias in society is hard to overcome but we should confront it. This bias cannot be tackled effectively in an unrealistic environment that does not take into account the unsegregated nature of society.