WOMEN AND EDUCATION

Abstract

As a society, we North Americans like to imagine that we offer equal educational opportunities to everyone; I suppose that by now it is a known fact that we do not. Indeed, every time we examine our educational structures and concepts, we find glaring inequities which had been overlooked before. Often it is difficult to identify and deal with those inequities because they have initially been created by our blindest and most deep-rooted prejudices. For example, none of us is indifferent to the opposite sex; we all have opinions and feelings. Many of our concepts are based on our image of the opposite sex and often our sexuality and that of others raises great anxiety. At other times we may feel love and desire, and sometimes revulsion as well. But whatever their nature, they are genuine feelings and their intensity makes it most unlikely that we will ever willingly examine their source or be automatically able to give up those customs which we as a society have created to deal with these important emotions. It is my purpose here to demonstrate how important our concept of sex-roles has been in perpetuating a situation of educational and vocational inequality between the sexes to the detriment of the whole society. I will then explore some steps to redress these inequalities and, I think, towards the creation of a more viable and less lopsided philosophy of education.