I very much disagree - otherwise, why split according to gender?
As I said, because of limited seating.
It was poor planning all around. If the theater couldn't accommodate them, the trip shouldn't have been planned in the first place. They should have planned something for all students or none at all.
BBM...I already agreed with this in my post. But I think it would also be a bummer to let this opportunity go by. You can show kids that this is an important subject by taking some of them to see it on the big screen, or you can make them wait until the whole group can see it on a video at school. Either way you do it, I think there is both a good message and a poor message.
Separating the group by gender, and then picking different movies based on what would appeal to that gender (which is more tired old stereotypes), IS telling girls they are less than. It isn't hoopla to point out that this is discrimination. Most gender discrimination isn't overt - its subtle, insidious things like separate pink Legos for girls and children's books with male protagonists because boys "won't read books about girls."
This is not what happened. They wanted to take the kids to see this movie. There was only room for X kids. I'm sure they looked at the numbers (maybe by grade, certainly by gender) to see what group could fit. When they realized the boys could fit, they probably tried to think of an equally appropriate movie for the planned theme and objective (Black History Month) that the girls could see. Akeelah and the Bee is a great choice.
I don't think acknowledging differences is making girls "less than." I think it's a fact of life. Just like there was not one single guy in the theater when I went to see Twilight, and how we saw zero females heading into a midnight showing of Thor (but boys as young as about 5 on a school night! In costumes! WTH???).
If you had a bunch of kids and some pink legos and some blue or black legos, but not enough for either group to have all the same (and if, for some reason, everyone had to have all the same color instead of a mixture...this analogy doesn't really hold up) would you give the boys the pink just to be PC? Because that's asking for trouble. Our kids' school hands out binders randomly without considering gender or color, and the first thing all the boys do is try to find a girl to switch with them if they get a pink or even purple one. It drives them nuts because my DD isn't a pink or purple kind of girl and won't switch with them.
If they had only sent black children to see the movie, and had the white kids stay back and watch a movie with a white protagonist, would it be hoopla to call it discriminatory? Because that's pretty much the same thing.
I think it would have been equally poor planning, but less likely to happen because people are so sensitive to even the appearance of racial discrimination. I feel pretty confident that this decision was made in good faith without considering that it would be seen as discriminatory.
Actually, I take that back; it would have been much worse and is not the same thing. Having been a teacher and raised three children of my own (both boys and girls) I know from experience that there are loose generalizations that can be made about the
likes and dislikes of girls and boys. I know of no such generalization about likes and dislikes that holds true for racial differences.
As I said, not the best plan but I don't think it's even remotely newsworthy outside this community.
:floorlaugh: )
