Gender equality is important. Critical, even, given society's propensity to marginalise and objectify women. But gender emancipation should not come at the cost of emasculation.
This amounts to trolling whether you intend it that way or not, and predictably sparked a tedious ideological thread. That's emphatically not what HN is for, so would you please not post like this again?
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14852819 and marked it off-topic.
What I'm saying is that higher levels of testosterone in men increases their competitiveness and appetite for risk.
Depriving boys (and men) of an outlet for that competitiveness is folly. Expecting men to take up crocheting just because equality is folly.
I support giving men and women equal opportunity. I support any individual's choice. If a boy wants to play with other boys who are we to interfere? If a boy wants to play with girls or crochet, who are we to interfere?
FORCING equality, equivalence and absolute parity onto women and men will lead, I think, to societal problems. Androgynous sameness. History, and experience, has shown me that anything in the extreme is a recipe for disaster.
Who knows. I may be wrong (I've been wrong before), but I have yet to hear a compelling counter argument.
I disagree. In fact, I think this kind of stuff is very harmful for development.
Imagine telling someone that they need "white-only" time, to unburden themselves from the special requirements imposed by hanging out in mixed company. It only serves to perpetuate out-sized notions of existing differences between genders.
Boys and girls (at least the majority of them) behave and socialize visibly differently, and can benefit from it. Races do not have the same sorts of inherent distinct needs, and if they do it's typically more granular than "white" or "black"; more likely you want time with the Italian side of your family, or the Somali side, or with your girlfriend's Panjabi roots.
Why do you think so many women occasion a "girls' night out", or men "hang out with the guys"?
Boys and girls have a lot more significant physiological and sociological differences than whites and blacks. Whereas, for example, the noticeable differences between a Japanese woman and a Mestizo woman come down to things like whether the earwax is likely dry or oily, or the probable size of teeth or lips. These sorts of things have basically no relevance or importance to social relationships.
Drawing meaningful distinction between the cohort characteristics of boys and girls is not sexist. I have no interest in determining the rights or freedoms of either group based on these characteristics. I would merely suggest that people in either cohort are likely to have needs that differ more than within each cohort. A hen and a rooster are both chickens, but they are meaningfully distinct as well.
Cultural momentum. They inherit the habit from older generations. May as well ask why Swedes love saunas, or why asian cuisine uses chopsticks.
My friend crowds have not had anything resembling those segregated nights out in forever, and in fact, headway is being made insofar women have men in their bridal parties and vice-versa.
> These sorts of things have basically no relevance or importance to social relationships.
You haven't made a case for why the physiological differences between men and women have relevance.
The biological makeup of men vs. women is a lot more distinct than a one race vs another.
Firstly, there is the most obvious: sex organs and growth. Erections, ejaculation, periods, breast/hip growth, etc. are all sensitive topics, and I have not seen evidence that keeping these topics sensitive is a bad thing. Girls generally hit puberty earlier than boys, so it doesn't really make sense for 12 year old boys and 12 year old girls to be grouped together in certain situations, when girls are having a sexual awakening and boys aren't (as a cohort - obviously everyone hits puberty at different times, but society functions through generalizations).
Secondly, there is the general impact of hormonal differences. Hormonal differences have a striking impact on emotional development, and that needs to be considered when raising children.
Biologically, the only general difference between a black boy and a white boy is their skin color, which at an individual level makes no difference at all to their development. Obviously if society treats these skin colors differently and that impacts development, that is another issue entirely and should be handled separately from any gender issues.
I have a buddy who's been a scout from youth til college, and the net impact of gender-segregated scouting in the USA vs. most other countries in the world is that american kids were clueless and out of place at the global jamboree he went to, since other countries have correctly obsoleted the stupid divide.
If puberty is a salient point for you, maybe you need to group slightly older boys with slightly younger girls. However, before that, you'd need to justify why these developmental differences matter at all for the vast majority of socializing kids do.
And ultimately that's my problem with your post. You are very scared about the idea that some of these cultural gender barriers may be torn down, and you have some biological facts in hand, but you haven't actually made a case for why these biological facts necessitate the erection of cultural barriers. The burden of proof is on you, despite the american status quo lagging behind.
I'm not really sure why American Scouts would be clueless about girls, considering that almost all of them go to schools with girls, participate in other clubs with girls, etc. etc. If they are not interacting with girls, I think that is more a failing of their other social activities, not a failing of the scouts.
Fundamentally, I think the idea is to have some aspects of life / growing up where sexuality can be largely ignored in pursuit of an arguably more constructive environment. i.e. teenagers have a whole lot of hormones, and focus is easier to maintain when you're not thinking about a tumble between the sheets with the person sitting next to you. That's just how our brains are wired.
"Different races are strange for kids, it may cause them stresses firing off their innate biological danger senses, maybe best to keep 'em separate if the other task at hand is too important"
The only thing required to challenge the status quo about a discriminatory practice is the absence of proof. I don't agree that I need to do extra legwork just because I want to change things up.
However, I'm Canadian. And in Canada, scouts don't discriminate. So I don't really have to do anything, other than explain that the American attitude towards this seems very backwards to me.
Gender/sex is different. Sex is quite possibly the most important indicator and impactor of adolescent development. For example, mixing genders absolutely makes sexual behavior more accessible (mixing races does not).
From there, studies have linked increased sexual behavior in adolescents to increased delinquency[1] and strong negative impact on grades for white males (and less inclination to go to college for white females)[2]. The body of work surrounding this topic is still somewhat small, but I would be happy if you could provide a source that indicates increased sexuality has a positive net impact on the productivity of adolescents, or anything to that effect.
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-006-9128-4 [2] http://www.jstor.org/stable/2786919?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont...
> gender emancipation should not come at the cost of emasculation
Your compassionate/benevolent/mild/well-meaning sexism is still sexism.
I'm curious if you can come up with a definition of "masculinity" that doesn't exclude women from basic human virtues and duties.
Forgoing the natural biological propensities that genders (and races) have is much more harmful for development and for this society as a whole. Start seeing reality for how it is, not how you wish it to be Roderic.