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What happened throughout history. Women and men lived separate lives. Until feminists wanted to integrate the two sexes into the same lifestyle. #MeToo is the natural consequence of feminist activism. We can either accept that these things are going to happen, or keep trying to ameliorate the situation and in the interest of doing so, make the problem worse. There will always be men who assault women, and women who assault men, and women and men who lie about being assaulted to destroy people's lives and any number of combinations of those things you can think of. Stop trying to socially engineer the world into utopia, it ain't happening.
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Last month I got a notice home from school that in my daughter’s grade 4 health class they would be starting “Family Life Education," aka sex ed. As someone who studies sexual violence prevention, this was music to my ears. I was very happy to see that topics related to human sexuality were being addressed at school, as many children get little to no information about these topics at home. We live in New Jersey, which has the highest level of state compliance for CDC recommended topics for sexual education. But a 2015 study found that fewer than half of U.S. high schools and one fifth of middle schools teach essential sexual education topics.
While the topic of sexual education of our children is a squeamish one for parents and children alike (in the interest of full disclosure my husband made faces when reading the memo) – most people report that they got most of their information about sexuality from health class so it is vital that they do get this information. In fact, research suggests that a lack of education can result in increased sexual risk-taking behaviors which puts youth at risk for a host of problems including early pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual victimization.
While some argue that the decision to give our children sexual education is a personal one – that is a debate for another post. What gave me pause was the decision to educate the girls and boys separately. While they made it clear that both groups would be receiving the same information, the girls were going to get the information from the female health teacher and the boys from the male health teacher. At first as a parent, I did not know how I felt about that – on the one hand I can see the kids getting silly when learning about the others’ body parts and as a consequence kids may be more afraid to ask questions – but on the other hand as a sexual violence prevention researcher I felt that it gives children the implicit message that there is something shameful about sexuality and that girls should not know about boys and boys should not know about girls and that girls and boys cannot talk about these topics together. In addition, separating children along traditional gender lines neglects the needs of those kids who are transgendered or non-gender conforming.
As a sexual violence prevention researcher, the explicit and implicit messages that we send to children about sexuality and our bodies have been on my mind lately as I think about how our culture is changing in the Post-Weinstein era. While this has been a challenging time – it is also an exhilarating time where victims are being heard and believed and perpetrators are being held accountable for their actions. We are witnessing a change in the way that we are perceiving unwanted sexual behavior. Thus the message I want to send to my children is that their sexual organs are body parts belong to them, that they are not shameful and that no one has a right to touch them without their permission. I think this message that sexuality and the human body are shameful is what enables abuse. For example, if someone was to punch you or curse at you at school or in the workplace you would not think twice about reporting it. However, if someone pats you on the bottom or makes an unwanted sexual comment we often think that is somehow different and not an assault or abuse. We may feel confused or ashamed or feel that we in some way contributed to the behavior.
So while as a researcher there is no hard evidence to suggest that separating girls and boys for sex ed is “good” or “bad” – to me separating children along gender lines gives the message that there is something secretive or shameful about this topic and it is something that cannot be discussed openly in mixed company. Thus, I firmly believe that the more openly we can talk about these topics, and talk about them without shame and embarrassment, the more comfortable people will feel reporting sexual misconduct when and if it does happen. This will also take away the power from those who perpetrate sexual crimes as they often rely on the victims’ shame to ensure secrecy. Thus I believe that our practices must change and going forth, sexual education for children and adolescents should be done together and not separately.
References
For more information, see: Jeglic, E.J., & Calkins, C.A. (2018). Protecting you child from sexual abuse: What you need to know to keep your kids safe. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. https://www.amazon.com/Protecting-Your-Child-Sexual-Abuse/dp/1510728686
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