{Relative Gender}[23rd January 1991]

[Redbook8:181][19910123:1501b]{Relative Gender}[23rd January 1991]

19910123:1501

[continued]

(I am looking after [d], who is ill at home[,] while [W] is at work for a few days, and so I am watching more daytime television than usual.)*

A programme on single-sex schools this morning asserted that in co-educational schools girls tend to get discouraged from taking up traditionally male-dominated subjects (eg maths and science) whereas in single-sex schools they are encouraged to take up these subjects.**

There is, to my mind, a parallel in the way in which in homosexual relationships it seems that there is a tendency for one partner to take the ‘male’ role, one the ‘female’ role.***

In heterosexual relationships, it is not always the male who takes the male role, or the female the female role. Sometimes they alternate: perhaps this is best.

****

*Excuses!

**[cf [Redbook8:185)][19910123:2353]{Right Male Professions}[23rd January 1991]]

***[This is/was particularly noticeable in homosexual relationships within single sex boarding schools, often being reflected in the relative ages and physical maturity of the participants]

****This suggests the relativity of ‘male’ and ‘female’, and why this should not be identified with physical gender. Note that the ‘male’ {school} subjects tend to be in the upper right quarter, where hierarchy, organisation and tradition might be expected to be strongest at least on the outer circle.

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