I just read this very interesting, recent debate by Camille Paglia.
She nailed it.
.... a volatility in gender roles is usually symptomatic of tensions and anxieties about larger issues. That is, sexual identity becomes a primary focus only when other forms of identification and affiliation—religious, national, tribal, familial—break down.
I consider it completely irresponsible that public schools offer sex education but no systematic guidance to adolescent girls, who should be thinking about how they want to structure their future lives: do they want children, and if so, when that should be scheduled, with the advantages and disadvantages of each option laid out. Because of the stubborn biologic burden of pregnancy and childbirth, these are issues that will always affect women more profoundly than men.
Similarly, our present system of primary and secondary education should be stringently reviewed for its confinement of boys to a prison-like setting that curtails their energy and
requires ideological renunciation of male traits.
But the majority of earthlings do seem to find clear gender roles helpful compass points in the often conflicted formation of identity.
I close with this question: is a nation whose elite education is increasingly predicated on the neutralization of gender prepared to defend itself against that growing challenge?
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