Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 177 Editor's Choice: 10
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what about single-sex classes in co-ed schools?
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I had a couple of those--P.E. and Health classes. In my Catholic grade school these were co-ed, except for "The Talk" in fifth grade. In my public jr. high, both were single-sex. In high school, P.E. was single-sex and health was co-ed.
I can definately see the advantages of sex-segregating for P.E. and health classes outweighing the drawbacks. As an unusually uncoordinated person, I did not need the embarrassment of missing free throw after free throw in front of boys I wanted to impress, and I'm sure that was also the case for the many uncoordinated boys out there. I can't see that the athletic kids would have gotten any advantage from co-ed gym either, and let's face it--in the real world, unless they're in the military, men and women generally do not NEED to do physical training together.
As for health class--girls are not going to ask questions about "female trouble" in front of boys, and I presume boys are not going to be as candid either in front of girls. Both sexes need to be taught about what goes on with the other sex, but there will be less embarrassment and more information taking hold in their minds when they are not worried about what the opposite sex is thinking of them at that particular moment.
BTW, I was also in a class that (but for me) was de facto single-sex. I took Drafting as a high school freshman. It wasn't forbidden or discouraged for girls; most simply didn't want to take it. I took it because that was where the boys were. Unfortunately, the boys in question turned out to be pretty stupid meatheads, but I did learn to read blueprints. Three years later, my little brother took French I for the same reason I took Drafting. (In the minds of the boys at our redneck school, "only girls speak French.") I think he did all right with the ladies, but he ended up failing French because his mind was too much on other things...
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by any other name...
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gayle--I personally don't have a problem with something called "Young Women's Academy" based solely on the name. You'd have to look and see the actual curriculum, etc. before making a snap judgment. The "Indiana Girls' School" sounds like a finishing school too--but it's actually the state reform school.
In New Orleans, we have a (very expensive and private) school called the Louise McGhee School for Girls. Sounds like a finishing school, probably WAS a finishing school at one time--but apparently it is quite academically rigorous.
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I wouldn't be so keen on bashing the "traditional" feminine businesses...
[Read the article: Old boys' network invests in female entrepreneurs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...that women set up with Kiva loans.
Sewing and selling dresses? How is that different from what Stella McCartney does? Cooking extra food and selling it? Isn't that how Paula Deen got started?
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to Canuckistan Bob
[Read the article: Old boys' network invests in female entrepreneurs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Usually I agree with you, but what specific microcredit program have you dealt with?
I don't know what it's like to be a borrower of microcredit, of course, but on Kiva, there are men as well as women borrowing. Most of the requested loans were in the couple hundred to 1,000 dollar range, and they collected a number of lenders to lend to a specific individual. (For example, I--along with 39 other people--loaned $25 to a man in Beirut. He wanted $1,000 to buy hookahs to expand his tea shop business, and was going to take the proceeds from that to give his son the start-up money to run a paint store. I don't know what sort of bureaucratic hurdles he had to jump through in Lebanon or what kind of business plan he had to write, but that's was enough for me to know to take the risk. And the risk is to me, the lender. I may not get my $25 back. The thing is, I can afford to write off a $25 debt if the business fails, and I can afford to loan $25 without expecting interest.)
Do I think this will save the world? No. But it can give one person a leg up, allow him/her to keep his/her pride of not taking charity, and keep that person from having to resort to third-world loan sharks in order to start or improve their businesses.
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even if the men had NO concern for the women in their lives...
[Read the article: FGM? Not on my wife!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You can damn sure bet on it that they have concern that their male offspring are born healthy.
Show them the difference in stillbirth/brain damage rates for babies born to infibulated vs. intact women. I bet it's enormous.
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pro-lifers don't consistently refuse pre-natal testing...
[Read the article: More "common ground" on abortion? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know many that are against it per se. What they ARE against is aborting on the basis of the results.
I don't know any pro-lifer, religious or not, who is against parents finding out their kid has Down's or spina bifida or what have you through pre-natal testing. Some want to know so that they have more time to make preparations necessary for a special-needs child, and some (especially women who have miscarried before) do not want to take the risk of an amnio.
It's not that different from parents wanting to know if it's a boy or girl before it's born--just like pro-choicers, some pro-lifers want to know, some don't.
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PSOs
[Read the article: Why they stunted their daughter's growth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Humans are defined by their intelligence."
Please, give me an I.Q. cutoff that defines someone as human. Most of us would call a person with an I.Q. of 80 human; in clinical terms, that's mildly-moderately retarded. Koko the gorilla and Alex the African grey parrot were estimated to have I.Q.s in that range.
Can a human cease to be a human if their intelligence falls below a certain line? Using your logic that intelligence makes a person human, my grandmother was a highly intelligent, outspoken human for the first 75 or so years of her life. She gave birth to four decidedly human daughters, who had ten decidedly human children of their own, who have had fifteen decidedly human children of THEIR own so far. But...thanks to Alzheimer's, in the last seven years of her life, Grandma lived a life that very similarly resembled Ashley's. At what point did she cease to be a human?