No subject

Denver, Colorado 1975: girls not allowed to take shop
classes.  Home ec required.
 
Mary:
 
I went to a very small high school.  It was 3 years of home ec or  1 of 
chemistry and 1 of  physics.  Girls could take either path,  and I chose the 
latter.  No surly teacher, though--he was the school's  superintendent, and his two 
daughters were both in those classes with  me.

Sekhmet:
Denver, Colorado 1977: girls not allowed to take
weight training  classes.

Hollywood, Florida 1980: girls not allowed to take
weight  training classes.

Not even counting the disparaging off-the-cuff  remarks
from teachers and guidance counselors.
 
Mary:
Ingleside, Texas 1951-1954:  What weight training classes?  We  barely had 
Phys. Ed.  For that matter, we didn't have guidance counselors,  either.  I 
don't recall any disparaging remarks from any of the  teachers.

>To  paraphrase Ekaterin, people don't 
> just  give you the right to do these  things, you
> have to take  it.


And not everyone's parents can afford a lawsuit to
force the school  system to let girls take shop and
boys take home ec. Fortunately someone else  could and
did, which is why I was able to be in those classes in
1976 and  1978 respectively, trying to learn from
resentful teachers.
 
Mary:
There was a home ec class for boys in my high school.  Since we had  very few 
available electives, some took it. 

Sekhmet:
<shrug> I'm glad there are people who never
experienced it, but I  think you were lucky. Those
conditions existed for some of us, and left a  lasting
impression. 
 
Mary:
I guess I may have been lucky, but I knew girls in my  100-student high 
school who rode in rodeos, did minor carpentry,  and yard work, and in college 
there were female engineering, agriculture,  chemistry, biology, and physics 
majors.  I majored in biology.  About  half of our professors were female.  And I 
believe the same was true  of most Texas state-funded universities at that 
time.  I started my  M.S. in the middle sixties, and it hadn't changed at that 
time.  (I  didn't take flying lessons until I could pay for them myself,  though.)





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