Why do people self-segregate a lot by gender in Ireland?

noubliezjamais

Something that I've noticed confirmed by two friend from France and Canada. They say that they find it peculiar that in general, Irish men and women in school/workplace tend to group themselves by their gender morseo than other western nations.

I have to agree with them. Even though we are friendly, there's still can be a barrier between men and women who are friends that you don't see in other nations. Is it the Catholicism?

Agent Coulson

I have three friends in Spain and America who disagree with your friends.

Snotty

I have no figures to back this up, but is it due to our larger amount of single sex schools compared to other countries?

johndaman66

Whatever it is or is or isin't I'd suggest its not Catholicism anyway.

Rubberchikken

two friends from different nations hardly constitutes a decent survey.
back it up with facts..

Strumms

Snotty wrote: »

I have no figures to back this up, but is it due to our larger amount of single sex schools compared to other countries?

Sounds reasonable. So you are brought up in your formative years in this country segregated. Unless you attend an Educate Together type setup that is. Then you hit college and bang....sometimes quite literally 🔥

kowloon

Snotty wrote: »

I have no figures to back this up, but is it due to our larger amount of single sex schools compared to other countries?

That could definitely be a part of it, it makes the opposite sex seem that little bit more alien during some pretty important years for social development.

Anteayer

I don't really notice that in the circles I move in but I would suspect that there might be an element of the single gender school influence on some people - if you went to an all male or a female secondary school, sadly a very large % of or perhaps all your friends are going to be the same gender as you.

I've noticed it a bit with people who clung to their school friends through college. I tended to make most of my serious friends in my college days so the school influence was diluted a lot.

The only time I really noticed it was when I was working in an office where almost all the other employees in my department were women and they would literally let me go for lunch on my own a lot of the time. It was actually really isolating.

They used to even do things like say "yeah we're having a girly lunch chat you wouldn't be interested".

It was nothing like Derry Girls. I mean at least they include James!

I've no issue socialising with an all female group as the only guy.

I actually quit the job over it as if was just an awful atmosphere.

Teddy Daniels

Strumms wrote: »

Sounds reasonable. So you are brought up in your formative years in this country segregated. Unless you attend an Educate Together type setup that is. Then you hit college and bang....sometimes quite literally 🔥

Many schools in smaller towns are co Ed

Anteayer

Teddy Daniels wrote: »

Many schools in smaller towns are co Ed

Single gender schools tend to be more of an issue in big cities and long established schools actually. So people from rural areas are far less likely to have has that kind of narrow upbringing than your average Dub or Cork city centre / older suburbs type.

Duckworth_Luas

Great theory, but my research tells me that they have Catholics in France and Canada as well.

Anteayer

The volume of single gender schools in Ireland is pretty weird though. It's reportedly about 1/3 of schools and it used to be a lot higher.

It's something usually only seen in obscure private schools or that you'd only encounter in the developing world and middle East, where there are hang ups about women's education.

It's not a Catholic Vs other religious backgrounds thing, but rather a hangover from a Victorian educational ideology that ended up in Irish public schools.

Ireland's very much an outlier on that in the western world and certainly in the EU. Somehow we clung onto a system that was common elsewhere in the 1800s but died out entirely in the 20th Century.

I know I've two friends from continental Europe who had been working in Dublin but moved back to Germany and France largely because they didn't like the structure of the school system and knew that it might be a struggle to find a less conservative model of school for their kids.

It's genuinely a very strange setup. We just think it's normal because we grew up with it.

Sam Quentin

Maybe they are the gay or never watched Friends? :-)))

Your Face

Speaking for myself.
I don't have many female friends because I'd probably try it on with them eventually.

AndrewJRenko

I was at the parents information meeting for transition year at a mixed school recently. All the girls sat together on one side of the hall and all the boys were in the middle. I'm told it's the same at lunchtimes.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Anteayer wrote: »

The volume of single gender schools in Ireland is pretty weird though. It's reportedly about 1/3 of schools and it used to be a lot higher.

It's something usually only seen in obscure private schools or that you'd only encounter in the developing world and middle East, where there are hang ups about women's education.

It's not a Catholic Vs other religious backgrounds thing, but rather a hangover from a Victorian educational ideology that ended up in Irish public schools.

Ireland's very much an outlier on that in the western world and certainly in the EU. Somehow we clung onto a system that was common elsewhere in the 1800s but died out entirely in the 20th Century.

I know I've two friends from continental Europe who had been working in Dublin but moved back to Germany and France largely because they didn't like the structure of the school system and knew that it might be a struggle to find a less conservative model of school for their kids.

It's genuinely a very strange setup. We just think it's normal because we grew up with it.

It’s funny that private schools continue with it. I tend to think that the private schools know what they are doing.

Anyway it’s probably not the reason. If this happens at all, and it doesn’t in my work or other life, it’s maybe because we had a culture of the men going out and the women staying in.

I enjoy gender segregated nights out myself, as rare as they are now as my friends are intermarried with other friends. A colleague in work goes on a vacation every year with male college friends. Just a short one and it’s to historic places. Sounds good to me.

Edgware

A few lunch hours listening to women talking ****e about kids, wallpaper, bargains in Dunnes Stores will give you agood idea why they are left to themselves

TheValeyard

Strumms wrote: »

Sounds reasonable. So you are brought up in your formative years in this country segregated. Unless you attend an Educate Together type setup that is. Then you hit college and bang....sometimes quite literally 🔥

You're forgetting community schools, ETB schools, community colleges. All mixed.

Anteayer

The private schools don’t “know what they’re doing”. They’re usually just long established, very traditional and not much has changed since the 19th century in most of them.

You’ve a selection bias at intake and parents who value education enough to pay big money.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Anteayer wrote: »

The private schools don’t “know what they’re doing”. They’re usually just long established, very traditional and not much has changed since the 19th century in most of them.

You’ve a selection bias at intake and parents who value education enough to pay big money.

Bit of a tautological argument. Parents send children to private schools because private schools do well because the parents send children to private schools are engaged.

Maybe but there must also be standards upheld in those schools as well, or else the parents would abandon them.

Anteayer

Some of them. I went to one myself and to public schools and there really wasn’t much difference other than the self selecting bias.

My view of it is that back in the day, they were way of paying for access to a network and to avoid a % of problem individuals who will tend not to go there. In general I think once you’re in a fairly sane learning environment with good facilities and can get onwards to university if you want, it’s all good.

Most of the people I work with and went to university with went to normal community schools and similar and all seem to be as successful as the private school types.

The single sex thing though in private schools is largely just down to the age and tradition of most them. The Irish private schools are mostly Victorian era in their origins. If you were to found a private school now, it’s unlikely it would be single gender.

Anteayer

Meh, that wouldn't really be an issue for me. I can keep things platonic. I'm bi though so it's a bit of a necessity as if I took the approach you're suggesting I'd either have no friends of they'd all be very unattractive people lol

eviltwin

I'm a woman and most of my friends are male. I find with my attached friends their opposite sex friends are cast aside once they are in relationships, don't want to make the other half jealous. Luckily my husband knows I'm not into shagging my mates, I'm bi so if he was the jealous type I'd be very lonely

Anyway why does it happen, I think in Ireland we can be very immature when it comes to platonic relationships. Men and women who are close are often subjected to gossip and innuendo. Hanging out with an opposite sex friend is seen as a sign of sexual interest. I think our over reliance on single sex schools and traditional lack of mixed gender activities has a lot to answer for

pleas advice

johndaman66 wrote: »

Whatever it is or is or isin't I'd suggest its not Catholicism anyway.

I'd venture to say you're wrong, It's something inherently Irish anyway, it's apart from the English influence on this island...
Irish Catholicism is a totally different breed of Catholicism compared to the continental type...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

An over-dependence on tradition would be my guess. Doubt it's anything to do with religion though.

One eyed Jack

noubliezjamais wrote: »

Something that I've noticed confirmed by two friend from France and Canada. They say that they find it peculiar that in general, Irish men and women in school/workplace tend to group themselves by their gender morseo than other western nations.

I have to agree with them. Even though we are friendly, there's still can be a barrier between men and women who are friends that you don't see in other nations. Is it the Catholicism?

No, it’s yours and your friends own self-selection bias. The reason people group themselves by sex (and it is as prevalent in other Western countries as it is in Ireland), is simply because they have a lot of things in common with people of the same sex as themselves, more than they have in common with the opposite sex.

With regards to education, it’s simply a matter of people’s own personal beliefs about which type of education is more beneficial for their children. Plenty of parents are of the belief that their children’s best interests are better served in single-sex education, a belief that feels like a bit of a relief tbh when the Director of the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland comes out with crap like this in 2019 -

Dr Cliona Saidlear said that young girls need to be made aware that young boys who sit with them in the classroom can also be a danger.

...

Dr Saidlear added: “They are doing a whole system review – they are not just looking at the curriculum content but they are also looking at what happens in the corridor.

“It’s about how the whole school responds and creates a safe place.

“Sex education around sexual violence is really about tools to help people around inappropriate behaviour and recognising behaviour in themselves.

“It has shifted that focus from stranger danger and that dirty-old-man kind of image we have.

“We really need to say that young boys can also be a danger to young girls, it isn’t all just fun.

“The sexual violence that is being perpetrated mostly by young boys on young girls, was being named all the time in the public discourse as Romeo and Juliet, we were telling girls who were being raped that it was romance gone wrong, that it was disapproved of by adults.”

Experts warn of rise in number of sex attacks by young people


And when school principals are obligated to report incidents like this to Tulsa -

The parents of a seven-year-old boy against whom an unfounded allegation of sex abuse was made claim that the way the school principal over-reacted, and Tusla’s absolute refusal to delete the file, has ‘destroyed’ their lives, writes Michael Clifford.

One day in 2017, two seven-year-old children had a typically innocent encounter in a school playground. The ultimate outcome of the incident, which lasted for about a second, has been trauma for one of the families, serious questions around training for school principals, and whether or not it is correct that a record be kept on a child wrongly accused of “sexual abuse”.

TUSLA: Playing a dangerous game with children’s lives


In short, it’s entirely about the perpetuation of a culture of fear of the opposite sex. It was the same ideology that drove the establishment of single-sex education in many societies lonnnnnng before Catholicism was even heard of, and it’s the same ideological beliefs are going to continue to try and separate people from each other.

It doesn’t work though because only a minority of people in any society have ever thought like that, that they should be fearful of, or that there was anything to fear from the opposite sex. Most people just tend to get along, but having their own separate interests that they participate in with people they have more in common with, doesn’t mean there’s any barriers there, it simply means that they don’t feel they always have to be mixing with the opposite sex, and sometimes it’s good for them to spend time with people of their own sex.

Anteayer

I've actually found the main thing is to ignore gossips who think it's 1947.

A guy who I knew when from way back, we were in primary school together and were neighbour in the suburbs as kids has texted me out of the blue because he spotted me in town with someone.

I've had texts like "saw you in Blah Blah Coffee with Mary earlier on. I met her and her husband a few days ago. (Clearly telling me : you know she's married, right!?)

"Hi. We were having lunch. If you were passing you should have said hi and joined us!" (Thinking myself wtf is wrong with this guy)

Then one day I got a text saying "Hi! Was driving past and saw you chatting to a tall guy. You looked lost in deep conversation". (The guy's a very striking looking and somewhat obviously very definitely gay friend of mine).

I met him in a bar one night and he started grilling me about how I was walking home with a guy. I have a regular event on a particular night and I always walk home chatting with a male friend of mine. I don’t think that’s something to pass comment on.

I also got was at a meetup group and got "oh! Was passing (pub name) with the Mrs and saw you chatting away to three women. You looked like you were having a great night."

I ended up responding: "Hi. Next time you spot me somewhere can you just wave or say hello or something. You seem to be passing by quite a lot"

I got really fed up with this crap and blocked him on all social media and stopped responding to texts. Well, I phase it out. I didn’t want to make it too obvious and cause backlash.

(Obviously changed a few details here to avoid being recognised)

However, my point is that if you’re a single guy in your 30s here it seems some people just assume that EVERYTHING you do is about hooking up!

It’s not just this one guy either, he’s just extreme. I’ve had less unsubtle inquires from other people too.

It’s almost like the scene from Derry Girls with the the grandad being told “I saw you in the bakery buying two cream cakes!” “you were spotted on Pump Street!” “With two cream cakes!!”

There’s clearly a bit of an undercurrent or old style conservative, malicious gossips who like a bit of scandal to talk about.

Dravokivich

I'm more comfortable and open with people I've known for a long time. That's generally other blokes. There's only 1 woman I can think off, off the top of my head that I've hung out with often enough over the last 10 years. Plenty of women I get on with, that I'm acquainted with too. But I expect folks, just tend to group with folks they know.

silverharp

A certain level of "segregation" is natural, men and women like different things, its natural and healthy for each sex to “recharge” among their own.

corminators

I actually don't think men and women can work closely together on teams in the workplace. This is from experience of several places.

baby and crumble

TBH it's something I've never understood. I went to mixed primary & secondary schools, and the idea of a single sex school or work environment is so odd to me.

Like Eviltwin said, the amount of people who freak out about their partner having a drink after work with a member of the opposite sex is crazy. Or having a friend of the opposite sex. Etc etc. You see it in PI all the time.

meeeeh

I have no empirical data but yeah my feeling would be that groups of friends where I grew up would be more mixed than here. All my groups of friends in primary school, secondary school, university and later were mixed.

Anteayer

corminators wrote: »

I actually don't think men and women can work closely together on teams in the workplace. This is from experience of several places.

I've worked with very mixed gender teams all through my career and extremely closely with both male and female colleagues and that's absolutely never even crossed my mind. Brilliant team mates both male and female and some of my best friends were made at work too and are both genders and both are great craic to work with.

The only time I ever had an issue was with a team that was entirely women and I was the only guy and they made it very clear that I was the "outsider". In this case it was a marketing department that had been just seen as "the girls" by management in a very old company.

I could see that being tough for women breaking into industries that were extremely male dominated historically too.
It's not even necessarily a gender thing but more so that you're different thus not part of the gang.

I do think you get issues where you've bunkers of one gender only though and you can get that within some very traditional or old business where you'll find "the girls" are all in administration and "the lads" are all in warehouse stacking" or something like that and then you basically end up with a clash of two gangs based on gender because they don't socialise and interact other than in a very narrow way.

You get odd cultures in some work places like that.

Generally I find people are people - you'll get asshats of both genders.

is_that_so

Is this something else we're all doing wrong? Strikes me as more of an angsty teenager question. You spend time with people you like or feel comfortable with.

IAMAMORON

I find my lack of interest in female fashion, cosmetics and hairdressing a distinct disadvantage when it comes to generating and nurturing friendships with females in Ireland. It has always been difficult to spark up much in common with them. I also can't stand flower arranging and have zero interest in dogs which are smaller than your average domestic cat. I cannot stand phrases such as, " you go girl" or " wow, your shoes are gorge ! ". I found 50 shades of grey boring and a very lame sexual fantasy. This is definitely a barrier to friendship I find.

Maybe men in other countries are interested in the lifestyles of Irish women, we just cannot be sure. Time will tell.

When I get close to a women, even if we start out as platonic friends ( ahem, yeah right ), I always end up with the complete and utterly undefeatable desire to have sex with them. Now I cannot speak for every Irish male in this instance, but it definitely happens to a lot of us.

Please don't change, women of Ireland, I love you all.

Anteayer

I do think educating kids separated by gender is a total anachronism and way out of line with what's been going on in almost every other developed country. It's just down to an Irish obsession with a version of 19th century English style education that was absorbed by the church and never modernised.

Irish conservatism tends to be a weird mix of a very British Victorian almost puritanical ideology in some kind of odd hybrid with a very conservative type of Catholicism.

riffmongous

Any thread on gender here just seems to attracts the weirdest people

is_that_so

Anteayer wrote: »

I do think educating kids separated by gender is a total anachronism and way out of line with what's been going on in almost every other developed country. It's just down to an Irish obsession with a version of 19th century English style education that was absorbed by the church and never modernised.

Irish conservatism tends to be a weird mix of a very British Victorian almost puritanical ideology in some kind of odd hybrid with a very conservative type of Catholicism.

Some people choose that option for post-primary on the grounds of quality or the perceived educational benefit.

Anteayer

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I find my lack of interest in female fashion, cosmetics and hairdressing a distinct disadvantage when it comes to generating and nurturing friendships with females in Ireland. It has always been difficult to spark up much in common with them. I also can't stand flower arranging and have zero interest in dogs which are smaller than your average domestic cat. I cannot stand phrases such as, " you go girl" or " wow, your shoes are gorge ! ". I found 50 shades of grey boring and a very lame sexual fantasy. This is definitely a barrier to friendship I find.

Maybe men in other countries are interested in the lifestyles of Irish women, we just cannot be sure. Time will tell.

When I get close to a women, even if we start out as platonic friends ( ahem, yeah right ), I always end up with the complete and utterly undefeatable desire to have sex with them. Now I cannot speak for every Irish male in this instance, but it definitely happens to a lot of us.

Please don't change, women of Ireland, I love you all.

Are you sure you actually know any women?!?
Unless you're hanging around with 97 year olds at the church hall, not many are into flower arranging!!
Also small dogs?!

Are you sure you're not hanging out with the two lads from Little Britian doing the "we're ladies" sketch?!

Most of the women I know have diverse interests...

Anteayer

is_that_so wrote: »

Some people choose that option for post-primary on the grounds of quality or the perceived educational benefit.

The fact that some people chose it doesn't mean it's particularly beneficial or normal by developed country standards and time and time again it's pointed out that they usually pluck comparisons between UK Comprehensive Schools and UK Independent schools which are traditionally way more academically focused anyway and conclude the reason for the performance difference is single gender.

I just think many in Ireland have an extremely archaic view of what education is.

IAMAMORON

Anteayer wrote: »

Are you sure you actually know any women?!?
Unless you're hanging around with 97 year olds at the church hall, not many are into flower arranging!!
Also small dogs?!

Are you sure you're not hanging out with the two lads from Little Britian doing the "we're ladies" sketch?!

Most of the women I know have diverse interests...

Diverse women really interest me, it's their interests which are bland...…

I don't go to church either.

riffmongous

I'm starting to wonder if it's a class or education or intelligence thing? Most of the stupid posts here complaining about the opposite gender suggest they don't have much contact with people with a proper range of interests

Anteayer

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Diverse women really interest me, it's their interests which are bland...…

I don't go to church either.

You've a great username. Saves a lot of time.

Day Lewin

I've found the same in Australia: at social gatherings the ladies congregated one end, and the men the other.

The conversation wasn't great in either group, to be honest.

IAMAMORON

Anteayer wrote: »

You've a great username. Saves a lot of time.

Hey.. that's not very friendly ?

Anteayer

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Hey.. that's not very friendly ?

It's nice and short and easy to remember

is_that_so

Anteayer wrote: »

The fact that some people chose it doesn't mean it's particularly beneficial or normal by developed country standards and time and time again it's pointed out that they usually pluck comparisons between UK Comprehensive Schools and UK Independent schools which are traditionally way more academically focused anyway and conclude the reason for the performance difference is single gender.

I just think many in Ireland have an extremely archaic view of what education is.

Really not true at all. It actually depends what bit of research you read. There is enough to support opting for either stance from an educational point of view and there is no definitive conclusion. Ultimately it comes down to quality and what a parent feels or believes will work best for their child.

Anteayer

I'd argue it's a bit unfair to remove kids from a balance of normal society.

neris

who do the ladyboys & gender neutrals etc hang out with?

One eyed Jack

Anteayer wrote: »

I'd argue it's a bit unfair to remove kids from a balance of normal society.

Well you could argue that. I’m just not sure anyone who has children would care what you think is or isn’t ‘fair’ for their children.

There are all sorts of circumstances in what you call ‘normal society’ where people are assigned to separate categories on the basis of their sex. Imagine you’re a male who cannot compete with other males in elite sports for example so you decide to compete with women where there’s a slightly better chance you might actually win a competition at some stage. Most people wouldn’t give a fig either way, but for some people, they see it as ‘unfair’ that males are now permitted to compete in female sports.

*shrugs*

Anteayer

It's a lot different from removing kids from the normally environment of having males and females for most of their lives from age 4 to 18.

Males and females don’t have a situation where they’re differently able in academic contexts. Men are generally bigger and more more muscular than woman (by 10% on average) so you’ve an issue in elite support, but that doesn’t cross into academic ability in anyway and there’s tons of psychological measurement of those abilities to back that up.

The Irish 30%+ of public schools being gender segregated is very weird by international norms and if you’re in some areas, notably central Dublin coeducational options are few and far between.
That's actually become a big issue now for parents in areas like Dublin 8 and Stoneybatter. You've areas that were quite traditional and have a lot of single sex chills and now you've a population that's got an expectation of being able to access 21st century education, yet is faced with lots of options, all of which are traditional religious ethos single sex schools.

The notion that parents have lots of choices here is largely false. Your choices are limited by geography and also your choices can be you can have any type of school you like from this selection where 93% of them are religious ethos and 90% are Catholic.