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

noubliezjamais · 01-04-2019 12:41AM #1

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 · 01-04-2019 12:43AM

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

Snotty · 01-04-2019 12:44AM

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 · 01-04-2019 12:46AM

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

Rubberchikken · 01-04-2019 12:50AM

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

Strumms · 01-04-2019 12:50AM

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 · 01-04-2019 12:52AM

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 · 01-04-2019 12:56AM

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 · 01-04-2019 01:00AM

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 · 01-04-2019 01:02AM

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 · 01-04-2019 01:09AM

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

Anteayer · 01-04-2019 01:13AM

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 · 01-04-2019 01:19AM

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

Your Face · 01-04-2019 02:01AM

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

01-04-2019 02:53AM

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 · 01-04-2019 01:36PM

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 · 01-04-2019 10:46PM

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 · 01-04-2019 10:52PM

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 ðŸ”¥

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

Anteayer · 01-04-2019 11:26PM

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 · 01-04-2019 11:33PM

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 · 01-04-2019 11:40PM

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 · 02-04-2019 01:19AM

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 · 02-04-2019 01:29AM

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 · 02-04-2019 03:29AM

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 · 02-04-2019 04:25AM

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

One eyed Jack · 02-04-2019 08:28AM

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 · 02-04-2019 09:31AM

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 · 02-04-2019 09:50AM

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 · 02-04-2019 10:34AM

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 · 02-04-2019 10:36AM

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 · 02-04-2019 10:44AM

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.

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

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