KC & Jack- this isn’t Shakesville. I don’t know that Melissa McEwan would want people surmising what she would say or think. But the environment here on this blog is not that of shakesville. I avoid commenting at shakesville because although I think their message is great, there’s a superiority to knocking down others for using “enablist” language or whatever, a holier-than-thou omg you used a wrong word we’re all going to draw a sword through you rather than a “this is what i think” or “this is how your comments make me feel.” CPP was being sarcastic, and hilariously so.

I went to a public co-ed college and I’m still here, no one’s trying to exclude anyone from commenting, no one has to take their crayons and go home.

I should say that I’ve never attended single-sex schools, and at my SLAC I received excellent mentorship by female faculty, some of which was explicitly feminist. I really liked being in a coed environment as an undergrad (even in a coed dorm) because it was the first time I’d had meaningful encounters with men as potential friends and fellow human beings, as opposed to love interests or oppositional other.

In the meantime, can’t we support and expand what already works? Are we incapable of taking more than one approach when it comes to women and girls?

Assuming that co-ed schools, once sufficiently feminist, will meet everyone’s needs is as cookie-cutter an approach as assuming that only single-sex schools will work.

Millions of kids = more than one approach, I would think.

I think I can recognize the value in women’s colleges even if I didn’t attend one, ditto for girls schools. I’m not sure why I’d want to limit women’s options. I can work to improve the coeducational environment while also seeing value elsewhere.