Re-defining "Co-Ed"

By Kendall

At what age is it no longer acceptable for a boy or a girl to take a bath together? At what point is it taboo for two children of the opposite sex to have a sleepover? What is the oldest age a boy can get away with going into a women’s bathroom with his mother? Whatever you decide these cut-offs are, I think that they are chosen based on traditional societal assumptions yet are rarely ever thought about. Historically, men and women were kept separate due to their unequal privileges and roles in society, but I believe that now at the core of our need to separate girls and boys is a fear of how to deal with attraction. Parents who see how technology has made times less easy to control and has influenced kids to become faster, less protected from certain information, and more influenced by constant media attention. They fear what their children know and what they’ll do with what they know, and therefore separate them so they don’t have to face the truth that even at a young age there is a chance their child will want to experiment sexually. However, the ignored truth is that many of them don’t. Many just see members of the opposite sex as friends and by creating the “forbidden fruit” concept between men and women, they give children the idea that as their bodies take on greater differences, they must see the same boy that was just a friend in a more conservative way. When the damage has already been done, and your child is now entering college as an adult, do those rules of separation still apply? Due to the ways of modern relationships and the increasing number of people who have changed their sexual orientation or identity along the way, the answer is not easy.

Traditionally, colleges were either all-male or all-female and they have come a long way to create a truly co-ed experience. However, one separation that still remains is within school-sponsored housing. There has been an influx of controversy recently as schools have began to loosen their definition of “co-ed” and struggle to find a politically correct way to incorporate different types of relationships, whether they are friendly or romantic, into the living community, while still ensuring that people who still believe in the traditional mold of separation feel comfortable. The changes started with putting girls and boys in the same building, then progressed to including mixed halls, and the success of those changes how now given many school the nod to start instituting co-ed bathrooms. Although these changes already force some traditionalists to the tips of their toes, it is the prospect of mixed gender dorm rooms that will put them over the edge.

The intended students that would benefit from this change by the schools are vague and the unclear lines of who applies are causing much controversy. For example, if you’re going off of my premise that separations are based on attraction, the female/male split no longer does the job. Gays and transgenders now make up a large percent of college students who may have to struggle with forbidden attraction to their straight roommate or may get past the rules of separation in romantic relationships since both students would be the same sex. This isn’t fair for the gays who have to conceal their attraction, the straight students who have to feel as uncomfortable in a room as if they were rooming with a guy, or the couples who can live together while straight couples cannot. I don’t think co-ed housing options are perfect, especially with their high risk s and vague guidelines, but I do think they eliminate some of the tension built by this unfairness. If you are able to choose whether or not you want co-ed housing, it should be fine.

Although my position on the subject changes with new information, I believe that our society needs a paradigm shift from our concept of relationships between girls and boys to address the issue with multiple perspectives in mind. The increasing number of gays and transgenders adds a new dimension to how and when we separate based on gender and we need to reevaluate how we influence how young children have relationships with the opposite sex, and that we can no longer make general categories labeled “men” and “women.”