The Necessity of Differentiating the Boys' and Girls' Curricula

Madam, editor-in-chief of The Woman's Voice:

I have read in the magazine The Woman's Voice the article "The Principle of Differentiating the Boys' and Girls' Curricula," penned by Miss Rose Ghorayeb, and I was startled by what was announced in it to the honorable readers — that I would reply to the article's author in defense of this principle.

God forbid, Madam, that I should preach the principle of separating girl and boy in the schools on the basis of sex; my philosophical researches — on the subject of woman — are enough to acquit me of this charge. For some years now I have marshaled all my intellectual energies to demolish (with logic that admits of no dispute) those barriers which man erected between himself and woman. How, then, could I permit myself today, having struggled toward this end, to turn back and tear down the courses of masonry I set in place with my own hand?

As for the argument for differentiation, on the basis of inclination, between girl and boy (and likewise between boy and boy, or between girl and girl), that is what I shall proclaim in a long study, and what I shall work to bring about, sooner or later. In this I see myself only walking in the steps of the psychologists and educators who have drawn back some of the curtains from the essence of man, and shown that he is a collection of inclinations and desires which we must respect, if the boy is to succeed in the direction he chooses for himself, or the girl in the one she chooses for herself. He whose neck carries an inclination to mathematics cannot master literature and poetry, and he whose neck carries an inclination to the law cannot master physics and chemistry. Man, in the domain of knowledge, is like one who has acquired the faculty of a certain craft: he does not excel in another faculty. Ibn Khaldun preceded us all to this educational truth when he said: "The reason for this is that faculties are attributes of the soul, and colors, and they do not crowd in all at once... Rarely will you find a master of one craft who masters it thoroughly and afterwards masters another, standing in both at one and the same rank of excellence. Even the men of learning, whose faculty is thought, are of this same condition. Whoever among them acquires the faculty of one of the sciences and masters it to perfection will rarely master the faculty of another science in like proportion; rather, he will fall short in it if he pursues it."

If we grant this educational principle — and grant it we must, whatever the case, for it is as clear as the eye of the sun — it becomes easy for us to speak of creating two curricula, one for the boy and one for the girl. This, without imposing either of the two curricula upon the girl, for we leave her the right to choose the direction to which she inclines. If some girls incline to mathematics, there is a large portion of them who do not incline to this science. We must therefore establish for them what answers their desires; otherwise we shall have run counter to the spirit of modern education and the ordinances of sound psychology.

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The author of the article was partly right when she explained that "there are no fundamental mental differences between the two sexes." But it escaped her that man is not composed of mind alone. If we apprehend truths in one and the same manner, the feeling of them differs in man and in woman. There is nothing in this to lower the dignity of woman, nor of man, for this is the law of nature; and whoever knows the law of nature knows himself, and finds that respect for nature is the beginning of wisdom in this life. Had Miss Ghorayeb gone back to the resolutions of the United Nations, and examined them with insight, she would have seen that this body insists that "the general education received by girls be equivalent in value and level to that received by boys." And what does this resolution mean if not the implicit recognition of the need to create two curricula — one for the boy and one for the girl — differing in matter and agreeing in value? How is equivalence in value and level to come about if the curriculum is one? He who speaks of equivalence speaks of duality — that is, of divergence outwardly and alliance inwardly.

Let the distinguished woman of letters be reassured. My solicitude for the girl is no less than hers for the daughters of her sex. We men have become aware of the extent of woman's influence in social life. We are aware that man does not people the universe alone, neither in body nor in spirit; that civilization rests upon the shoulders of woman as much as it rests upon the shoulders of man; that the equality of the mim and the nun is among the truest of the immediate data of consciousness; and that the liberation of man begins with the liberation of woman.

But human freedom is bound by an order of nature which we must respect; otherwise our freedom becomes an arbitrary act, and a wrecking of our human being. Freedom is not to do what we want, as we want. Freedom begins with the plan which nature draws for us. Freedom is that man realize his manhood, and that woman realize her womanhood. If man is feminized without right, and woman masculinized without right, that is a suspension of nature's order, and an annulment of her reasoning rule. And I do not shrink from naming this departure from the design of reality "aping," for it is an outward imitation only.

Pray accept my highest respect.

Yours faithfully,