The Gender Divide in Milton’s Classrooms

By ABBY FOSTER '19

I’m sitting in my Monday, 8th period class. It’s chemistry; a class I share with mainly sophomores, most of whom I don’t know very well. At one point, I happen to glance around the table. Suddenly, I’m struck by a startling realization—the left side of the table, the side I’m sitting on, is entirely comprised of girls. To my right, after a buffer of two or three empty seats, are all the boys in my class. This wasn’t the first time we sat like this; in fact, this was the norm in our classroom.

This moment stuck out to me simply because I had never paid very much attention to how gender played into our class dynamic. The following Tuesday, I made a point of looking at the seating arrangements in my classes. Consistently, there was a divide between girls and boys. Of course, each class had its own dynamic, with its own groups and intricacies. However, the gender divide was not only something constant throughout all classes, but it was something that most people, myself included, did not question.

In a survey sent to the whole school, 77.6% of respondents agreed that there is a gender divide in classes. When asked what they thought was the cause of this divide, responses ranged from, “conservative ideas on women in science and non-liberal fields still exist deep within the minds of many people,” to, “for the most part, people divide themselves up with anyone they’re friendly with, regardless of gender.” While most people believe the gender divide exists, not everyone believes it’s an issue.

Matthew Blanton, a teacher in the history department, notes that the gender divide is “pretty consistent from class to class, of the classes that [he teaches].” When asked if he considers this divide is a problem, he answered:“I don’t think [the gender divide is] significant or consequential in the classroom, and I think it’s a reflection of, perhaps, what’s happening in the social spaces; that then people cluster with those [with] whom they’re most comfortable...and so the sort of “gender divide” is reflected in my classroom.”

When asked if he actively tries to change this dynamic when teaching, Mr. Blanton replied that he doesn’t. He doesn’t see “the ways in which students organize” as “detrimental to the quality of...discussions or scholarship,” and therefore lets the class sit as they choose. As Mr. Blanton teaches history, these students would fall around a harkness table—the system most classes in Milton use. The two notable exceptions to this format are the Math department and the Language department; most classes in these two departments have desks. Interestingly, when asked (in the same survey that was referenced above) to select which classes they felt the gender divide was present, most respondents (57.6%) selected their math class, while far fewer (33.9%) selected their language class. Therefore, it would appear that the format of the classroom—harkness table versus desks—has little impact on the gender divide of the class. Perhaps, then, this divide has more to do with the subject of the class; as one respondent noted, “girls have been neglected from STEM for so long so in classes we naturally sit together, perhaps to feel more comfortable?”

Another important aspect of this discussion, as Mr. Blanton noted, is the impact of this gender divide on students who identify outside of the gender binary. Devon Whalen ‘20 is one of these students. When asked how she experienced the gender divide in Milton classes, she answered: “Well, it’s hard [to navigate the gender divide], cause, like, I’ve definitely had multiple teachers who do stuff like, ‘We’re gonna do like a debate and girls take this side and guys take this side,’ Even when classrooms do independent work, classes split off into groups of the girls and a group of the guys and I end up with the girls, cause I’m like, closer friends with them.”

As Devon notes, the prevalence of this gender divide forces students who are neither male nor female to pick a side. Therefore, if Milton seeks to make itself a more inclusive community for non binary students, it must investigate this gender divide. However, outside of this circumstance, is the gender divide an issue? The student body seems split on the answer to this question; some believe that this split is natural and harmless, while others see it as a reflection of sexism on campus. One fact, however, seems indisputable: the way students sit in classes reflects how they interact outside of classes. In the past year, there have been several discussions around the social dynamics in the Stu, and how these dynamics are based around age, race, and gender. If people interested in these discussions ignore how social dynamics spill into the academic world, they are only seeing a part of the issue.