School Adopts Dickensian Segregation of the Sexes

The school has quietly revealed that it has implemented a 'Girls' Only Area' (By which we mean a grammatically incorrect sign stuck on the side of the Main Building; see photo below), despite protestation after the idea was leaked by Trash Reporters from the School Council meetings some months ago. In fact, we devoted an entire article to how it was a stupid idea, and yet they still forged ahead with the proposal, unlike so many other decent ones.

The general gist of our previous article was that enforcing a Girls' Only Area would only promote segregation between the sexes, rather than interaction. The idea was hailed as a way to tackle sexism amongst boys, but we argued that educating students about the implications and damaging effects of sexism was a more cohesive way of tackling the problem. After all, this is a school; you know, a place of learning. It even says in our slogan 'Learning Together, Achieving Together'.

All a Girls' Only Area would breed is girls that are scared of boys, having been sheltered from the opposite sex by segregation, and boys that don't know how to react socially around girls, having spent minimal time in their presence. What we are saying is, effectively, a Girls' Only Area makes the problem worse.

Segregation has never worked. Every student will learn at some point in History class about 'Separate but Equal', and will also learn that, whilst being separate, the black and white population in America was far from equal. Gender separation, especially in education, breeds social anxiety, sexism, inability to fit in socially later on in life and inexperience with the opposite sex. It sounds a lot like the work of Professor Umbridge of the Ministry of Magic. And what next, Professor? Boys and Girls aren't allowed to be within 10 feet of each other? They aren't allowed to touch? They aren't allowed to talk?

Cllr. Sylvia Ryver-Raine (yeah, we haven't heard from her in a while) defended the School's actions, saying "Girls can be fearful of the young boys, and so they need somewhere to go to eat ice-cream and read Grazia. The Year 7's are very manly with their large bags and big blazers, and can feel very foreboding in some girls' eyes." To this we say that this is one of the main reasons children are educated together. So that they learn how to cope with other people, even if those other people aren't very nice. If you bubble-wrap kids throughout their childhood, you are only making them unable to cope with the big wide world and all the nasty people in it when they reach adulthood.

The Trash would ask for the Girls' Only Area to be disbanded. If you are going to have a Girls' Only Area, however, as mentioned in the original article, it seems only fair that a Boys' Only Area to be invoked as well (because sexism works both ways you fools), and we would lobby for that to be called Boyzone.

We're only kidding about Boyzone. The Girls' Only Area doesn't even function as such, as you can see by the vast amounts of males in it in the photo below. Said photo was taken from Friday's March on New Block, which was lead by Mohammed Labbaanah King, where male activists stormed the Girls' Only Area and made speeches against segregation, one saying "I have a dream, that one day I will not be judged by the state of my Blazer, but by the content of my textbook."

The March on New Block - male activists storm the Girls'
Only Area and make speeches against segregation, including
words from members of by-gone Irish Boy Bands

DISCLAIMER: This Hampstead Trash article has been written to critique the actions of the governing bodies of the school. To satirise true events, some characters or events within the article may be fictitious.