Boys and Girls

Yesterday I gave the Periodic Test 1 to my Advanced 4 class. FYI, this is the highest level for General Program in the English Course where I work. The test comprises 10 questions for LISTENING, 10 questions for USAGE., 15 questions for VOCABULARY and READING COMPREHENSION. The last part was to write an essay, so it must be complete, consists of an introductory paragraph, the body, and then the concluding paragraph. There were two topics to choose:

 Recycled paper is more worth using rather than virgin paper. The students are to write a 100-word argumentative article,

 Falling in love at the first sight: a miracle or a fairy tale? The students are to write a 150-word article, free of any kind of writing. They can choose a narrative, expository, descriptive, or argumentative writing.
After collecting the answer sheets, I found out that all boys chose the first topic, while all girls chose the second one. This is very interesting to me.

I personally would choose the second topic because I am included into romantic type. This is my own “reading” about myself. LOL. Did those girls share the same opinion with me? Or perhaps for girls, LOVE is always a very interesting topic to discuss? Boys think that LOVE is boring or are they included into hostile creature rather than loving? LOL.

When giving the two topics, I heard some students grumbled about the 150-word for the second topic. So, it is possible that perhaps the male students chose the more practical one—only writing 100-word article. LOL.

At that time, I remember what my Abang said to me, “No matter what, Nana, men and women are different. How can you struggle to realize the similarities between them?” (I forgot whether he was just kidding me at that time, or whether he was serious.)

I remember one email I got some months ago from one blog visitor. He somewhat laughed at my idea when reading my profile where I wrote, “I believe men and women are equal in all facets in this life.” “Can you beat me for bench-press?”

Of course men and women are different, not only in their physical bodies, but also in their way of thinking, their way of perceiving something, their experience in this patriarchal world that automatically will make them their own way to solve problems, etc.

What I meant by saying, or writing, LOL, “I believe men and women are equal in all facts in this life” is that they have full rights to choose anything they want to do in their life without having to be limited with their physical bodies. Stereotyping of men and women that have happened for million centuries have limited both of them to do what they want to do with reason, “You are man. You are not supposed to do this.” Or similar thing, “You are woman. You are not supposed to do this.” And we all know mostly the limitation for not doing this and that is more for women.

Going back to my class, my students were free to choose between the two topics offered, no matter what sex they have.  I was just curious why it happened that all girls chose the second topic while all boys chose the first one. And my curiosity made me produce this writing to post in my blogs. LOL. LOL.

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