Heather Mallick's [url=http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1022295--mallick... new article [/url] has a shocking picture at the beginning.
It portrays a reglious prayer session in a public school, during school hours where there is not only segregation of girl and boys (girls at the back), but mentruating girls not allowed to participate at all and seperated even further back. This is absolutely outrageous. These girls are being given a horrible message at their public school and made to feel inferior. Not only that, but imagine having to publicly announce in grade 8 when you have your period!?
Isn't it odd how stories about Muslim school prayers now being conducted at Valley Park Middle School in Don Mills are all about religion making its way into public schools? I don't discuss religion, ever. Feminism is my credo, and my eye was instantly drawn to the fact that girls are placed in the back, behind the boys, separated by benches used as shields.
And menstruating girls are segregated, off in their own little group, like this paragraph.
Stigmatized, bleeding mysteriously and bewildered by maternal instructions, these girls are not allowed to pray (I am told other religions require this as well). You can see them in the Star's photograph, the boys at the front, the girls hidden behind, flattened in prayer, and the girls with periods sitting cross-legged or kneeling.