I'm not sure if this has been brought up before (I'm sure it has), but I was just wondering how many of you have noticed something like this. When I was in as low as middle school I always wondered why women would always get a special section set aside in every chapter in a history book. In this section the author(s) would state how women of the era lived or a challenge they faced. Back then I thought, why are they so special? Why do they get their own section of how they lived and men don't? Almost every time I brought this up throughout my education I was attacked or scorned by the teacher and other students. Most of their arguments were either saying that the men section is everything else, or men shouldn't have a section because they didn't have to do with the culture at the time. I thought that was bullshit, but I never really had an opportunity to state my reasons.

Only once was I allowed to bring up the topic, and it wasn't until senior year of high school. The teacher (male) said he was curious about that as well, and thought it would be a good class discussion. This was met harshly by a female classmate stating that men wrote the book and that they didn't have to face the hardships women faced throughout history. My teacher let me respond, I said most women didn't have to face the hardship of war, but those sections were never titled "Men in World War I". It was the only time I was able to say anything about the topic in an educational setting and for that I thank my teacher. He wasn't saying he for or against it, but giving the students a chance to speak was I all I wanted. Thoughts?