I was thinking about future schools for DC, and I started thinking about single sex education. My apologies if there are lots of threads about this, I didn't find many in a quick search.
I am conflicted, because I whole-heartededly disapprove of single sex workplaces etc and I think that your sex shouldn't really impact your education. I want an equal society and I guess that I think single sex is perhaps against that?
On the other hand, I was educated in a single sex environment between the ages of five and eighteen and I loved it. I think it played a real role in my confidence and my choice to study three sciences in sixth form. I know that each science had forty girls enrolled (there were about sixty in my year group) and mathematics was higher still, about fifty girls. Only four or five girls didn't do any form of science or maths.
I went to a school that was very much a "blue-stockings" school and there was a message of "women can do anything" but it was somewhat hidden in the background- I don't think many of us truly realised the need for such a message until we finished school. It just never occurred to many of us that other people didn't think that women were equally capable.
I suppose I'm trying to figure out how I feel about single sex education by comparing how I think it's ultimately inimical to how I think the future should look against the fact I had such a positive experience that made me into the feminist I am today!
What do you all think?
Also, if this thread has been done to death, I apologise! Please point me in the direction of good previous threads about this topic.
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
What do you all think about single sex education?
IsItStupid · 08/07/2015 15:58
Barbarian 
I think it trickles over into so many things. I went and saw a production at a mixed secondary school recently with a friend to support her daughter- on stage it was a nice mix of boys and girls singing and dancing (although the chorus was girl heavy) but all the set changes/lighting/curtain movement etc were done by boys and all the make up and costume changes were done by girls (found this out from the daughter later- obviously I wasn't backstage!). Apparently this is very typical. She said the sign up sheets for Hair and Makeup, and for Costume Sewing even have slogans saying things like "girls, get involved in the production, you don't have to sing, dance or act to play a part," "Get out mum's old sewing machine and do your bit for the school production," etc etc although technically that second one didn't deliberately call for girls I think it was somehow worse!
On the other hand I saw a university play that same week and that seemed to be a very even split in all roles. I.e. I saw young women do set changes, and on the lighting crew (though I have no idea if any young men were involved in hair/makeup/costume sewing etc). Maybe people grow out of it? I'm not sure.
I will definitely be at least looking into single sex education in the future, but then I have a tricky situation where I live very rurally, so I may have limited options!
OP your idea about equality are great but in an unequal society stats show that single sex schools are generally a good thing for girls so I wouldn't rule it out if I were you.
I also went to a single sex school until A-Level and until I got mixed in it literally never crossed my mind that some subject were "for boys" and some for girls IYSWIM. I think there are quite a lot on FWR who were single sex education and maybe there's a reason we are here - that coming from that background it's much more noticeable the sexism when you come out of it.
Anyway I was talking to a friend the other day and she said she'd send her girls mixed so they "knew how to talk to men in the workplace" and then we had an interesting conversation whereby I was saying "they're just people" and she was saying "no they have a different way of communicating" and in the end after toing anf froing I said "so teach the girls young that blokes can be right bastards and they have to put up with it" and she said "hmm something like that I guess" so there we have it 
From a feminist perspective I have no problem with female only (or male only!) spaces as long as they are not preventing eg access to power, opportunity etc which of course in the case of make only spaces including schools that is often exactly what is going on. (And with class, race, money etc as well as sex obv).
Fungus only two at the moment! And because of where we live now and limited schooling options single sex vs co-ed is not an issue that will come up for her for a few years- there is one mixed state primary in the area and that's it.
In my case it was my father who insisted I went to a single sex school! Both he and my mother went to co-ed schools. When my sister and I were little they toured a whole bunch of pre-schools and nurseries together- one was attached to a girls' school and whilst my mother was in the bathroom he registered us on the spot! She was none too pleased as the deposit he paid on the open day was earmarked for the final mortgage payment but he looked back on his own school days and felt very firmly that single sex was better! But then again he was at school some 50 years ago so must have had a very different experience, still had the cane and all that.
I didn't know this story until this week actually, when I was on the phone to my mum. 
But yes, I do wonder about whether it's truly better? If there is a social trade off? But although I was awkward around boys in my teenage years I didn't have any trouble after I left school or in the workplace, and looking back on it I think many teenagers are awkward around the opposite sex.
Maybe single sex education is right for some children and not others? But does it send a message to society that boys and girls are mentally very different?
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