To ask if Co-Ed is better than single sex..

@RenegadeMatron

How?

How does ss help girls at a mixed school?

@NeverDropYourMooncup

How are girls at mixed schools getting six hours away from it?

They dont go to a ss school?

So how does ss help them?

What….?

You said ‘and you think ss (single sex) will help with that?’

My answer is - absolutely, yes.

Yes - because they get six and a half hours a day freedom from the majority of it - so there's just the boys/men on the way to and from school to deal with - and SS schools do take a hard line and will report harassers/men hanging around just past the gates to the Police.

It wasn't the catcalling from twats in vehicles that accounted for the majority of harassment or assaults I experienced many years ago and girls do now - it's the boys in the school, whether on site, in the same class or on the way home at the same time.

@RenegadeMatron

Who gets a respite from it?

The girls at mixed school?

How are they getting a respite from it?

It certainly my means they get a respite from it, and don’t have to contend with it during school hours, while they’re learning.

As I said, I was routinely getting felt up aged 11-12 while at intermediate school (co-ed). I remember standing in the library looking for a book one time, and some little shit putting his hand up my leg. This was 1985 or 6.

Then I moved to SS from 13-17, and no - I did not get felt up, cat called or low-level assaulted at all while at school. Not once did I even have to think about the possibility of it.

@NeverDropYourMooncup

And you think ss will help that?

That's because girls don't mention it to adults. It's just what happens. They get harassed on their way to school by both boys and random men from 20-80 years old and the most they'd get would be 'why were you talking to them? Couldn't you ignore them and walk away?' or 'that's just how men/boys are'.

Then they get into school. 'Why didn't you say anything to the teacher? Why did you let him hug you? What were you doing on the field in the first place? Had you rolled your skirt up? He just likes you. He was just showing off to his friends. Why weren't you with any friends? What were you thinking of sending that photo? Now what is everybody going to think of you?'

and that's if they complain - 90% of the time, the hugging, the nudging, the groping from an unidentified boy, the one they liked but didn't expect to be demanding photos but says they'll just tell everybody she sent anyway, the hanging a schoolbag over the lock to the changing room door, the catcalling from the classroom they have to run past during PE, the showing her explicit porn, the questions about 'do you do anal? Jamie said you did', 'I can see your bra, why are you showing off?' is kept quiet or excused by 'Oh, don't worry, Miss, he's just like that' isn't even anything weird enough to even think of mentioning, much less complaining about.

@RedWingBoots the fact that is depends on where you lives should be enough to tell you that the system is failing girls. Because either all girls have access to safe schools (whether through changing the way we socialise boys or through SS education) or none do. It isn't acceptable for some to have the option but not others. And it will always be those who do not have money who get hit - because moving to a suitable area is also about having money.

Depends where you live

I went to a single sex comprehensive until 16 them went to a mixed college.

I actually went to 100% all female environment to an 80% male one. I work in STEM in a male dominated field so you can see why.

Where I live there are single sex comps but they tend to be over subscribed.

I already told my DP that our DD is going single sex. He is fine with it as he went to a mixed school and didn't like the shit he saw.

But it is still valid for others to use societal change as a measure for whether SS education 'works'

I see what you mean, but in order to know whether something works, you have to establish what the actual purpose of it was in the first place.

If the purpose of single sex education is to allow students to safely and happily fulfil their academic potential while they are at school, then it is completely unreasonable to assess its success based on whether it achieves societal change which it was not necessarily intending to create.

The interesting thing is that it seems to be widely accepted (presumably based on data, but I've not read it) that ss schools benefit girls but not boys. So arguably ss 'works', but generally speaking only for girls. Of course, as has been said, the water is muddied by the fact that there are relatively few ss state comprehensives. So it must be difficult to sift out whether the benefits are caused by ss itself or other aspects typical in ss schools (e.g. academic selection).

Exactly @pointythings

@Fairislefandango

Aren't you worried they'll be sexually assaulted if they do?

I'm aware ss girls schools aren't meant to solve the societal issue.

Thats why I said segregation doesn't help

The biggest issue I have with SS education, and why I feel that the focus should be on societal change, is that SS education is only available to people with money. People who can afford private schooling can pay for an escape for their DDs. People who can afford to pay for tutoring to get their DDs into grammar schools can pay for an escape. The rest of the female school population are just thrown under the bus. It isn't good enough.

It doesn't solve the societal issue.

It's not meant to. That's not the purpose of it at all.

It doesn't stop other kinds of bullying.

Stopping sexual harrassment and sexual assault is still a win. And there are other well-publicised benefits which have nothing to do with bullying.

It doesn't stop girls wanting to meet up with boys outside of school.

Who wants to stop girls meeting up with boys outside of school?! Various people on the thread (including me) have been saying that girls in single sex schools can and should meet up with boys outside of school!

But it is still valid for others to use societal change as a measure for whether SS education 'works', even if that's not what the individual parent is interested in. It's like the grammar school debate (which I'm not suggesting we get into here!). There is a difference between looking at whether grammar schools 'work' for the individual student, or for society as a whole. Both are perfectly valid ways of looking at the argument.

@Fairislefandango

It doesn't solve the societal issue.

It doesn't stop other kinds of bullying.

It doesn't stop girls wanting to meet up with boys outside of school.

There are positives and negatives to both.

I cant say that I've heard any of my peers discussing sexual harassment of their daughters during school hours being a huge issue.

I'd need to check the stats for here, not sure if its broken down by country though.

I accept that ss may be better for girls but I dont think segregation works.

In what way does it not work? What evidence do you have that it doesn't achieve what the parents and/or their daughters want it to achieve? Because that is the measure of whether it works or not. Parents send their daughters to ss schools becathey think they will be happy and do well there, not in order to achieve societal change.

Ss state schools aren't a thing here and AFAIK there aren't many private either, maybe 1 or 2?

I accept that ss may be better for girls but I dont think segregation works

Would we accept it for anything else?

We should be tackling the issues of male sexual harassment from a young age.

Otherwise they just grow up to adult men who think it's OK

I would suggest the problem is with society, not ‘those schools’.

Yep.

Co Ed, the world is Co Ed why would you prepare kids for adult life in separate schools?

There are all kinds of things about life as a child which don't replicate adult life. If people are happy with their local mixed school, that's great. If they are concerned about the various issues mentioned on this thread, and/or have read research which confirms that single sex schools are academically beneficial to girls, then they might wish to send their daughter to one. There are plenty of opportunities to mix with boys at extracurricular and social activities outside of school, do there is no need for their life to be dingle-sex.

Co Ed, the world is Co Ed why would you prepare kids for adult life in separate schools? We had the option of single sex because our local comp was single sex (very unusually) but I went out of area to avoid it

I would suggest the problem is with society, not ‘those schools’.

Then the problem is with those schools.

How many schools have you been in? I've been in lots. And I have many teacher friends and ex-colleagues in lots of other schools. These are widespread problems which are found to some extent in most schools.

I've met a few from mixed schools who can't relate properly to the opposite sex.

Me too. In fact my observation of a lit of the behaviour between boys and girls in mixed schools is not exactly indicative of mixed schools creating positive, healthy relationships between the sexes.

Strange to read the comment about single sex school = to be uncomfortable around men, be nervous around them or think their aliens.

Because I went toschool woth boys and even to this day I feel this way about men.
And it’s because I was exposed to their horrible/nasty/bullying behaviour.

I donmt think I’ll ever trust one of them or feel like thei are humans, like women are.

I went to a single sex private school. Not only did I hate the sex segregation, I also hated going to the weird school miles from the school where the local kids went. This had the side effect that I didn’t really have friends in the neighbourhood. I used to consider my school “Sex Apartheid”. It did mess me up quite a lot in my teena and into my early twenties with echoes of those issues still causing me trouble in my mid 40s now.