...in being insanely proud of my daughter, but very cross with her sexist school and teachers

[duchesse]

DD at year 8 sports day.

Approaches (male) teacher in charge of 1500m race to ask if it is OK for her to enter even though all the other contestant are boys.

"Well, yes you can, but since all the others are boys, you'll probably come last, so just do your best and try to enter some girls' events as well so you don't get too discouraged."*

DD wins 1500m race.

*Some slight paraphrasing may have taken place, but that's the gist of what DD reported to me -AAAAARGH!!! Sexist pig!

FWIW I think that you are quite lucky to have that kind of mix for yuor daughter - A single sex girls school can lead to cliques and bitchiness, and all that sexist attitude she comes across will keep her feisty and competitive I am sure.

I don't think it is worth taking it up with the school, far better to let these dinasaurs figure out for themselves how petty they are than to have them disciplined (won't actually 'achieve' anything and they might then resent your daughter).

Besides, sounds like your daughter has already rubbed their dinasaur noses in it sufficiently

Well done to Duchesse's dd! The satisfaction of proving a sexist pig wrong will probably be an advantage in the long run.

It's sad that so many women are keen to reinforce sexist stereotypes. Yes, on average, grown men are stronger/faster than women BUT we are talking about year 8s here and an athletic year 8 at that. And Duchesse's dd proved the teacher wrong.

FWIW my best friend at school was county champion for the 200 metres and regularly beat boys in mixed races.

Teacher wouldn't be telling boys not to worry about getting worse results in their GCSEs than girls because on average girls do better, would he?

would complain to the school about this attitude problem - well done your dd