What is the feminist view on single sex education?

[MummyBerryJuice]

I was educated privately in South Africa at girls-only schools largely because my parents wanted me and my brother to be educated in a multiracial setting and during Apartheid state schools were segregated. I have always felt that this was an advantage to me and the other girls as we were under less pressure to conform to girly stereotypes I never experienced any of the commonly held prejudices such as 'girls are better at English and drama and boys are better at maths and physics' etc.

However, now that I am a mum myself and am thinking about the future education of my own children (who currently are only 16 months old and in utero ) I am starting to wonder whether the separation of sexes in education (admittedly not state - which is where our children will be going) is not just another way in which the patriarchy removes women from the mainstream?

Best to choose the school that suits your child in the end. Some will breeze through life, some will need a bit more support in their environment.

I'm sure I'd have loved to go to an all girls school, the more traditional the better, but I doubt I'd have come out with my science A levels and the friends of both sexes and all walks of life which I gained from going to mixed comprehensives. I don't think segregation can be the way to equality - but then I don't have daughters so I can't practise what I preach.

I knew some girls at mixed schools who got on better with boys, often because they were less stereotypically 'girly' themselves. They might not have been so happy at girls' schools.

Wednesday - why do you think you wouldn't have done the science A levels at a girls' school? Statistically girls are more likely to take those subjects at a single sex school, aren't they?

wednesday I don't have any children so can't practise anything yet, but we are both still allowed opinions! :)

Yes, I though so too Sybil.

I think my central question has sort of been answered here, that there isn't some nefarious way in which educating girls separately is used to further the patriarchy. It just boils down to looking at the individual child and school.

One of the posters on page one (I've forgotten who, sorry) made an interesting point about her brother going to an all boys school, loving it but turning out a bit of a chauvinist. It's a point worth considering - an all girls school might be best for your daughters, but is it best for your sons?

I went to a small co-ed boarding school, but it had only recently started accepting girls - in fact my year group was the first one to have girls the whole way through. It was interesting comparing our behaviour with those of the boys in the older years:

• my year group was less predatory. While the boys in the years above went out with girls younger than them (sometimes much younger) and were quite predatory in their approach, in our year group and the years that followed us this was really rare and any boys that did were thoroughly mocked for doing so.

• we were less brutal. When I first arrived at the school aged 12 the boys in the older years were extremely physically violent towards us at the slightest provocation, and there were various "hazings" for new students. While I'm not suggesting we were in any way a bunch of angels, by the time we got to 6th form this kind of behaviour was far less common and the "hazings" had vanished.

• there was a lot less bragging about sexual conquests. Maybe it just because we didn't have as many, but the boys in my year group were far more discreet and respectful than those in the years above who hadn't grown up with girls in the class, who often bragged about girls they had "had" in highly disrespectful terms.

So what's my point? Well I guess I'm saying that boys can be told "treat girls as equals and respect them", but if they don't come into contact with girls on a regular basis it's hard for them to put this into practice.

Thanks for that insight MrIC - that's what I thought, and we should remember that although our boys are clearly lovely because they are beign raised by feminists, the boys from these boys-only schools will shortly be the men that we all encounter in the real world.

I don't know whether the well being of boys is enough of an argument for me to send my daughter into situation where 1/3 girls are sexually assaulted.

Turning boys into men who know how to treat women is beneficial for the wellbeing of everyone.

My point is not that existing mixed schools are ideal, but that separating the sexes entirely is not going to benefit boys or girls in the long run.

(I still think that spending age 11-16 in an environment where there are people of both sexes and having friends of both sexes is good for boys and good for girls)

I'm actually more concerned about the wellbeing of boys, and of their learning to cooperate with and respect girls and women (despite being a feminist and having 3 daughters and no sons) than I am about the risk of sexual assault in schools. Perhaps because that 1/3 statistic doesn't bear any resemblence to my experience at school or the girls I know now at mixed schools - I'm not sure what that statistic includes, but most of the women and girls I know who've been through mixed schools are not in that 1/3 statistic.

The 1/3 statistic doesn't ring true to me at all either, but I don't want to say "that number is wrong because I feel it is wrong". Where does it come from? And does "sexual assault" include having your bra strap pinged once? Because I bet that happens in girls schools too.

I went to both mixed and girls' secondary schools and have no hesitation about going for single sex education for my son.

Main reason? Some research that was done by Leonard Sax in the US, showing how boys and girls respond differently to different methods of teaching. Specifically, boys need louder, more confrontational methods of getting them to take notice "MR SMITH WHAT IS THE SUM OF..." etc whereas girls are better with one-to-one softer approaches.
Also men and women (all ages) work best at radically different temperatures. Ever wondered why you feel cold if you walk into a room where just men are working? Or why your DHs moan about the heating being on when you're freezing? There's a 2-3C difference in preferred temperature, so a boy's school will probably have colder rooms. (Dr Sax mentions that if you educate boys at a girl's optimal temp, they can quite literally go to sleep)

I share an office with two men and we are always arguing about the temperature!

(Oh and girls most definitely can do physics! I'd decided that I was going to do it while at the mixed secondary, but I met a lot of hostility from the boys who were most peeved that a girl not only wanted to do it but was better than them! Girls' school was a relief - I could do what I wanted without hassle and went on to get degrees and a career in physics. The same goes for arts subjects in boys' schools.)

Having recently read the Gender Delusion I get very twitchy when people say 'boys learn better with X method and girls learn better with Y method'.

But even if it were true that most boys learned better with X and most girls learned better with Y, if we had only single sex-schools then we would be massively disadvantaging those who did not fit with the norm. Boys who learned better in the "girl" way and girls hwo learned better in the "boy" way would have no chance at all.

So I am still going to argue for mixed education, using a variety of teaching and learning styles, and recognising that individuals learn best in different ways.

redvelvet, I completely agree with what you wrote about the male gaze.
I went to a mixed school and. Any hair out of place on a girl (too fat, wears glasses, not fashionable enough, first to develop breasts etc) and boys would notice and bully. If you were a good-looking girl then you had a great time, if you weren't then school was hell unless you just kept yourself to yourself...

so I would say there's nothing wrong with a girl's school at all. BUt I would worry that society would pretend that a girl's school (and therefore education) was inferior

So if you're a girl and you rather like competition, and do better with exams than coursework, what do you do? Join a boys' school?

my 9yo dd was in a Maths competition/fast thinker competition yesterday. 8 teams from different schools making bridges to speed, and doing maths problems in between. Her team of 3 girls and a boy came top. She came home fizzing with excitement. She is by far the loudest and most confident child in her class, in fact she could do with a bit of quashing. She absolutely thrives on competition, she doesn't bother trying if there's noone to challenge her.

I seem to have forgotten to teach her that girls learn best with the more feminine approaches. The school also doesn't seem to have quashed its girls very effectively either.

Trillian, I have to say you are being incredibly naive about the roots of men's behaviour. It's not the mothers who are to blame , it's the patriarchal society where the sexualisation, dehumanization and murder of women is displayed constantly on TV as entertainment, and the violent rape of women in porn is FUN for men .. so they can orgasm.. and then politicians act all suprised when, after all that training, adult men decide it's FUN in real life too and they'd like to try it out...

The rape culture and porn culture turns men into monsters, not whether or not their mothers were Sufficiently Feminist or not

I know the patriarchy is heavily invested in blaming women (well let's be honest, mothers ) for men's behaviour but we as feminists can't take our cue from them! Eliminate porn, eliminate the sexiness of female murder on our screens first and then look at how the child is being raised at home

No, obviously girls and boys shouldn't be taught differently. That's just something that people made up in order to justify the fact that girls consistently get better grades IMO

The first time I encountered out-and-out sexism, as in someone was sexist to my face, was when I left my single-sex school, where no-one had ever commented on my academic ability or potential in relation to my sex, and only the highest results in all subjects were expected of me, and entered university, where I was confronted by a) sexist dons; and b) sexist fellow students.

So, from my personal experience, single-sex education protected me during some formative years from any overt sexism either from fellow pupils or teaching staff.

Really, Penthe? University was a haven for me - I never felt a whiff of sexism. My sister, on the other hand, said she felt sexism quite badly at university (not the same one). But she has a different character to me and likes to be taken care of.

Yup. I didn't attend an institution or study a subject renowned for their progressiveness, I must point out, but still...

I don't particularly like "to be taken care of". I'd rather take care of myself. I'm not quite sure what that has to do with sexism, exactly, though. Could you unpack that for me?

That was my experience too Penthe, and from what others have said on here, their's too.

Well... needing to be 'taken care of' obviously implies that one is unable to do so for oneself, and by extension unable to make decisions, and need someone (male) to help/guide you through life.

The difficulty is getting the balance right as it is in schools right now competition has pretty much been eradicated to be replaced by 'everyones' a winner in that type of environment many children who do like competition don't bother because there is no point. So many mixed schools are hardly balanced with teaching styles as it is.

They need a generalised teaching style which fits the majority supported by individual help with people who don't suit. Because teaching can't be tailored to every single child in school too many pupils, too few teachers and not enough time for that.

I think mixed schools with some classes being divided for boys and girls is best. That way girls can learn without feeling the discussion is being dominated by boys.

I don't think Trillian is saying that it is always the mother to blame, although bad parenting does often lead to children growing up to be dodgy as adults, not all children but enough that it is a noticeable trend.

Some may also turn out how they are because of their environment, environment including what they watch, their neighborhood, peers etc. And there are some children that despite all the support and good parenting they get just don't turn out right.

We can affect children's personalities but have got to remember that they are not only learning from their parents and they are an individual, hopefully we give them a good foundation with which to build on.

Yes, but 'parenting' I'd not only about the mother (although it often is used as shorthand for mothering)

MummyBerryJuice got there for me. Though I would include maternal care in liking to be taken care of. My sister is the sort of person who complains about institutions or structures if they don't meet her needs (and hopes others will therefore help her out - which they quite often do) - I am the sort of person who either challenges them and sets out to change them or else works around them to my own advantage. And that has very much coloured our experience of life, both at university and beyond.