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?

Formative years in an institution where women make the rules, dictate the agenda and take all the leadership positions: what's not to like?

pointissima - very good point. And that, I think, may be an issue in general about the transition from school to university and beyond. School is a highly feminised environment (even mixed sex schools tend to have many more female than male adults around), which must, to a great extent, make girls' life easier. University and beyond tends to be dominated by males in positions of power - so maybe quite a few girls/women "feel" the transition in sexist terms?

Bonsoir: you imply, then, that I am like your sister, and that the sexism I (or she) encountered was not sexism at all, but rather a more "bracing' environment, which I was somehow ill-equipped to navigate?

At A Level, 80% of the teaching I received was from male teachers. At GCSE, approx. 40%. Lack of male teachers, or a "feminised" environment (my boarding school was about as far from maternal and nurturing as you can imagine), were not the problems.

Girls do better in single sex schools. Near us the best schools in terms of results are the academically selective girls' single sex schools. I'd have quite liked there to have been no boys there certainly between the ages of 14 - 16 as they were the ones disrupting the classes and seemed like they were 11 not 16. Also as others have said there was a good deal of sexual harassment going on which I had no idea how to deal with - mainly comments and name calling, but also regularly had my bra strap twanged in lessons, the worse incidents were an older boy fondling my breasts in the corridor and another time a boy from the same year putting his hand up my skirt when I was getting off the bus.

I know girls can name call and have their own social problems but in my school after the age of 13/14 anyway it was largely the boys who caused me grief and I'd really like my daughters not to have to go through that so they can just get on with their education. I know this won't keep them away from boys at all and I'm not expecting them to not be normally curious teenagers but I think single sex education at 11 onwards is the way forward.

I don't think that is the case across the majority of schools in the UK penthesileia.

Straight - Do you mean the number of male staff at my school? Yes, I realise that this was unusual. I was just responding to Bonsoir's point that, in my case at least, it was not because I was unaccustomed to being taught by men, or that I had enjoyed a "maternal" school before going to university.

Penthe - I am not implying anything about you at all. I am just putting forward one quite strong hypothesis as to why my experience of the university environment was not sexist whereas my sister's was (and we had, to all intents and purposes, received an identical upbringing and education up until that point).

There is a current that runs through these conversations on feminism/sexism on MN which disturbs me greatly, and that is the one that consistently blames the harshness of institutional life on men's bad behaviour/poor treatment of women and that men ought to be nicer. Whereas I tend to think that women need to toughen up if they want to be taken seriously in the working world.

sexism is still sexism though, even if you think women should deal with it differently.

At my university there was a don who would not teach women, which meant you couldn't do a particular specialist subject because he was the only one in the university who generally taught it.

One could argue that women should have been tougher and called him to account/worked round him and found someone else to teach it to them, but it can't be written off as not being sexism.

SybilBeddows - that's an extreme example and, indeed, ought to have been fairly straightforward to call to account. Most sexism is a lot more insidious and has to do with favouritism and allegiance, which is why it is difficult to challenge collectively. Women have to learn to recognise it and to work round it individually (which is hard, but a good school IMO) as well as relying on collective tactics.

Well, an environment is either sexist or it is not. It has little to do with the person experiencing it, in my opinion. They may react to it in a particular way, but that does not change the fact that an institution is sexist, etc.

As I stated, I receiving a pretty bracing education (and life) at school. I believe I am plenty tough.

I just don't think that, for instance, being groped by a male fellow in a supervision; or having fellows or male peers express surprise that I received a first - rather than simply congratulate me; or a whole host of other little events are simply evidence that I am or was not "tough" enough.

Personally, I think that on those, and other, occasions, perhaps the men should have been a little "nicer".

Did you experience such things, Bonsoir? If so, I'd be interested to know how you "[set] out to change them or else [worked] around them to [your] own advantage." In my situation, would you have slept with the fellow in order to avoid making supervisions frosty?

Should I have apologised to my teacher and my male peers for having done well when they, in the case of fellow students, did poorly? Did you?

Apologies - if I'm repeating another poster, trying to type quickly, baby due up in about 15 secs. I went to a co-education Catholic grammar school in the 80 - early 90's in NI. It was one of the few co-ed grammars at the time. A lot of girls transferred to us at age 15 from single sex schools, they were academically really well formed but seriously had a total "in awe" of attitude towards the boys, whereas we had been with the boys since the age of 11 so they were just friends but a lot of girls thought the boys were the "bees knees" and were the girls who changed their behaviour, attitude, looks etc to fit in with what they thought the boys wanted.

Girls who had been educated with the boys were much more likely to tell the boys to piss off, argue debate with them etc.

I have 3dds and will definitely send them to a co-ed school.

WTF sakura? I think you've entirely misread me. I did not blame mothers for their boys' behaviour in any way.

Well, said Penthe. Sometimes life is tough and we all (men or women) have to be strong to deal with it, however, isn't is victim blaming to suggest that women should 'toughen-up' or 'accept the joke' or one of the very may ways in which men excuse their bad behaviour?

Penthe - I got a First (a starred First) and didn't have to sleep with anyone or get groped or feel any kind of sexual pressure. I suppose the only sexism I encountered was post-finals when a fellow (male) student (whom I didn't know at all well) whether I had had an affair with one of our tutors. I was surprised at the question and have never thought about it much, but I suppose he probably hoped that I had come by my results by illicit means as it would have made him feel better about his own results. Which is hardly gross sexism, just human nature!

The world isn't nice, it's a tough, tough place, and men aren't always nice to women, but they aren't at all nice to one another either (albeit perhaps in different ways). It's a competition out there, and you need to have the weapons and defenses as well as the strategies and tactics you need at your fingertips.

I'm sure you don't mean it this way Bonsoir but in the above post you just implied that Penthe got her first because she allowed herself to be groped/sexually harassed.

I do think that if you took a step back and replaced 'women' with 'black people' you may have a different perspective on what you said.

Penthe asked me for my experience so I gave it.

"I do think that if you took a step back and replaced 'women' with 'black people' you may have a different perspective on what you said."

I don't think that easy parallels can be drawn between sexual politics and racial politics. Sexual politics will always exist, and, crucially, should exist.

Bonsoir. Did you mean to say something like: "I got a First (starred First) and was never faced with the threat of, etc."? Or did you mean to imply what MummyBerryJuice suggested? I would be grateful if you would clear that up! I assume you did not mean that, but it is unclear.

Do you think so, Bonsoir? why?

Segregation scares me in any shape or form. Segregation on the grounds of sex sounds like Adam and Eve and the temptation with the apple. Has huge religious/repressive connotations in my head, and I would not consider single sex education for my own kids (unless, that is, they insisted very very very much on it and we had to have that discussion in the future). Is it linked to sexuality? Do we place gay/lesbian/transsexuals in different groups?

And statistics do not convince me. Evidence of single sex education working better, may only reveal the inequalities we live with. I would prefer to change that, so in the future, no child would do better or worse depending on the sex of their peers.

Penthe - I didn't imply anything and didn't mean anything other than what I wrote. What is it with implications today?

MummyBerryJuice - sexual politics will always exist, should exist and, IMO, should be actively discussed because men and women are fundamentally different and complementary. Whereas skin colour is a physical feature that is gender-blind and makes not one jot of difference to life potential, all other things being equal.

Bonsoir: what you wrote, and the manner in which you posted on this thread, could be construed in a number of ways. I simply wished to understand which interpretation I should follow. That's clear now.

I completely disagree with you Bonsoir, we are not fundamentally different at all and you could always say that gender is skin-colour blind.

Just as black skin is able to withstand longer and higher levels of light exposure and is therefore different from white skin a black is not 'fundamentally' different from a white person.