Come and tell me what you think of girls schools...

[worriedsister30]

My ex wants out dd to go to a girls secondary school. In fairness it is a lot better than the coed school that is our other choice.

But the feminist in me is saying no... I can't quite pin point why but it seems dangerous to segregate like that. If dd is to receive the message that we are equal, it makes no sense to send her to a girls school.

Am I reading too much in to it? Is this not a feminist issue?

I went to a Girls' Grammar School and thank my lucky stars that I did. I had some fabulous teachers - both male and female - but the focus of the school was bringing up strong, independent, well educated young women. We were EXPECTED to try hard, to go to University, to have careers etc. I did boy stuff at the weekend but was glad not to be distracted at school.

Sillybillybob - we got the bus home with boys and had a few teeny romances, but it was never a focus as we saw them for such a little part the day. Never had good male friends until university, but by then was strong and sure enough of myself to make friends on an equal level rather than titter about boys as I would have (and did) at 13. At the time I probably wished I was around boys more. Now I am very very grateful that I wasn't so there wasn't danger of being distracted from my education which is way more important for a teenager to focus on in the long run.

Sillybillybob - that didn't really address your points at all so don't know why I directed it at you! Think you made me think of one thing and then I typed something else!!

Right. Well, I feel strongly about coeducation, and would have preferred my daughter to go to a coed...but then I walked into our local girls' comp (several schools in our area are single sex) and I loved it. And she has loved it, and her sister will be going there in September - along with a lot of her peers. It's not a 'nasty bitchy place'. I love the emphasis on science and maths. She has fabulous friendships. I do worry that she doesn't know masses of boys, but she's still friendly with her former contemporaries who headed off to the boys' equivalent (and I suspect this will increase as hormones hit them ). She's very pleased at being in an all-female atmosphere and has thrived.

Sure I read somewhere that girls in single sex school do significantly better at STEM subjects than girls in co-ed.

My all girls school was an incredibly difficult place to survive in socially.
But I think that rather than it being because it was all girls, it was more because it was a grammar and I was one of a tiny number of pupils from a non middle class, non private school background, and that isolated me socially.

I was so miserable that my parents moved me to the local comp where I then struggled finding my feet with the boys.
I distinctly remember feeling terrified in the first lesson I had to share with all those pubescent boys!

I was mixed until I went to secondary school and then it was single sex - and I think it was a good thing. We were definitely brought up with the idea that we were the business women of tomorrow, and there was no nonsense about boys' subjects and girls' subjects. We did maths and physics and metalwork and woodwork, as well as needlework and cookery. (At least up till GCSE options.)

We saw boys out of school at swimming club and so on, not to mention on the school bus, for those of us from out of town. There were shared drama thing, and we shared a French exchange, so it wasn't total isolation. Also, half my 6th form classes were over at the boys school. I was quite taken aback when one 6th form trip was being planned, and we were told the girls wouldn't be getting individual tents like the boys would. I don't remember having been aware before of being treated differently just because I was a girl, and it never occurred to me not to challenge it. I suspect if I'd been in mixed education all the way through, I would possibly not have noticed so much, and have been less likely to challenge it.

There was some bitchiness, but I am not sure it was any more than there would be among girls at a mixed school - possibly even less. I think that's just a feature of adolescent girls being together. I'm still friends with some girls I was at school with, a quarter of a century on, so it can't have been all bad.

One way or another, I suspect being educated at an all-girls school has something to do with me now working in a very male-dominated area of IT. My current employer is really pushing for diversity at the moment, and I'm involved in work (on top of my day job) to promote STEM careers, particularly (but not only) to girls.

All that doesn't mean single sex education is always good - like any other school - all boys, all girls, mixed, grammar, comprehensive, academy, private, whatever - some will be better than others, and I don't think it will ever be down to a single factor. But had I daughters (which I don't), and had I choice (we didn't - there was one secondary choice for boys, one for girls, unless you could afford to commute and/or go private), all else being equal, I would prefer to send them to an all-girls school than mixed.

I don't agree with single sex education. I work mainly with men who were educated in boys' schools and I think it contributes to a workplace environment and structure that is very male. For the most part, the men can't even see it, it is invisible to them because they are so used to it. Their counterparts, the women who went to girls' schools, did well academically and started out working in equal numbers to the men, are largely absent from the workplace post-motherhood or are in side-lined jobs.

I don't know whether the girls' school environment contributes to the problem by not teaching girls how to work with or compete with boys.

Very good point Flora - that's the flipside of single sex education for girls - you have to put the boys in single sex schools too! Though I have come across the occasional self-aware product of the male public school system (but they're few and far between, in my experience). One of my contemporaries at Oxford (an old Etonian) once remarked "I don't know why everyone says that the women's colleges are like girls' schools... after all the men's colleges - by which I mean the allegedly mixed ones, because let's face it, they're basically still men's colleges with a few women grudgingly given places - are actually like boys' schools. I should know because I went to one and I am at one." [This was the mid 80s - guy in question will have been an exact contemporary of Cameron and Johnson!]

Have skipped through a bit.

it is interesting that many regs went to all girls schools!

As I did too. Boys were allowed at my primary to age 7 (what they were going to do at 8 is anyone's guess then I was at a single sex school, then I went to a different mixed sixth form.

My secondary school experience was very mixed. It was a very selective pressurised results driven school. Pastoral care (is that the term?) that some of my friends needed badly was non existent. OTOH there was absolutely no sense that any activity was "for girls" or not. I have a mathsy/sciency bent and was able to follow that, and I suspect the fact that I was able to do that at school no questions asked meant I could pursue it at degree level with little concern.

Also our school drew from a large area, most people got school coaches, which were mixed, and so lots of friendships / familiarity / flirting etc.

I have never had any trouble relating to the male sex TBH

Flora I work full time (with small kids) and am in an industry where actually, things are OK re sexes. It's not a competition, I work with people IYSWIM.

This is probably different in different lines of work.

I don't think the problems are due to schooling though. The fact that many women leave the workforce after children is not due to schooling, it's to do with a load of other stuff.

IME girls in a single sex environment aren't limited, like they are in the rest of society and everything. It's a good thing.

Like rainbows & guides & the WI or whatever. In a sexist society, females can blossom when out of the sight of oppressors.

I am also pondering this. Where I live my children are likely to get a single sex school at secondary. I see the benefit of not being subjected to sexist abuse or expectations at school (not exactly a hard thing!), but sadly I dont think that happens at the local state girls school my children would be likely to go to. Their results don't show a greater take up of science or maths at A level, they appear (from seeing them on their way to and from school everyday and from two occasions when I've been in the school in the day) to be very concerned with the way they look and from the conversations overheard tey seem very keen on policing the way each other appears to the boys at the twinned school.

I went to a mixed comp. Our school had faults. There were some sexist comments and some sexist expectations, but we had an equal take up of sciences and maths by girls and boys (possibly more girls in maths). I didn't feel that there was anything I couldn't do and I wasn't trying to find my feet with boys when I went to university. Although there were issues, we also had some strong feminist voices (teachers and students) and, at least for me and those of us who got on the university track, there was a lot of support and encouragement to follow our talents and dreams as much as any of the boys. I had a lot of male and female frieds and still do, and I never felt I had to have a boyfriend or change the way I was to attract one.

At university I noticed that quite a few of my friends from all-girls schools were all at sea with relationships, and put up with some horrendous treatment to a much greater extent than those from mixed schools. Also, I found it common that the girls were sent to schools that fit around their brothers' schooling or that took a back seat to their brothers'. For instance I had quite a few female friends who had been sent to state schools while their brothers had been sent to private schools, and otheres who had moved school because their parents had wanted their brothers to go somewhere else. None of my male friends had had a sister sent somewhere more expensive than their school, nor were any of them moved to accomodate their sisters. When we look at what families spend as a nation on their children we see time and again that they spend more on boys than girls. Splitting children up for their education makes it easier to entrench that. So I think there are some good reasons to be cautious of single sex education.

But despite my good experience at a mixed sex school and my concern about the quality of the local single-sex schools I also know women who went to great ones and their education was fantastic and they tried things they don't think they would ever have tried if it hadn't been for the envirnment they were educated in. Also my niece has just started at an excellent one which her mother chose in large part because she was being teased in some lessons by boys because she was a girl and the teachers did nothing about it.

Most of that is anecdotal, but my point is that you need to look at the individual schools, not just whether they are girls schools or mixed schools. And you need to think about why you are sending your daughter (and why your ex wants to send your daughter to a particular school. On the whole my preference would be - Mixed-sex school with a strong equality ethos > single sex school with a strong equality ethos > don't send them to the crap schools of either bent!

my point is that you need to look at the individual schools

I agree - whether or not single sex or mixed schooling is better overall doesn't mean a particular individual school will be good or bad. And even if it's good, it might not be the right school for your child.

I went to an all girl's grammar school. There was no weight given to 'boy's' subjects or 'girl's' subjects, so there were a lot more girls in STEM options than friends in coed schools had, it was also expected that girls would go on and study whatever they wanted to. Sadly, I was unable to break my home conditioning and didn't go on to further education, because I was supposed to marry well, but that's a different story.

I was terribly badly bullied as well, but that was more the girls in my year, who, because I had been to a private school, decided that I was too big for my boots, than single sex schools per se. I've never been much of a round peg.

I went to a co-ed school for the first two years of high school and then to a single-sex school for the rest.

The difference between them was like night and day, in terms of sexism and sexual harassment and intellectual/academic encouragement. Sexual harassment from boys was common at the first school and totally normalised. Girls too absorbed the misogynist atmosphere and often bullied one another cruelly. There was a constant fear of being labelled a 'slut' and at the same time pressure to participate in sex (even though we were only 12-14).

At the girls' school there was none of the relentless sexism, and a general low level of bullying (can't say whether that would go for all girls schools). We were encouraged to excel academically and there was just more freedom to be dorky, intellectual, or pursue whatever interests you had without being worried about what you looked like and whether the boys approved of you.

Flora brings up a very good point, though. But it seems unfair to me that girls should have to be educated in an environment in which they are constantly diminished in order to ameliorate boys' sense of entitlement.

So, I would support co-education being the norm IF the government and education system committed to recognising that sexism is a systemic problem in schools and instituted strong programs to eliminate it. That includes not just insisting all schools take a no-tolerance approach to sexual harassment and sexist language, but actually monitoring how much time teachers give girls vs boys, raising teachers' awareness of how their attitudes create a discriminatory atmosphere in the classroom, etc. UK Feminista has a 'Sexism in Schools' campaign - that seems like a good start.

Around our way (and indeed around many places) the schools where girls do best are single sex and I prefer that. My daughters were at top 10 schools - all were single sex girls. It works really well. There is plenty of chance to meet boys out of school and on school coaches and their brothers' friends.

Um.... Sexual bullying (do you mean "have you done it /with whom/ how far etc) is as possible in a girls school as a mixed one. I'm quite confused by your view that a girls only school it wouldn't happen. They do still know boys and interact with them.....?!? Just not in actual class. Girls are quite capable of sexual peer pressure regardless of actually being near boys at school....

I had a 'diamond' education (weird term, but there you go) mixed primary, single sex secondary and then went to a boys boarding school with girls in the sixth form. dh went to a boys secondary. We both agreed that we would make sure our children went to co-ed right through. In fact we moved areas partly because all of our local secondary schools were single sex.

Part of that is because we wanted our children to go to the same school, but mostly because we were uncomfortable with the idea of segregation and neither of us felt particularly advantaged by single sex schooling. Plus personally I much prefer operating in a mixed environment, in my experience the more diversity the better, and growing up given the choice I was more likely to be friends with boys than girls.

One of the things I found concerning is that when I was at my girls school we all used to meet up with a bunch of boys who were looking back really quite a nasty lot, but we were so fixated on them being boys that we put up with a lot of shit.

Anyway our children are doing well at their mixed comp, dd is at the top of most of her classes and reports no issues with being dominated or abused (we've had far more issues with girl related crap). In the school system we are in math is compulsory right through, and everyone has to take a science and a social science too so there's no choice to drop them.

Minnie, I realise sexual bullying can happen at girls' schools. I was just giving the observation that it happened much less at my girls' school than at my co-ed one.

In my experience, a co-ed school provides a more conducive environment for sexist bullying. The dynamic at mine was that many boys targeted the girls for harassment and worse, the girls learnt that they were potential targets because they were girls, and many then targeted other girls in an effort to to avoid being targeted themselves, and because they had internalised all the misogyny that was freely tolerated.

'Slut' was a constant epithet, you felt acutely that you could be judged and condemned at all times because you were female, and yet, you were supposed to take part in sexual activity or risk being uncool - none of this was present at my all-girls school. I can't speak for what goes on at other girls' schools, obviously.

I had a 'diamond' education (weird term, but there you go) mixed primary, single sex secondary and then went to a boys boarding school with girls in the sixth form. dh went to a boys secondary. We both agreed that we would make sure our children went to co-ed right through. In fact we moved areas partly because all of our local secondary schools were single sex.

Part of that is because we wanted our children to go to the same school, but mostly because we were uncomfortable with the idea of segregation and neither of us felt particularly advantaged by single sex schooling. Plus personally I much prefer operating in a mixed environment, in my experience the more diversity the better, and growing up given the choice I was more likely to be friends with boys than girls.

One of the things I found concerning is that when I was at my girls school we all used to meet up with a bunch of boys who were looking back really quite a nasty lot, but we were so fixated on them being boys that we put up with a lot of shit.

Anyway our children are doing well at their mixed comp, dd is at the top of most of her classes and reports no issues with being dominated or abused (we've had far more issues with girl related crap). In the school system we are in math is compulsory right through, and everyone has to take a science and a social science too so there's no choice to drop them.

rats! sorry about the double post!

I went to a girls' primary and a different girls' secondary. The primary lacked ambition and I envied the competitive, challenging environment of my brother's boys' primary. My secondary school was fantastic and I wold send my DD to a similar girls' school if I could, but there aren't any near us. I have also taught, but only in mixed schools, and if you can avoid the huge amount of sexual tension/harassment between years 7-11, then it would be a good thing.

The data showing that girls do better in single sex environments and boys in mixed makes me really want to send DD to a girls school, why should her results suffer to improve those of boys?

I would be particularly wary of ex boys' schools that take some girls, but not 50/50. I am not at all sure that being in the minority is a good thing for those girls.

It called 'diamond' because if you imagine a diamond shape drawn on paper the lines join up at top and bottom of the shape but furthest apart in the middle.

That is a graphical description of how girls and boys are joined together in Primary (bottom) and sixth form (top) but apart in the middle years.

I had the same experience as thatbloodywoman

I went to an small all girls' boarding school, plus I have a terrible relationship with my father so no male role model to be proud of. As a result I was completely intimated by men at university and unable to communicate with them. So it's not just school life but how that combines and relates to home influences.

I'm a feminist and confident but it's been a long road to get here.