DD's school going co-ed - I'm really annoyed

[SomewhereOutThere]

Am I allowed to talk about a private school issue in FC? I know that can be polarising in and of itself, but my particular issue here is about something I feel strongly about as a feminist so I hope this is okay.

We heard yesterday that DD2's prep school is going fully co-ed. (Currently there are a small number of boys up to year 2, a relatively recent change which came alongside an assurance that the school would be staying single sex to 11.) It won't directly affect DD's lessons - boys are being phased in so her year group will remain all girls until she leaves in 3 years. (Though there will be younger boys in her playground which will change the atmosphere I suspect.)

But I'm annoyed that:

• There was no consultation with existing parents or (seemingly) staff, who were surprised.
• A four page booklet about the change continually refers to adding extra facilities to be able to absorb two 'genders'.
• The four page booklet also explains that staff will get extra training to refresh their prior experience/training in teaching co-ed to encompass 'the different ways in which girls and boys learn and their differing interests, strengths and weaknesses'. Makes me feel like there will be lots of the 'boys like science/girls like stories' bollocks which is bad for girls and boys.
• Most of all, in the whole 4 pages the fact that many girls learn better in an all girl environment, and are more likely to pursue STEM subjects, is not addressed! Nor is the fact that there will now be 3 co-ed prep schools in the town the school is in, an all boys school, and no all-girls school.

We chose this school back when my elder daughter was a toddler because I wanted an all girl environment. DD1 was able to be her zany self at this school - she's maths mad and that was massively encouraged, as was sport - she got into one there that she now plays at a county level. She moved on to an all girls senior school in a nearby city brimming with confidence and loves being just with girls. It makes me sad that the governors don't seem to give any weight to the fact that for over 100 years this school has offered that to girls.

Oh, and as they say themselves, they have an all time high of pupils enrolled. So they are 'doing it from a position of strength'. So I have no idea - despite the 4 pages - why they feel it necessary. Something about the needs of our future demographic after engaging consultants to research the strategic future. It must be right then, since a consultant says so. Nice to know that's what fees have been being spent on. (I say that knowing all about consultancy bullshitting to justify a high fee, since I work in a similar field myself!)

I feel like moving DD2 into the nearby city, since it is clear the new (male) chair of governors at her school doesn't believe in and support the importance of an all-girl education, which is my primary reason for paying private school fees. I've contacted the girl's schools this morning. But it'll mean a massively long journey for her on public transport, and might just be too disruptive at this stage - something the school is counting on, I suspect. Gah!

So the fact that young women continue to experience sexual abuse is my fault because I don't campaign against it.

Couldn't be that an awful lot of men are shits and are raising their kids to be shits, could it. No it's all women's fault. OF COURSE.

I'm really fucking angry about the way you've spoken to me so I think I should leave the thread as I've derailed it. Apologies OP. I hope you get an outcome that works for your girls.

Interestingly there seems to be some contention about that report, it is claimed that a lot of the sexual harassment is actually girl on girl, not that that is any more reassuring to me.

It is a government commissioned report with a large data set that has alarmed many people. Not anecdote and uninformed opinion - that's what you offer.

Your local school may not have a problem with sexual assault. No one is saying it definitely does, BTW. But it is something to be aware of and to look out for when considering schools, no?

By the way any man who has ever called me a bitch has hated women. I've never been called it in a jokey way like boys laughingly sometimes call each others wankers. It means female dog, don't forget.

You seem quite ignorant of the use of the word bitch when used towards women and girls. What about slut and slag that were also mentioned as examples - are they just ordinary banter too?

Not only that, but when the teachers will do fuck all about it. If women up and down the country all believed this to be the case, in fact - knew it was the case, then it does indeed baffle me that many more of them do not campaign for segregated education and send their kids to single sex schools

I'm struggling to see what point the OP is making. The market forces in the UK have up until now allowed her to buy in to a private single sex school. About 5% of the population can educate their children privately.

Market forces and future demographics have in all likelihood resulted in this particular school deciding it will go co-ed.

There seems to have been a lack of consultation with parents which is a fair enough gripe, but the only fair gripe.

So far as single sex schools out of that 5% who can make the choice to go private by no means all of them choose single sex. Edinburgh is about as privileged as you get- the 5% jumps to 25%. Of the private schools 2 are fully co-ed from junior nursery to 6th Year, 1 starts off co-ed then splits then goes back; there is one single sex girls' school (there was another smaller girls' school which went bust) and 2 single sex boys school. There is no particular difference in fees. So even amongst parents who can choose single sex the case hasn't been made.

On private schools generally, you can't support true equality of opportunity and support private schools. All this talk about "ethos" - really? Isn't it just you think you will get better results and a more confident child. The league tables for private schools are way ahead of the state schools, have smaller classes and better facilities for things like music and sport.

It's not fair, I took advantage of this but I can't defend it beyond saying I would not want to live in a country which says you can't do this.

Not anecdote and uninformed opinion - that's what you offer.

You say, then follow it up with anecdote and uninformed opinion.

The report itself uses another report to justify it's claim that the perpetrators are boys and the victims are girls, but that report itself says :

^"The majority of male harassers said that they had sexually harassed a male student more than two thirds (72%) said that they had sexually harassed a boy and less than one fifth (19%) said that they had sexually harassed a girl. Among female harassers 50% said they had sexually harassed a girl and 41% said they had sexually harassed a boy."

It would seem to be that perpetuating the boys bad, girls victims theme is certainly politically motivated would it not ?

I'm in favour of better schools. If single sex makes that easier, then I'm fine with single sex. My boys go to a co-ed, but it's a nice, friendly co-educational. I will keep an eye on them as they get older and try to make it clear that harassing 'banter' is not acceptable towards other people.

As to the frequency of my harassment, well, the boys who sat behind me in Maths always had plenty to say, and went with the low-level, juvenile pesting - so poking with a pair of compasses, throwing bits of paper, or pinging straps. On the trip to school, dares whereby one of the boys would go and sit next to one of the girls and put his hand on your thigh, or bum, or drape himself round your shoulders were fairly frequent. The boob grab only happened a couple of times, just a grab as walking by. Pressing up close in queues was a common one - especially if you were carrying a dinner tray and couldn't do anything about it. Spying in changing rooms and toilets, a couple of times a term the teachers would have a go at the boys.

Of course the teachers knew about it. But the boys only ever got a short telling off, so why would they ever stop? There was a definite 'boys will be boys' atmosphere.

In contrast, at the girls school (a much colder atmosphere socially) there was no-one to spy (although, with those nylon gym knickers I was still embarrassed!), no one to grab or grope, I left there fairly young (13), so perhaps people would have started to comment in maths, but the head and her staff had a pretty firm grip on us, so throwing bits of paper would never have been tolerated! Girls were certainly not allowed to misbehave!

Should I put my foot down and tell my wife "some women on the internet with dubious views about men are saying it's a fucking disaster being female in 2017, so lets shell out for the nearest all girls school?"

What a very unpleasant post. As usual.

I suggest you stop asking women why they aren't doing something about it; why isn't it your problem too?

You make me nauseous.

You're missing how many male harassers there were vs. female harassers for that to be useful (also, googling, that seems to be from an American School report I think?)

if there were 10 boys and 10 girl harassers, that's one thing, but if there were 100 boys vs. 10 girls, then the problem is still overwhelmingly boys doing it to girls.

The UK report is unsurprising, but horrible reading. Note how it says again, and again, that the girls are just used to it, that they consider it normal and it doesn't occur to them to report it - ie. exactly what the women on here have been telling you.

Ditto Helen - as does the thought of my son encountering adult women like you.

Given that a lot of it is name calling and the famous twitter research that found 50% of abuse is from females, it's not that surprising to me.

And not surprising to see that feminists refuse to believe the women can abuse since this would require admitting that women in 2017 have power.

I wonder if there is the political will to put the recommendations of this report into place or whether they'll get lost in the usual political wranglings. Or muddied and watered down or underfunded.

exactly what the women on here have been telling you

Yes - but not all of them have been telling me that, my wife doesn't tell me that and at least one women has said that girls were as bad.

That's not quite what it found. It counted 2 words, and found that women used those two words as often as men.

Interesting that the report you quoted - you missed this bit:

A majority of harassed students (54 percent) identified one male student as their harasser, and 12 percent of harassed students said that they were harassed by a group of male students. In contrast, only 14 percent of students said the harasser was one female student, and 5 percent said that they were harassed by a group of female students. Not surprisingly, girls are much more likely to be the ones harassed: Girls were more likely than boys to be sexually harassed, by a significant margin (56 percent versus 40 percent). Girls were more likely than boys to be sexually harassed both in person (52 percent versus 35 percent) and via text, e-mail, Facebook, or other electronic means (36 percent versus 24 percent)

Seems that in American schools it might be evening up a touch, but still it's girls being harassed by boys, and by a fair margin.

And with that, I'm done engaging with the derails. Adios.

I think if you're looking at stats for sexual harassment, then it's probably more common for girls to be harassed by boys than by other girls. But if you look at wider (non sexual) bullying and harassment, then girl on girl is probably much more common. My experience at school was certainly that the low key sexual harassment from boys was a lot less distressing and enduring than the bullying of other girls. But you can't send your DC to school with neither boys or girls!

I have no problem saying that some women in 2017 have power growapear. I have a bit of it myself. And money.

I got both by working harder than male peers at every stage. In school. On university applications. At university. On my masters. In my career and after every promotion.

I got it by carrying on to school on the train when I'd been sexually assaulted. By ignoring decades of sexual slurs. By continuing at university when I had a stalker who terrified me. By working throughout complicated pregnancies and taking minimal time off.

By finding close female friends to support and be supported by. By finding female mentors. By ignoring any man who needs to put me down to make himself feel better.

And now I want to spend my own money on an all girl environment for my little girl. I don't need your permission.

And I'm fed up of your derail and will be ignoring you from now onwards, too.

Some interesting stats here:

www.ditchthelabel.org/annual-bullying-survey-2016/

It talks about who bullies and who is bullied, but not who bullies who in the summary. Just about to read the whole report and see if I can find that detail.

I have no idea why MNHQ doesn't consider your behaviour trolling grow. I am reporting my own post and maybe they will answer.
It isn't ok to come on here and goad everyone and insult us, on the basis of nothing. I don't know what you are getting out of this behaviour, it's weird.
Why is it any skin off your nose if OP sends her DD to a girls school?

Some girls I knew moved from Co-ed to all girls in year 12. They found a difference just in the atmosphere of peace alone.

I was sexually assaulted in high school, and sexually harrassed, and most of my friends were. The school didn't do much about it but to be honest, much of that was because we wouldn't have called what happened to us sexual assault, it was normalised. Boob grabbing etc. was just a bit of what was considered normal boys being boys.

The story a PP gave, where another girl was digitally raped and then mocked is recognisable, and there is NO WAY a girl would have reported that to anyone in my school, because she would have felt too ashamed. I know that I felt ashamed when someone crotch grabbed me, and upset, and tearful but I also knew that the quickest way to quell the laughter and mockery was to brazen it out, act blaze, roll your eyes, be like, whatever dude. Which I did, but I have to say I think it kills you bit by bit to constantly make like sexual assault and the ongoing threat of it are nothing, are just banter, are meaningless. We even had strategy talks about it in the girls loos, x had done y and the best thing was to just ignore it.

So when people are talking about sexual assault in schools to each other, I wouldn't be saying sexual assault because most people I went to school with to this day wouldn't call it sexual assault. It was just joshing, just people getting a bit out of hand, nothing was meant by it, blah, blah, blah.

I find the prospect of taking action on any of this really hard. What are you supposed to do when it takes so much emotional effort and exhaustion to get incredulous people to consider your perception of what has happened to you might need a bit of a rethink. Growapear hanging onto the fact his wife and three other women he knows didn't experience or see what they call sexual assault at high school, versus officially recognised research and the testimony of countless women is a case in point. It's just utterly depressing to even begin to have a conversation when people are so determined to tell you that (a) you are wrong (b) your experience wasn't someone else's experience so probably isn't worth considering (c) you must have an agenda even to SPEAK about it in public.

What are we supposed to do about this when even speaking about this is interpreted as an evil feminist plot to ruin the lives of men. Seriously? What are you supposed to do?

I wouldn't worry about what the PP thinks about it. He is anti-feminist and his modus operandi is to never agree with anything anyone says here.

I think the list of recommendations in the report is a fairly decent effort, and at least recognises the issues and raises them publicly. I think parents can probably do a lot by contacting their children's schools if they have any issues around this.

It's absolutely comical that when someone comes to protest about your sexism you try and get them banned as a "troll" If i owned the site, I know who I wold ban. The regulars on this section are all well known for man hating, I feel like I argued politely and reasonably and you still want to get me banned.

Once again it's here in black and white - you have a very privileged white (top 5% of society) women who apparently got where she because she worked so hard. Harder than the men dontcha know. Men, as one can infer from the tone of the post, do not need to make the same efforts. It's clear what she and you all think - if women do well they deserve it and are entitled to it - if men do well it's because of their privilege. This is sexism 101.

So here you have someone who claims to be a feminist actively promoting privilege and othering of the opposite sex with a shrug of the shoulders and a "well it's not a utopia". Imagine I said - "well my son wants to fit in the with the cool kids and to do this he'll need to refer to women as bitches and look down his nose at them, but it's not a utopia and I wont sacrifice him on the alters of my ideals."

Just about to read the whole report and see if I can find that detail.

Why bother - because if it says something that doesn't fit your world view you'll just look for something else that does ?

By finding close female friends to support and be supported by. By finding female mentors. By ignoring any man who needs to put me down to make himself feel better.

I actually am made uneasy about having a son who might grow up to meet people like you, it unnerves me. I just hope that he doesn't face people like you in academia or at work. I comfort myself knowing that most women do not think the way you do and don't actually see life as a competition in which they must work with their female "sisters" to beat the men.

OutSelf Sorry you had all those experiences in school. Sounds truly horrific, the way that sexual violence was normalised.

Coming on and spouting off opinions not based in fact is not debating a point or arguing.
What your wife's experience of sexual harassment at school was is no more or less relevant than what mine was or what outs was. It's all anecdote. Studies have found that sexual harassment of girls is a problem. Studies have found girls achieve better in single sex schools and have higher participation in STEM, sport and traditionally male pursuits. We have educational choice in this country, there isn't a privilege pie, enabling girls to reach their full potential takes precisely nothing away from boys.

As for trolling, I agree with this urban dictionary definition:
"The art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the internet, using dialogue. Trolling does not mean just making rude remarks: Shouting swear words at someone doesn't count as trolling; it's just flaming, and isn't funny. Spam isn't trolling either; it pisses people off, but it's lame.

The most essential part of trolling is convincing your victim that either a) truly believe in what you are saying, no matter how outrageous, or b) give your victim malicious instructions, under the guise of help.
Trolling requires decieving; any trolling that doesn't involve decieving someone isn't trolling at all; it's just stupid"

I am very surprised if you truly believe that because your wife didn't get harassed at school, no women did. Or that you truly believe telling posters here that The regulars on this section are all well known for man hating is compatible with I feel like I argued politely and reasonably and you still want to get me banned.
I want to be able to discuss things without derailing onto huge straw men. I want the discussion to be evidence based. You seem hell bent on preventing that.

MNHQ don't see what you are doing as trolling and that's fine, it's their site after all.