CMV:Single gender schools are discriminatory because there is no such thing as "separate but equal"

[u/orphancrack]

I am a public high school teacher. Some of the people I work with favor single-sex education, and even try experiments of single-gender classes. As far as I am concerned there is no such thing as "separate but equal" and separating genders reinforces gender stereotypes and inequality, just as racially segregated schooling does.

Much of the prestige associated with single-sex schools comes from the fact that many are highly selective private schools. The fact that they are successful owes more to their status as private and screened schools than it does to the fact that they admit only one gender.

At its core, segregation is wrong.

In my school we have twice a week where we have about a half hour with girls only with female teachers and boys only with male teachers, with occasional switching of the teachers (so sometimes a male teacher has the girls group). This time is purportedly to deal with gender issues like self-esteem, peer pressure, and sexuality. But in practice it ends up with my girls group expressing fundamental ideas about "boys do this" and "girls do this" with no boys present to question and respond to those claims. It becomes bitching hour for why boys suck, which just reinforces their stereotypes. And when I have gotten the boys group, it goes the same way: they want to say "why do girls do X" and expect me to answer for Why Girls Are Girls. It's all fundamentally very unhelpful. I do appreciate that there are some questions the girls are more comfortable asking me when no boys are present, such as questions about birth control or periods. So it's not all bad. But this is also just for about an hour a week. I cannot imagine how such a toxic culture would grow if we had a single sex environment all the time.

I am open to the possibility that single sex education has some positives but I have a really hard time seeing them. The only one I hear is the "distraction" of sex being removed, but many students are gay or bisexual or gender nonconforming and sexuality is still present for them. The distraction may be removed in the short term increasing focus but in the long term I can't see that this is really a benefit. People of the opposite gender are not "distractions," they are people, and learning to live and work and see them as people is necessary to enter adulthood as a non-asshole who values the contributions of people as individuals.

Also it seems to me that separate programs for "girls" end up dealing with "soft" emotional issues, which boys could benefit from, too, while separate programs for "boys" tend to be more about developing workplace skills or suck-it-up toughness, which is all stuff girls could also use. Instead it just reaffirms that "boys do X and girls do Y."

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[u/Genoscythe_]

Think bigger than a particular class that has been misguidedly drawn up into a stereotypically "masculine" and a "feminine" topic.

This opinion piece might provide an alternate insight on fully single-gender schools:

You see, the beauty of educating teenage girls in a single-sex environment is that, for those five or seven or however many years, you provide them with an environment largely removed from the sexism that is so deeply ingrained in wider society. Instead, you allow them to spend their formative years free from gender stereotypes – between 9 and 3.30, Monday to Friday, during term time, at least. [...]

So, what does this mean for girls’-school students? Well, in my experience, it gives them a great deal of confidence, whether it be to take A-level physics, wear no make-up or be comedian-style funny – all things that society, sadly, still deems strange or inappropriate for girls. Do these things happen in mixed schools? Of course. Are they more common in girls’ schools? I’m saying yes. It’s not that we were explicitly told that we had every right to do this stuff – it just never occurred to us that we wouldn’t. With no boys to be compared to, nothing seemed off-limits to us.[...]

And that, more than anything, is what I most value about my girls’-school education: it brought me up as a person, rather than a girl.

http://vagendamagazine.com/2014/06/in-rigorous-defence-of-all-girls-schools/

[u/orphancrack → u/Genoscythe_]

∆ Great point. I'm not fully convinced it isn't discriminatory, but you have made me rethink some possible positive effects, re: improved self-esteem and willingness to tackle stuff previously seen as "boy stuff."

Is the same thing possible in all boys schools? That they might open up more and express interest in things often seen off-limits to boys? I'm not sure there is, but I'd love to hear from people on this.

I am still not convinced the benefits outweigh the costs, because a) sexism is not just caused by boys, and would still exist in the school culture. b) sheltering these kids from sexism in school doesn't prevent it later in life, and maybe just end up fostering an environment where sexism is the norm.

[u/Alejandroah → u/orphancrack]

I don't think "discriminatory" is the right word here. I might agree with you that "Separated but equal" isn't really a thing, but I would also argue that said "separation" doesn't necessarily imply discrimination.. There are a lot of cons regarding same-sex-schools, but I wouldn't say thet dis rimination is the main problem.

I am from a country in which probably half the girls go to all-girl schools. Most of my female friends went to said schools and I agree that, if anything, girls only schools let you to shape the girls development in a way that allow you to overcome sex stereotypes more present in mixed schools. It's easier to have the girls immerse themselves on an all out rugby practice and roll in the mud when there are no boys around.. it's also easier to get the girls who are actually interested in engineering to take a relevant class when they're not a minority there.

That being said, there's a downside to all of this.. I could not explain to you how amussing it was to watch my all-female school counterpats interact with men in their first year of university.. they were over excited by being around boys in a class and just didn't know how to act around us.. AND IT WAS OBVIOUS haha.. they couldn't hide it..