This article was originally published in the January 27 edition of TES. It has been brought from behind the paywall in honour of International Women’s Day. To subscribe to TES, click here.
At secondary school, I struggled with girls. There were always arguments and I felt that (at some points) gossip was the number one priority. It was exhausting and, after a while, I would always turn to my male friends; not necessarily for advice, but just to get away from what felt like chaos. Indeed, almost all my friends were boys.
It was a shock, then, both for me and those who knew me, that I ended up attending an all-girls’ sixth-form college. But my reasons for doing so and the contrast in my experiences will hopefully help teachers in mixed schools understand how they can ensure that girls in their school do not feel as I did and how we can help all girls achieve to the best of their ability.
To begin with, the prospect of being at a school where there were no male students was not desirable to me. Boys were “straightforward”. They just weren’t really bothered about things that I also found irrelevant and annoying. After having major difficulties with my female friends, I was drawn to the “no hassle, no fuss guarantee” boys seemed to offer.
However, when I visited an all-girls’ sixth form out of curiosity, I suddenly saw the benefits of the boys being absent. I saw how my relationships with other girls could be. And I realised how important it was to have those relationships at such a developmental stage of our lives. I suddenly understood that the main problem with girls in mixed environments is not the girls, but the boys - or rather, how girls are culturally, implicitly and explicitly forced to behave in certain ways around the opposite sex.
The need to impress men is etched on to the brains of girls from such a young age. We grow up with films and books teaching us “how to act around boys”, we are told how men like us to be and how they expect us to look. It creates an environment of constant compromise and effort in which girls are forced to believe they must act a certain way to fulfil a certain expectation, and this creates a divide between the girls themselves. That is an incredibly powerful force in how we behave, look and feel when boys are around us.
Relaxed and confident
In a boy-free environment, you can see the difference first hand. When I began attending my all-girls’ sixth form in early September, I was told by several people outside the school that I would struggle with it being all girls. However, this was not the case. The girls were themselves. They were relaxed, confident, focused.
The lack of constant male company takes away the anxiety regarding “what you should be doing” and “how you should look”. More energy is projected towards sustaining an attitude of dedication and drive, rather than fuelling the gossip wheel.
One small but significant example: make-up. Almost no one wears make-up in my all-girls’ sixth form, and those who do wear it do it to feel good, rather than to appear good. The girls here are comfortable in their own skin. This comfort leads to a rise in self-confidence, and from this comes a more focused environment. A large number of women or girls feel uneasy about the idea of leaving the house without make-up. Creating a more socially accepting place of development allows girls to be more confident in themselves. Having no pressure to wear make-up every day not only makes it cheaper, it is also a huge step in terms of body confidence and appearance - an issue that is becoming increasingly relevant for young girls.
‘The need to impress men is etched on to the brains of girls from such a young age’
This is not a call for single-sex education. Instead, it is a plea for us to find ways of learning from the single-sex environment and transferring those lessons to a mixed-sex school, so that girls can feel empowered, focused and have the boost academically and personally that I have experienced.
Is this possible? Definitely. I am one of a small group of students who have been in both environments and I can clearly see how girls in mixed schools can be helped by some lessons from all-girls’ schools. It’s not about separating the boys from the girls, but it is about educating young people - of both sexes - about the cultural forces at work in how they behave.
It is about giving each sex space to enjoy time together as well as apart - and not just in PE. Encourage discussions about self-confidence and discourage stereotypes and expectations, such as make-up.
It is about teachers recognising where they reinforce stereotypes and divides, and then avoiding this.
Girls need to have room to be girls of their own definition, not the definition of a male-centred society. I am not convinced that, currently, many state schools enable girls to do that.
Kara Lawrie-Plews is a student at Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire
