Equality of the sexes debate turns to all-girls schools

By Cheryl Chow
October 20, 2004

What are the advantages of going to an all-girls' high school?

"I learned how to express my opinions," declares one 28-year-old woman who works for the media.

And what are some of the disadvantages of attending an all-girls' high school?

"I learned to express myself, and as a result, people labeled me cheeky," grumbles a 29-year-old woman who also works for the media.

So. folks, is there any need for a girls' high school in this day and age, when men and women are supposedly regarded as equal. That's the theme for Aera. The magazine decided to pose the question to 578 of its loyal readers -- 285 men and 293 women.

The result was that slightly more people replied nay than yay. Here's the actual break down: 37.5 percent of people said that an all girls' high school was no longer needed, while 26.3 percent said that such schools were still necessary, and 5.4 percent said that they could see having women's colleges, but not a high school only for girls.

However, if you took into account only respondents who themselves attended a girls' school, then more of them were in favor than not. Many sang the praise of schools that devote themselves exclusively to educating girls:

"I avoided becoming dependent on men," says a 39-year-old worker in the service industry.

"I didn't have to worry about what men thought, and didn't have to cater to them," affirms a 42-year-old who works for a manufacturer.

"We weren't treated as the second sex because there weren't any boys, says a 53-year-old self-employed woman.

Aera thought that the most convincing reason for keeping girls' schools is that these schools taught girls self-sufficiency. They learned that they could lift heavy objects by themselves, and set up booths and do any other hands-on work to run the school's "Bunkasai," or cultural events day. That's something you just don't get at a co-ed school.

Other advantages most often cited is that the girls were not discriminated against, unlike coed schools that invariably tend to favor boys. The girls' schools catered to the girls, and adopted teaching styles more suitable to them.

On the more frivolous side, some women said that since they didn't have to worry about the eyes of boys, they could fan themselves with their skirts when it was hot, take out sanitary napkins openly, and weren't made fun of whether they were fat or too tall.

As for the disadvantages, some claimed that it's unnatural to exclude boys when the world outside consists of both men and women. Indeed, some graduates of girls' schools complain that they lacked experience in dealing with boys. One 39-year-old woman griped that she failed to learn the rules of a male-dominated society, or to learn the proper gender roles.

Psychiatrist Chikako Ogura points out that the United States had a similar running debate about the merits of women's colleges. Critics charged that it was strange to base admission on gender, while advocates maintained that an exclusively female environment could better nurture women's talents and gifts.

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