I’ve been thinking about single-sex education quite a bit since the subject came up in the comments below this post from last Monday.

I’ve always been a proponent of single-sex education, especially for young women.  I come by this naturally.  My mother graduated from Vassar in the late 1950s, when it was still an all-women’s college.  She loved her experience there, and often told her children how thrilling and liberating it was to be in a single-sex environment.  As an alumna, she was devastated when Vassar went coed in the late 1960s.  She came to terms with this a few years later, after meeting (at an alumni event) several young men who had graduated from Vassar.  She was struck by the passionate pro-feminism of these young men, and touched by their stories of being male "pioneers".  Clearly, being exposed to a woman-dominated campus had done these fellows a world of good!  (For the record, Vassar was the only other school I applied to for college; had Berkeley not been dramatically less expensive, I might have spent my college years in Poughkeepsie.) 

As a youth leader, I interact with many girls who attend various single-sex private schools around the L.A. basin.   At church, we have a particularly close connection to the marvelous Westridge School.  At All Saints, I’ve worked with literally dozens of young women who attended Westridge; I’ve also worked with girls who attend various local Catholic single-sex schools:  Immaculate Heart , Sacred Heart, Alverno, and so forth.   (You’d be amazed how many parents send their daughters to Catholic schools but worship at All Saints.)  I’ve had ample opportunity to observe the benefits of single-sex education on these girls.  Though anecdotes are just that, anecdotes, my experience as a youth leader has been similar to what others report:  that single-sex education generally has an immensely positive impact on young women.  In general, among the youth I work with, the girls who attend all-girls schools show greater self-confidence than those girls who attend private or public co-ed institutions.   In particular, among my kids, the girls who go to all-female institutions are likely to be quicker to speak up in discussions, and more likely to "stick to their guns" if that discussion gets heated.

As a college professor, I’ve had dozens of alumnae of these same institutions in my classes.  (Yes, "Westridge girls" go to community colleges.)   So often, they are among my very best students!  I’m particularly struck by how many graduates of all-girls schools end up in my Women’s History class, and how so many of them are articulate defenders of a feminist agenda.  Indeed, when I ask my students (and I ask every semester as a journal topic) how many of them would describe themselves as feminists, the percentage who graduated from all-girls schools who say "Yes!" or even "Hell, yes, I’m a feminist" is much higher than their classmates who attended public, coed schools.  To be fair, I’ve run into a few gals who went to all-girls schools and regretted the experience.  But they are a distinct minority.

We don’t have any local non-Catholic all-boys secondary schools.  (Heck, how many non-sectarian all-male secondary schools are there anywhere in the country?)  I have worked (at All Saints and the college) with fellows who went to Cathedral and St. Francis, both all-male.  I’ve been impressed by these young men as well, though the differences in confidence between graduates of all male schools and male graduates of co-ed schools are, in my experience, not nearly as obvious.  Still, I do wish we had more all-boys schools.  Men’s rights advocates are right that young men don’t have these options.  The question is, of course, whether young men and young women have the same desire for a single-sex educational experience!

From a pro-feminist standpoint, I see every reason to endorse single-sex education for both young men and young women.  That does not mean that it’s the right choice for every child, of course.  (Though I think it quite possible that I would want to send my kid to a single-sex school, I haven’t met my future kids yet!  One thing I’ve figured out as a teacher and a youth worker is that single-sex education, like so many other things, will impact different children differently.  My wife and I will make the call about single-sex schools when we actually know the child involved).   From a pro-feminist standpoint, my concern is to help young women develop their intellectual, emotional, artistic and athletic gifts.  For any number of reasons, I think many young women may have an easier time developing those gifts when young men aren’t around.  That doesn’t mean "boys are bad", it simply means that a same-sex environment provides a uniquely safe atmosphere in which young women can develop themselves without worrying about the kind of social pressures created by the presence of men.

Some feminists are concerned that young women who come out of single-sex schools will be ill-equipped to deal with mixed-sex environments.  But the record doesn’t bear this out.  All one has to do is scan the lists of alumnae of the likes of Smith and Wellesley to see an extraordinary number of very successful women who have had no trouble whatsoever competing with men.  (One thinks first of Hillary Clinton.)  According to this website at wonderful Hollins College:

Women’s college graduates make up only 2% of the college-educated population, yet:

• One-third of the women board members of the Fortune 1000 companies are women’s college graduates.
• Women’s college graduates are twice as likely to earn Ph.D.s and a higher percentage go on to study in the sciences and attend medical school.
• Of Business Week’s 50 highest ranking women in corporate America, 30 percent are women’s college graduates.
• Of 61 women members of Congress, 20% attended women’s colleges.

Yes, I’m aware that social class may have a small bearing on these numbers.  But given the enormous outreach that many women’s colleges have done to less affluent high schools and to communities of color, I’m not prepared to believe that class is a particularly important factor here.

I regularly transfer young women, often first-generation college students, to the two non-sectarian women’s colleges in California: Mills and Scripps.  (I think the admissions offices at both campuses have dozens of letters of rec from me in their files.)  Both, I am happy to say, give relatively generous financial aid packages.  My single brightest woman student this past year, Belle, is going to Mills in the fall, and I couldn’t be happier or prouder.    She’s taken both my "women’s" and "men’s" studies courses, and is a bright, gutsy thoughtful, and tremendously articulate person.  Belle turned down USC and Berkeley for Mills, and given her attributes and her interests, I’m convinced she made the right decision.

By the way, DJW talked about the one all-male college that really interested me when I was in high school:  Deep Springs.  I never applied because I would never have been accepted (I was a very poor math student), but it’s one of those places that I’ve often fantasized about.  If I have a very bright and capable son, I’d be thrilled if he showed an interest in this most unusual school.