The document discusses the rationale for single-sex education compared to coeducational schooling. It notes that historically, girls were educated to be homemakers while boys were educated for careers, but now both sexes are expected to have careers. Research in the 1980s showed boys and girls learn differently, with girls in single-sex schools performing better in math and being more confident speaking up in class. Single-sex schools also encourage students to explore a broader range of subjects and extracurricular activities without gender stereotypes. They help students discover their passions and identities in a way that coed schools do not by separating social and academic pressures between the sexes.

1. The rationale for educating the sexes
separately was originally based on
preparing children for their respective
futures, noted Dr. Leonard Sax, author
of Why Gender Matters, in the
concluding portion of his presentation
sponsored by the two remaining single
gender Catholic high schools in San
Antonio — Central Catholic and
Providence.
In the past, girls were brought up to
be mothers and homemakers, he
pointed out, while boys were raised to
have careers.
Today, he observed, that is no longer the case and women are
expected to have productive careers no less than men. As the old
rational began to crumble in the 1960s, so did single sex schools. The
only other argument for their existence had been that having boys and
girls together in classes distracted them from their studies.
It was not until the 1980s, said Sax, that people began to
understand that girls and boys develop differently. “They hear
differently, they see differently, their sense of smell is different,” he
said. “And they learn differently.” (Scientific studies on this were
detailed in the first-two installments of Dr. Sax’s presentation in the
Feb. 17 and March 3 issues of Today’s Catholic.)
These 1980s studies began to show as well that the math ability of
girls in all-girl schools did not drop at puberty, refuting the old
“estrogen poisons the brain” theory. Girls in single sex schools also did
not “lose their voice.” “Girls in coed schools,” said Sax, “stop raising
their hands; they stop interrupting in particular.”
Boys in boys’ schools, he noted, are twice as likely to take subjects
like art, music, drama and foreign languages, as compared to boys in
coed schools. Such schools make an effort to see that extracurricular
activities in sports and the arts are not competing time-wise. “In a
well-run boys’ school,” said Sax, “you don’t have to choose between
being a jock or a geek.”
Likewise, girls in single sex schools are much more likely to be
involved in competitive sports. (They are also much less likely to
become pregnant than girls in coed schools.)

2. Sax told of a Catholic school in Canada that switched from coed to
becoming a dual academy in 2002, with boys and girls taking separate
classes in separate wings. This included band, where previously only
boys had played the trumpet and only girls the flute. With the change,
girls were asked to volunteer for the trumpet and some discovered
they were far better on this instrument than they had been on the
flute. It was the same for boys who began taking up flute, with one boy
turning out to be an exceptional flutist of professional caliber.
“If the school had been coed,” said Sax, “he would never have
played the flute.” He added, “School should be about more than grades
and test scores. School should be about finding out who you are, what
is your passion, what do you really want to do with your life.”
He noted one of the biggest changes in society over the past 50
years, and impacting education, is the transfer of authority from parent
to child. “Fifty years ago,” said Sax, “if a mother and father said, ‘Son,
this fall you’re going to Central Catholic,’ he was going. His consent
was not required!” Today he sees parents as being uncertain and
insecure about asserting authority. This also surfaces in the increase of
obese children today, with Sax recalling a mother who brought in a
child with a strange rash. It turned out to be the result of a B-12
deficiency, with the girl refusing to eat anything but pizza, pancakes
and French fries and the mother going along with this.
Noting that single sex education broadens horizons for both boys
and girls, Sax referred to a study in Belfast, Ireland, on girl students’
self-esteem. Belfast has a unique educational system with both single
sex and coed public schools, to which students are randomly assigned
if no parental preference is made.
Girls here were queried on their grades, school activities, how they
perceived their looks, and parental affluence. For girls in coed schools,
the only factor bestowing high self-esteem was whether or not they
considered themselves “pretty,” because looks determine the pecking
order in coed schools
While some may say that single sex schools don’t accurately prepare
for the real world, Sax believes it is far more accurate than coed
schooling, pointing out that in the real world it is not how you look, but
who you are that counts, with the important criteria being such things
as showing up for work on time, keeping promises and making the

3. right decisions rather than how “cute” you are. “At a girls’ school, a girl
can be overweight and with pimples and still be the most popular girl,”
said Sax. “That’s never true at coed schools.”
He further noted that a large coed public high school that became a
dual academy six years ago saw a dramatic drop in teen pregnancies,
going from 20 to 25 a year down to zero to two per year. “It’s not
because girls don’t see boys,” said Sax, who pointed out students in
single sex schools are more likely to date than in coed schools, where
the norm is now “hooking up.” What “hooking up” means, said Sax, is
going out as a group, with the most popular girl expected to be
physically intimate with the most popular boy.
“Who you’re intimate with depends on your rank order in
popularity,” he said. “The next most popular girl is intimate with the
next most popular boy.” There is an explicit understanding that no
relationship is involved and that the following week you could “hook
up” with somebody else. This “hooking up” phenomenon means that a
girl feels more pressured to give in to a boy’s sexual advances,
because she has to interact with him at school and as part of her
group. A girl in a single sex school has more autonomy in her decision-
making in this respect and is also more likely to be involved in a dating
relationship, rather than a “hook up.”
Sax noted dating is much healthier because “in this country, the
most common form of sexual activity among teenagers is now oral sex
— the girl on her knees servicing the boy.” This is not good for either,
he said, as it sends the message that sex is something girls provide for
boys. He added that not only do girls in single sex schools make better
grades and test scores, “they are 10 times less likely to get pregnant,
and that is just as important.” They are also less likely to use drugs.
“Adolescent culture is going the wrong way,” said Sax, “and parents
have to assert their authority to keep their daughters from following
the herd. The best possible thing you can do to help your daughter is
to get her into a girls’ school.”
Cultures that endure, he related, are those that have men, as a
community, teaching boys what it means to be a man and a
community of women teaching girls what it means to be a woman. Our
society seems to have abandoned this, leaving boys with the
impression, said Sax, that being “a real man means playing a video
game with a hyper-feminine cartoon image with big breasts and long

4. legs who does not talk back, or having big muscles, or driving a car
100 miles-per-hour on a city street, or getting drunk or making a girl
pregnant.”
Girls today are similarly floundering as to the true meaning of being
a woman. Girls’ diaries from the 1890s showed them making
resolutions to be more charitable, patient and generous. The diaries of
teen girls today show their resolutions revolving around looks, with
there being a notable increase in eating disorders and addictive cutting
behaviors.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” said Sax, “in the 1890s, many,
many of their schools were single sex high schools.”
Today he sees a need to celebrate and recognize the differences
between boys and girls, helping every child be who they were meant to
be, “so that we can have more men who are kindergarten counselors
or psychotherapists ... and more women who are neurosurgeons or
engineers or whatever they’re meant to be, what their passion is.”
For the past 30 years, he noted, people have believed the best way
to erase the gender gap was to pretend it did not exist and teach boys
and girls together the same subjects in the same sequence. This is not
working, he said, and a change is called for.
Boys need to be taught that becoming a man means “using your
strength in the service of others,” said Sax, and girls need to learn that
becoming a woman means “caring about the needs of others.”
Single sex schools are geared to deliver this. “What I think we have
learned and what all this research demonstrates,” he said, “is the way
to get there, the way to get men who are nurturing and caring and
women who are strong and assertive is, first of all, to help girls to
become women and boys to become men