guardian: My nephew remarked recently that in his GCSE computer science class there was just one girl among 29 boys. When I asked him why he thought that was, he replied that he saw nothing unusual – in his opinion computer science was simply a subject “for boys”.
This, and a recent visit to a London co-educational and a girls’ school on the same day, showed me that many of my assumptions about what was good for girls had been utterly wrong.
Far from being places of equal opportunity and preparation for the real world, even the best co-educational schools do not celebrate girls’ achievements. Worse, girls continually struggle to get their voices heard amongst rowdy cajoling boys. The girls’ school I visited, by comparison, was doing a much better job of overcoming gender stereotypes associated with STEM subjects.
It was a temple to female achievement and had hallways festooned with images of high-achieving women. The school surrounds its girls with photos of female MPs, scientists and entrepreneurs. As a consequence the girls who attend are more likely to see themselves as future leaders.
In an all female environment there’s no reason to assume that subjects have gender: computing and science classes are all full of girls. It’s not unseemly for a girl to imagine herself as a chemist, a primeminister, or possibly both.
Categories: Attitude, Awareness, Behaviour, Civic Duties, gender