What are the reasons for attending an all-women's college?

The hot chicks, yo! :)-that’s why I would go. ~
I think for some people it’s the perception that they be will less easily distracted. I do think, however, that some women’s colleges offer better women’s studies programs.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Lol, every woman I know who had interest in attending an all-women’s college also had an interest in sleeping with tons of women…

@papayalily I honestly don’t think I know all that many girls who went to an all girls school but that doesn’t mean they didn’t – just that I can’t remember where my friends went to college.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I know no girls who actually attended, but I do know a few who wanted to and applied. Only one got in, and she decided to go to an in-state school instead.

I went to all girls high school (good catholic boarding school) and college (first couple of years). I think sexually segregated schools are not helpful to anyone. In this world one must learn to deal with the opposite sex, to compete, to coexist. Keeping you separate until you’re in your 20’s does not accomplish anything towards that goal. Besides that when you were in the company of (in my case) boys, you turned into a hormonally overcharged idiot with no idea of how to behave.

@rooeytoo Then why did you go?

Trouble in the homestead so my parents felt it was the best place for me.

@rooeytoo Separating the sexes in primary and secondary school always seemed like a fantastic idea to me. College doesn’t make much sense though.

@JLeslie – my personal opinion is that it is not a good idea. I think kids are better off being prepared for the real world instead of being isolated in a rarefied climate that doesn’t exist otherwise. Also, I simply do not believe that separate but equal exists and why have the public support the expense of having 2 separate but equal institutions when one would suffice. If a girl is interested in diesel mechanics or shop of any type, is the girls’ school going to have as comprehensive a shop program as the boys? Another consideration is the availability of good teachers. Do all the good math teachers go to the boys’ school since it is felt that girls do not have the aptitude to excel at math?

The list goes on and on, as I always say, I think it is time to stop emphasizing the differences in genders, which sexual segregation does and instead dwell on the similarities so that all really do have equal opportunities.

@rooeytoo You make some very good points I had not considered before. From what I understand statistics show children do better academically when the sexes are divided, but I never knew if they were accountng for private vs public. There was a county in Georgia a few years ago that decided to separate the sexes in public school, and these sorts of stats came out again. I don’t know if the students are doing better or not overall since the change, it would be interesting to know. I think I had read years ago that some schoolsin California were teaching math classes with the students separated by gender, because they believed girls get lost in the group in science and math when both sexes are present. I think it was a comment on the teachers and also that girls took a back seat to boys generally. That psychologically they were conditioned to be more silent when boys were present. I don’t know the final reslts of that either, if the theory panned out or not. Also, things might be much different today than 20 years ago, as the gender gap continues to narrow.

I just like the idea of uniforms and less attention to how we look while in school. Since you did not go to a mixed gender school, I will go ahead and assume you have no idea how the boys kind of harrass you a little. Kissing in the halls, couples everywhere, boys knocking into you and copping a feel in the halls. It’s not like every day I felt accosted, but there is a constant girl boy thing going on. I think that sort of social pressure is unnecessary at that age while the focus is supposed to be studying.

@JLeslie That kind of behavior needs to be addressed and discussed rather than ‘solved’ through different sex institutions where other kinds of bullying and problems exist still.

@JLeslie But is the focus supposed to be on studying? I’ve known quite a few people who did great in school because they focused on only academia, went to great colleges, got great jobs, but were so socially inept that they had severe trouble with relationships of all kinds and weren’t really very happy.

@papayalily Of course some of school is the socialization. But, I am going to guess a lot of the inept people you are talking about went to mixed gender schools. Those kids, well, it has more to do with their own personalities I think, not their school environment. I know kids who are homeschooled who do just fine socially. I am not trying to push for all schools to be one gender, but I like having the option available. In Georgia the experiment was being conducted because there was a lot of drop out and teen pregnancy if I remember correctly. Again, I have no idea if they are having success or not.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Boys and girls are all full of sex hormones in their teens. @rooeytoo thinks she was an out of control sexed up teen around boys because she was kept from them, but the truth is teens are just like that period.

Meanwhile, as I said, the point about separate but equal, never usually works in practice, so that is very persuasive.

I went to an all-girl school from Kindergarten to Grade 12. We had a sister school, an all-boys school, with which we teamed for activities days, dances, etc. In years 11 and 12 when we couldn’t do a subject at our own school, we could do it at one of our cooperating schools (said boys’ school, and another all-girls school). I did extra-curricular activities, and I have brothers, so I did actually interact with boys.

Given that girls and boys tend to mature at different rates, I’m glad I was at a single sex school for my younger years. Even if the boys weren’t distracted/being distracting, I don’t think I would have felt as powerful as a female as I do. We had a lot of guest speakers, many of them past students, and it helped me believe that women can be successful in science and maths (even though that’s not the path I chose), that we are not limited by being female, despite how things often seem.

As for college, things are a little bit different. The boys who are there are more likely to be there because they want to be, not because it’s compulsory. Hopefully you have a better idea of who you are at this point. Depending on how big it is and where it is located, you might be more isolated, so you’ll probably want to be surrounded by a bigger variety of people. Plus, the college experience is meant to be a first taste of adulthood and the real world, which is a little bit skewed with no male peers.

On the other hand, there are so many things to take into account when choosing a college. If it’s in a better location, has a better academic record, will offer you a better education in the courses you choose, and is a more pleasant place to be than your other options, then the fact that it’s an all-women’s college is hardly important.

@JLeslie Just to be clear, there are no such things as ‘sex hormones’, there are just hormones – we all have them and they perform a variety of functions only one of which has to do with in utero development and in development of secondary sex characteristics. Endocrinologists in the beginning of the 20th century coined the term because they, mistakenly, believed that hormones were sex-specific (they aren’t) and that they carried masculinity and femininity within them, lol.

@JLeslie – you apparently have never heard the stories about the good catholic girls who get turned loose on Saturday afternoons, heheheh!

@rooeytoo My point is the public school girls are loose also on the weekends. I have many Catholic friends, most of my friends actually. The ones who went to Catholic school happen to lose their virginity later. I have no idea if that is a valid statistic for the epgeneral population.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir the surge of testosterone and estrogen brings on puberty, the ability to reproduce. It is not that girls have estrogen and boys don’t, although it is in different quantities, and girls have testosterone also of course. In fact the surge of testosterone is what is responsible for turning the fetus’ genitals into male genitals. It is not that hormones are gender specific, but they do develop sexual organs, and bring on sexual changes in the body.

@JLeslie Right, I know all of that. I’m just describing how the incorrect term came to be.

hello all, i went to an all women’s college – barnard, to be specific, and i loved it. i also have close friends [all of whom are straight] who went to wellesley, smith [okay the one who went to smith isn’t straight], bryn mawr and a women’s college within oxford. we are all very smart, very hard-working, we know how to have fun [eg. drink and meet boys], and we don’t feel like we have to dumb ourselves down in the presence of men.

i honestly don’t have any idea why most people go to all women’s colleges. i chose barnard because i loved the school, and i knew that i wasn’t the type of girl to stay inside all the time and not go out and meet people/boys so i wasn’t afraid of being shut off from them.

in terms of my education, i found that being at a women’s college was a much more nurturing experience then a lot of my friends who went to co-ed schools [both big and small].

i am very happy that i went to a women’s college [and so are my friends who did], but keep in mind, i understand that they’re not for everyone.

I agree with @kitty_cat. I attended a women’s college and overall had a positive experience. I found professors who choose to teach at these schools care deeply not only about teaching but about promoting the ideas that women can be as successful as men, are as smart as men, and are as important as men which I did not see as a student at a co-ed high school, or in my co-ed graduate school experiences.

Frankly, I’m disappointed that the first responses imply that women choose women’s colleges because they are lesbians. While I think these schools are more welcoming to students who are not straight (which I think is a good thing, especially considering the recent suicides by young lgbtq people) most students represent the usual breakdown of sexual and gender identities.

There are many reasons women attend these institutions. I was not looking to go to a women’s college, but preferred the academics there, location, study abroad programs etc. Some women go because of the powerful network you develop at a school like this as well as with other women’s colleges (ie to counter the “old boys clubs”). Some women attend because they have had negative experiences with men at other schools. Some women attend because these schools tend to be more supportive of non-traditional life experiences (Smith, for example, has a program designed for women who are older than the usual college age).

@rss Don’t you worry, we don’t think those things – we’re just joking around, kind of like an inside joke because we’re, in reality, crazy feminist.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I realize that, but seeing it as the first response just rankled me; perhaps less interested folks would just stop there instead of reading the other responses below :)

The most resent comments on this thread reminded me that Merideth Viera, now on the Today Sow, previously on The View went to an all girls Quaker secondary school (maybe primary also, I am not sure) and she has stated she thinks it helped her feel empowered as a female, that she could do anything. She speaks very positively about the school.

@rss Generally speaking, folks on fluther contribute insightful answers regardless of what banter they see on a thread – they’re adults and aren’t scared off. But I can, I suppose, where you’re coming from.

@rss Yeah, it totally was a joke – I wouldn’t have said it with anyone else besides Simone (cuz she’s my feminist homegirl on here). It’s true that all the women I knew that wanted to go liked women, but I always thought that was some freaky coincidence (probably not helped by my own tendency to hang out with bisexual/lesbian women), not an accurate representation.