with cultural and social influences than biology. In my experience, generally speaking, there are certain ways in which girls and boys tend to differ in their habits and behaviours. I say tend. Of course I know more about the girls – based on twenty-odd years of leading girls’ schools I can say for example that the girls I have known are often inclined to be self-critical, to be more concerned than their brothers about getting things right first time, to be dutifully good at planning and completing things (which is why they sometimes do better when assessed continuously and less well if taking exams). They are also sensitive to social dynamics and can read the subtext of conversations and behaviours very skilfully. This of course is linked both to why they value and nurture lasting friendships as well as why they are also so much better than boys at bullying. Where boys are inclined just to hit one other, girls can torture one another slowly over weeks using only gestures of their eyebrows, making the behaviour so much harder to detect and pin down. I also know that generalising is dangerous and there are many girls at St Paul’s who would pull me up for stereotyping and say they didn’t recognise themselves here. But actually these are my general observations, based on the 25,000 or so girls I have known. The question for us here is not so much whether they are different from boys – which in my opinion they are – but more how does that difference come about? Are girls born different, or is it that society makes them so because of its expectations? What actually can we say to justify educating girls (and therefore boys) separately?
In many ways, when I hear recent leavers from St Paul’s who are now making their way in professional life talk about their experiences, it is more and more clear to me that girls’ schools are indeed oddly out of step with some of the ‘realities’ of the so-called modern working world. In a well-regarded modern company, for example, a Paulina in her thirties told me recently how she was surprised at having to fend off the unwelcome advances of a more senior male colleague at work who would approach her desk, stand too close and suggest drinks after hours. When I asked why she didn’t tell him to get lost, she replied that as he controlled her promotion prospects and her pay, she had to be very careful. Another told me that when the male staff packed up on Fridays early to go and play football and she asked to join them, she was told that wasn’t how it worked and she might like to go and have a manicure instead. We may be providing a stimulating intellectual experience and nurturing a love of scholarship, but as regards preparation for life and work, our messages – our assumptions – about equality are by some standards hopelessly off-message. Because it turns out that the real world has a long way to go and still needs a great deal of cleaning up.
The disconnect is simple: at a school like St Paul’s (or Queenswood, or Sunny Hill where I was a pupil, or at most girls’ schools I’m aware of), girls learn an instinctive, fundamental confidence that far from being girl specific, has nothing to do with their gender. As one alumna wrote in a survey carried out amongst the 25–35-year-olds who had been to St Paul’s, ‘We commanded respect in our very nature.’ Note that masculine-sounding word ‘commanded’ which she uses without self-consciousness. Paulinas, along with other girls’ school-educated young women, assume that their opinions are of intrinsic interest, and are even happy to revise those opinions, as one inspection report memorably suggested, ‘if convincing evidence is put before them’. They take themselves seriously in the best way: they have never been taught to ‘play nicely’ because they are girls, to assume they will be less talented at science and maths, to defer to male opinion because it is more loudly expressed, or to assume they are being educated to be the wives of top men. If they are articulate, confident and full of opinions (as they tend to be) they do not expect to be treated as if this were unusual and slightly unfeminine, or actually rather admirable, given they are only girls. They enjoy sport, but generally prefer to play it rather than be WAGs on the touchline, watching their brothers and boyfriends play rugby. If the school play is Macbeth, they assume it is not beyond the talents of one of them to play the main part – in fact to play all the parts. In short, they think they can do pretty well anything, because at school, they can.
When they emerge into a workplace and a wider society which rather lags behind in that everything is still pretty much weighted in favour of men, where organisations work according to male tastes, behaviours and preferences, they just don’t get it. One former head girl, who visited St Paul’s to address the students about her career in the decade since leaving, put it this way: ‘I just had no idea that it would be so much more challenging making your career as a woman – at school, it never occurred to us – everything seemed possible.’
Everything seemed possible because it was. Despite some progress, the realities in the so-called ‘wider world’ of unequal pay, unequal promotion prospects and unequal opportunities generally are a continuing concern to everyone who would wish to see society benefiting – equally – from the talents of both men and women. Girls go out into the workplace, full of confidence and capability, and come up against a very different culture: at one extreme, they may be subjected to active prejudice or harassment: being excluded from the Friday afternoon game of football or being pursued by the older boss. But equally disturbing is that experience that some women describe of becoming invisible – their views going unheard or ignored. This was a new idea to me until comparatively recently; I experienced it for the first time myself when attending the conference of a traditionally male-dominated professional organisation. It was a very odd feeling standing in a circle at a drinks reception and feeling like a pane of glass – I could easily have disappeared without anyone noticing. Ah, so this is what they talk about, I thought.
Change is afoot in some quarters, stimulated by the more recent opening up of the question of gender identity. A case in point was the decision in summer 2017 by the then newly appointed (female) artistic director of the Globe Theatre, Michelle Terry, to commit to ‘gender-blind’ casting and a 50/50 split of male and female roles – presumably because, otherwise, men would be getting the lion’s share of the great Shakespearean parts, as they always have done. This is great, but I reflected that in girls’ schools, gender-sighted – rather than gender-blind – casting in drama productions has always ensured that women win not just half, but all the most significant roles, producing generations of practised Macbeths, Hamlets and Henry Vs. It was with some satisfaction that I thought how well prepared these girls’ school-educated actors would be for the new and more empowering approach to casting at the Globe. That even-handedness and neutrality is of course emphasised further when we also see men playing female roles with great brilliance: who can forget Mark Rylance as Olivia in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, for example. Twice as many actors to choose from, twice as many roles to audition for, and it becomes about talent and skill, not about the limitations of gender.
This is all very well, say the detractors of single-sex schools, but the real world is mixed – what’s the point of pretending otherwise? Girls just have to get used to it (which usually means playing nicely to get what they want), so they might as well start at school. Of course education must prepare young people for reality, for society as it is. But it must and can do more: inform and drive the values by which that society is shaped. When all things are equal – my former head girl and I agreed – there may be no further need for single-gender schools. But it seems that despite some excellent work going on to change things (spearheaded by men as well as women) we are still very far from that point. Until then, St Paul’s and its fellow girls’ schools have a vital and influential role to play in ensuring the continued disruption of social norms, so long established that no one even thinks of them as norms. The impetus towards genuine equality cannot be assumed but must be actively led by the talented and confident young women emerging from our gates. Whether girls are wired differently or not really does not matter in the end. Either way, what we’re dealing with is a society that has deep-rooted, often subconscious expectations about women and structures which still limit the contribution they can make. While this is so, we need to educate girls themselves to change that. The case for girls’ schools is as much about preparation for what is to come, as it is about the experience of the here and now.
So what do girls’ schools do differently? Many things. By freeing girls to be themselves so they don’t feel the pressure to conform to predetermined
