There are so many positive things about going to an all-girls’ school, it’s hard to list every single one of them. If I asked each one of my fellow graduates from high school, they would have at least a couple of great things to say about it. As a (very proud) alumna of the best all girls high school ever, I always love talking about my experience and all the amazing, life-long friends I made. Unfortunately, though, I have one main complaint: the constant questions from others. Here are a few wonderful examples:
“So, there weren’t any boys?”
I honestly don’t know how to answer this without being sarcastic. I get this one so much that I’ve started being rude about it when I shouldn’t. “Oh, no, there were definitely boys! The whole ‘girls’ school’ thing was just a cover-up for the pot farm we were running”, then they give me a long blank stare and I say, “I’m just kidding, there were no boys. You’re just an idiot”. Okay, I didn’t say the last part, but I was very aggressively thinking it.
“How did you survive with no boys?!”
Just like how I survive without wheat during Passover: I buck up, realize I’m a “smart, strong, sensual woman” (inspirational quote via Tina Belcher), and eat my feelings in Matzah; or in this case: get over it and realize life doesn’t revolve around men. SHOCKER. Of course, we were young, teenaged women and we obviously had the need to meet “men” (I use quotes because they were merely boys) and other women from other schools, but that didn’t mean we needed them to survive. We didn’t need them to get by in the world. We didn’t need them to get an equally successful education in high school compared to a co-ed school. And scene.
“Were there cat fights, like, every day?”
Well, what’s really cool is that once you take boys out of the equation, girls suddenly coexist peacefully. How interesting. Girls’ schools tend to be smaller than co-ed schools (in my experience), which creates this odd, rewarding family aspect to it, which you can’t exactly get at other institutions. There were about 32 people in my graduating class and everyone knew each other’s business, which one might think would cause many cat fights. In reality, it did not. It only made us respect each other more. Surprise, surprise! Girls getting along!
“Is every dance like a Sadie Hawkins dance? Wait, did you even have dances?! Or PROM?!”
Ahhhh!!! Calm down. We have dances. And prom. A really awesome prom. Yes, every dance was like a Sadie Hawkins dance, because why would a guy or girl from another school ask me to my own prom or dance? Is that a bad thing? No. Actually, it was a good thing, because then we can all meet even more people from other schools, rather than just repeating the same people we see every day!
OMG!!! Look! Me at prom with BOYS!?!! ^^^^
“Were there a lot of lesbians?”
I actually never know how to respond to this question. Yes, there were lesbians. Yes, there were bisexual people. Yes, there were bi-curious people. And yes, there were straight people. Just like the real world. We weren’t a cult of lesbians. We weren’t trying to change you. In the words of Lady Gaga, “baby, I was born this way”, but that’s another line of conversation. Next.
“Oh, was this, like, a feminist thing?”
What? Okay. Answer that yourself.
“Why?”
Well, to be honest, in sixth grade when I had to decide what middle school I wanted to go to, I wasn’t too sure about it, either. Immediately, though, I made some of my best friends to this day. Of course, you can make amazing best friends at any type of school, but the lessons I learned from attending a single-sex school alongside those amazing best friends are what makes it beneficial. It taught me to be confident in all my endeavors, passionate about all that I love, how to fight the machine, and to be proud of myself and my gender. The fact that there were no boys wasn’t very relevant once you got in there. Yes, we gossiped in multitudes, but we were much more than that. Going to an all girls’ school taught us to be much more than that.
All I can say is: don’t knock it ‘till you try it.
