Why Going To An All-Girls School Benefitted Me In The Long Run

Like many other Irish women, I went to an all-girls secondary school. At the time I hated it, quite frankly. My friends and I were constantly wishing we could have gone to a mixed school, especially when the drama got too much. The school corridors were full of gossip and held a permanent smell of fake tan and Victoria’s Secret perfume. 

Sometimes, I thought that having boys around would minimise all that. Looking back, I know that that wouldn’t be the case. We still would have gossiped, put on fake tan before the big night that weekend at the club and wore copious amounts of sickly sweet perfume. It would probably have been worse if there were boys around that we were trying to impress.

@nia_gallI’m guilty of this too 😅🍊♬ original sound – lemuel

Our teenage years are highly influential on us, whether we’d like to admit it or not. We mature, act immature, embarrass ourselves, experiment and try our best to figure out who we are while dealing with raging hormones. While going to an all-girls school can make this volatile, there are things that we learn during those six years that can benefit us in the future.

I distinctly remember watching series 5 of Love Island in the summer of 2019 and was shocked when islander Lucie Donlan revealed that she had never had a girl friend. At the time, I had just finished at my all-girls secondary school and knew nothing else. I couldn’t comprehend how there were girls out there who didn’t have any female friends. It sparked large debates online at the time, but many women were of the belief that having female friends was important.

As I have gotten older, I have met other girls like Lucie, who didn’t have many female friends growing up. Many of them are finding these types of friends in college or post-grad and are realising how valuable it is to be surrounded by other like-minded women.

I value my girl friends even more now. Once I went to college, I made guy friends, something I didn’t really have while in secondary school. Making friends with the opposite sex was great, but it also made me realise how nothing compares to having female friends. There are just certain things that your guy friends cannot relate to as your female friends can. Periods, birth control, fashion, beauty, relationships, there are so many aspects of our lives that most men won’t understand as well.

To me, female friendship is summarised perfectly when girls on a night out go to the bathroom together, and men don’t understand why. The girls’ bathroom is a perfect place for women to unite. We chat shit while sharing a cubicle that is designed for one and not four. We share lip gloss or tampons when our friends forget theirs and wipe each other’s tears away when they’re having a bad night. For many of us, this supportive female friendship starts in secondary school.

@kathi_be_ 👯‍♀️❤️‍🔥🥂 #besties #girlhood #goingout #girls @Antonia @cutie ♬ original sound – Marlon Blackford

Of course, girls who go to mixed schools do this too. However, those who tend to gravitate towards male friendships won’t understand the joys and closeness that female friendships provide. When you go to an all-girls school, you have no choice but to learn and embrace it all, and I believe it is such a powerful thing.

Going to an all-girls school made me care less about my appearance. As teenagers, we inadvertently begin to dress and do our makeup for the male gaze. However, by going to a boy-free school, I didn’t feel that pressure to look my best every day and that carried over to when I went to college. I rarely wear makeup, and when I do, it’s for my own pleasure. I buy clothes that make me feel confident rather than clothes that I know will appeal to onlookers. 

I have heard stories of girls going to mixed schools who caked on the makeup every day but were then told to scrub it off by teachers as it was against the rules. Of course, with acne and the like, it is normal for many young girls to feel the need to cover it up. Yet, plenty of them do it because they don’t want boys to see their natural complexion due to the beauty standards that society has created.

In recent years, there has been talk of pick-me girls. You know, the type who likes to hang out with boys over girls and do activities they like, even if it doesn’t interest them. They do everything they can to appeal to men, even if it means being inauthentic and catering to the male gaze. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by hannah montoya (@hannah.montoya)

I believe that going to an all-girls school helps reduce the likelihood of becoming a pick-me girl. It still happens, don’t get me wrong, but being in an environment where you don’t have any male attention on you makes it harder to develop those tendencies at a young age. 

There is less competition in all-girls schools. Of course, there were times when I wanted to be top of the class on a test, but overall, I worked for myself rather than trying to impress others. 

I sometimes think of what P.E. would have looked like if I had gone to a mixed school. Most of the girls I went to school with couldn’t care less about participating. If they couldn’t kick a ball or complete the yearly fitness test, they didn’t dwell on it. Throw in some competitive testosterone-fuelled boys, and I can guarantee that we girls would have tried a lot harder and competed with one another to get the attention of the boy we liked. 

Society makes it so that when we’re young, we think we should do everything possible to attract our male counterparts. Many love stories shown to children portray young women as damsels in distress who need to be saved by some kind of prince charming. 

Here’s our tweet reminding y’all that:

Ariel was the FIRST Princess to save her prince’s life. pic.twitter.com/5heVovKq5x

— Disney Princess Facts (@DPrincess_Facts) January 30, 2023

We adopt those behaviours as we get older because we think that we have to appear a certain way to get male validation. While we eventually understand that life is far more complex, our habits as teenagers will creep up on us. 

While having single-sex schools does not eliminate this fully, I do think that going to an all-girls school made me understand the importance of female friendships. It has helped me have more positive friendships with men because I can act normally with them rather than constantly feeling like I need to impress them.

While I do still think that it is unhealthy to separate girls and boys so much at a pivotal point in life, there are some benefits, whether you want to admit it or not.

Words by Amélie Mahony