The third boy I ever bonked was in year 11 at Newington College. He was a lovely young man and he had a big mouth. A few weeks later, his entire cohort knew about the bonking. Same with all my friends. We were enthusiastic and without shame.
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There was one big difference. His mates - at least some of them - were less than complimentary. I was a slut, apparently, but my fellow bonker was a hero. That was my first lived experience of the impact of gender politics. Those blokes at Newington College turned me into a feminist. Thank you for your service.
Fast-forward 40-odd years - a few years back now - and someone at that exclusive (a synonym for very, very expensive) private boys' school approached me to talk to their boys about gendered violence against women. They weren't prepared to make a donation to a refuge as a form of payment. I said no.
And here we are, 2024 and that school is in the news for all the wrong reasons. It announced its decision to accept girls into the school a few years down the track starting in 2026 and becoming fully co-educational in 2033. The school's council says it's about boosting diversity and "life-readiness". Well, yeah, I mean life is co-ed, right? Unless you count nursing and teaching and even they have a handful of blokes.
This news sent some of the old boys (and their wives) absolutely mental.
Some quotes.
Tony Retsos, 63, who graduated from the school in 1977, told Nine News his son was also an old boy, and he'd hoped to one day see a future grandson attend Newington.
"But I won't bring him to a co-ed school," Ratsos said. I would be so interested to know what the mother of any future grandson might say.
Fellow alumni Robert Orr told Australian Associated Press the decision would mean there was one fewer boys-only school for Sydney parents to choose from.
"I suspect it's for virtue-signalling, woke-type principles, which I'm dead against." What exactly does this mean? Woke is surely better than slept right through.
There are only a handful of these whingers - as evidenced by the lonely group protesting with placards outside the school. Most of the parents are on board - and anyone on any finance committee anywhere would recognise that doubling your prospective client base is good for business.
Nearly 10 years ago now, Canberra Boys Grammar announced it was going to become co-educational. Emma Macdonald was then the education reporter for The Canberra Times (now she's at HerCanberra). She broke the story about the changes way back when. The response was nothing like the Newington response. The change happened. She's got a daughter there now - and a son who is at university - and it all seems to be going OK. Not that people didn't talk about it. They did. But no one lost their minds. Unlike their Sydney counterparts.
I sent two of my kids to single-sex schools. To be honest, I didn't know any better. At the time, the vibe was that students learned better when they were not distracted by those they were attracted to. If I thought a minute about that, I would have realised how silly that was. After all, gay kids have been in schools with the objects of their affections forever and still managed to study without losing their minds.
So I asked Susanne Gannon, a professor of education at Western Sydney University, about her research. She tells me tradition has more to do with it than any real impact on learning.
There is, she says, no clear evidence single-sex schooling makes much difference.
"There are very powerful lobby groups who are continuing to promote the advantages of single sex schools but it is extremely difficult to detach/unravel other elements of socio-economic privilege, parental occupation and other factors from gender in terms of student outcomes," she says.
Gannon and her team interviewed students at university who had gone to single-sex schools - they tended to realise retrospectively there were a lot of things they had missed, "including comprehensive sex education".
And students themselves also said they did not have sufficient interactions with others to be able to develop respectful relationships. "The hothouse or the apparent hothouse that single-sex schools provide doesn't necessarily materialise in productive ways when students hit higher education, workplace or life in general," she says.
Which is not to say that those who are in co-educational schools don't experience homophobia, misogyny, violent behaviours. But it's not a hothouse for those values. There is always someone to challenge those behaviours - and as we know, that's not always the case in traditional environments. What happens on camp, stays on camp.
David Curtis, an associate professor at Flinders University, has examined literacy, numeracy and science achievement using PISA data.
Surprise! Boys do worse at literacy no matter where they go to school. That's an effect which occurs quite early - and those who fall behind stay behind. And boys do slightly better than girls at science and maths if they attend a single-sex school but not enough to write home about. It's a finding that is far smaller than the literacy effect.
Boys and girls achieve equally at the very top end no matter where they go to school, says Curtis.
So what is it the traditionalists seek to protect? Not much as it turns out. It's not the educational aspect. It's not the social aspect, unless it's about reproducing what daddy dearest did.
And that's an appalling prospect. From birth, we need to learn respect and appreciation for everyone we deal with. It doesn't help to keep girls and boys separate. I fear it makes life worse when we are so utterly unprepared for reality.
Jenna Price is a Canberra Times columnist and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.
Jenna Price is a Canberra Times columnist and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.
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