Boys should be boys,
and girls, girls

SOMEONE lent me an article about the great advantages all of us can derive from having the so-called single-gender schools, or what is more commonly known in our country as exclusive schools for boys or for girls, referring more often to elementary and high schools.

I found the article very illuminating, well written, well researched and well argued. The analysis and discussion of the different relevant sub-topics was well done. I think it is worth the serious attention of our educators.

The main point is that boys and girls are different, and that the differences to a certain extent should be respected, even strengthened, especially during the young and formative years.

Why? Because it is in these differences that the proper and specific contribution that boys and girls make to their own personal development and maturity, as well as to their own successful integration into society, is enhanced.

This is something we have to understand well. Though we belong to just one species, we are somehow unique individuals. Our uniqueness and differences from the others ought to enrich one another, complementing and supplementing what others may lack, etc.

In other words, our differences, something unavoidable because of our bodily and spiritual nature, are meant to foster complementarity, not division nor isolationism. They should create the tension that invites mutual cooperation, rather than indifference to others.

But first we have to see to it that boys are boys, and girls are girls; otherwise, if there is some confusion of the sexes and the genders, then what complementarity and mutual support can we talk about?

These differences should be made clear on all, especially during the young and formative years. They should be clearly seen as good in themselves, and meant to help others. They are not meant to be enjoyed solely by the individual.

This is our human condition. As the Catechism says: "The harmony of the couple [man and woman, husband and wife] and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out." (2333)

But when these differences are blurred, or when there are attempts to eliminate them, then this complementarity and mutual support needed for the proper growth and development of everyone is jeopardized.

The point is that when thrown into co-ed schools dominated by girls and women -- mostly teachers and other staff members -- boys suffer, and their development gets stunted or misdirected.

The boys naturally feel out of place. They feel as if in these schools they are not talked with in their own language. Some may even get the idea that in order to get along well with the system, they have to adapt some feminine ways.

Perhaps, this fact can partly explain the sad phenomenon of a growing number of children nowadays with same-sex attraction or homosexual tendencies!

Where they have the natural tendency to be very active, and where their ways of thinking and reasoning have a distinctively masculine character, the boys are pressured to restrain themselves or to think that their boy traits are not good.

In short, the present setup of co-ed schools where the girls and women dominate is a confusing environment for the young boys. That's why some studies done in the US seem to put part of the blame of the poor performance of the boys in these co-ed schools on this factor: that the boys are somehow restrained from being truly boys.

And in spite of their so-called male advantage, boys actually are not as hardy as they seem. It is said that right from conception, males are more prone than females to disease, developmental difficulty, and environmental damage.

It is also said that at birth, females are four to six weeks more mature neurologically than males, which enables them to acquire more quickly language skills, verbal fluency, and memory retention, than do boys.

Communication disabilities like stuttering and dyslexia are several times more prevalent among males than females. Reading blockages and other learning problems are three to five times more common in boys than in girls.

Males are more often color-blind and left-handed, and suffer more night terrors. They are three times as likely to be autistic, and experience much more schizophrenia, hyperactivity, delinquency, suicide, and homicide than females.

Boys far more often end up homosexual than do girls.

All of these should somehow make us consider seriously the appropriateness of creating the proper school setup where the boys truly feel, think and act as boys, and the same with the girls, so that everyone can develop properly.