I think we should return to boy schools and girl schools.

@rainmanjr I am a big believer in single-sex secondary schools. It saves all the posturing and hormonal distraction for elsewhere, and there is no bias as to whether more of one sex than the other gets to participate. Teens can find plenty of ways to socialize outside school. When I was a teen, we had a “nightclub” we could go to. It served soft drinks and had snacks available. I think it closed at 9 p.m.. There should be safe places like that for kids to go to today. My son attended an all-boys secondary school and graduated with a 5.0 average, due to the number of Advanced Placement courses he took. My daughter’s graduating class had only 4 boys in it…her school had been all-girls until she attended. I did pity those few boys. (It has been fully co-ed ever since.)

@MsKathleen I couldn't agree more. I think the forcing of gender mixing has been a mistake for education and would be for many sports (not all). I was planning on doing the Air Force since entering HS so made little attempt at social life. Very few, if any, encouraged me to change behavior. I had a couple of jobs and did not attend Prom so not a great authority on the subject but it was pretty similar. Equality is very important for legal/personal/financial reasons but not always advisable in a competitive arena. One area is self-confidence and those who possess more of it have an unfair advantage (but an advantage none-the-less). Males and females are different in many ways and some are distracting for males, as well.

Doing it earlier than boys is probably due to need for raising kids. Boys only had to be strong and agile so the frontal cortex develops slower. Social treatment of women may have come about because of that time difference as food became easier to acquire and men began to take greater part of planning and building type work. Muscle counted for the building, especially, so males became dominant and protected their place. It was all very innocent, at first.

@MsKathleen That's true, although females take more time off so were considered less stable. (I'm nearly certain someone will accuse me of comparing women to a horse now). The times were different, and there was truth to that, but times have changed. I'm pro-equal pay for work. In fact, I'm pro-equality and would have sent The ERA to Congress despite being turned in late. Sadly for women, RBG disagreed. I think other women have been more of a problem for equality than men but both are guilty of preventing it.

@MsKathleen My reply covered that. Again, the post is about later development of the frontal cortex giving boys a disadvantage in education. It is not about women's suffrage or pay.