Boys taught in single-sex schools face divorce, depression by early 40s

[ecstatic]

London: Boys taught in single-sex schools are more likely to be divorced or separated from their partner than those who attended a mixed school by their early 40s, says a new study.

...
The research covered 17,000 adults who had been taught in a range of institutions from private boarding schools to state comprehensives. The majority had been brought up in day schools.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "All the research shows single-sex schools are good for girls but bad for boys - both in terms of academic performance and socialisation.

"Girls seem to learn what the nature of the beast is if they have been to single sex schools whereas boys taught on their own seem to find girls more puzzling."

Bousted added, "Boys learn better when they are with girls and they actually learn to get on better."

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_boys-taught-in-single-sex-schools-face-divorce-depression-by-early-40s_1318871

[seabeyond]

1. interesting. it makes sense in a lot fo ways. nt

[ZombieHorde]

2. Seems logical. nt

[Captain Hilts]

3. It's easier for girls to learn about boys because 'male' is the cultural default. It's tougher to

become familiar with girls through culture since there are so few realistic portrayals in popular culture.

[seabeyond]

7. girls arent getting the conditioning of being inferior and boys are being allowed

the conditioning of superior role without contradiction of experience. why not be messed up

[Autonomy]

11. I have a different view

The male plural imperative -- the peer pressure that young males assert on each other in a group of young males -- is inherently destructive to all other groups and to the individuals comprising the in-group. The female imperative is a somewhat more complex mix of inclusion and exclusion. Females in a group temper the male destructiveness, and teach young males not to simply act on destructive impulses. In other words, males who grew up without some female input are emotionally immature and cannot cope with living in a civilized society as well.

[seabeyond]

12. i agree. on another post i say i can see it for a number of reasons.

i can see what you say. i can also see without direct experience male learns to objectify women. i can see without direct experience male can feel the superior without question

[Autonomy]

14. There *might* be a cultural expectation of superior position

on the part of some males, but they become confused and frustrated when their relative lack of verbal ability (caused by lack of experience with feminine culture) puts them in a position of inferiority to an actual female. Cognitive dissonance sets in. They will either relearn their place in society, or constantly smash their heads against the same wall.

[seabeyond]

15. you are male arent you. superiority is not a *might* or *some*. but

i agree with all the rest of what you are saying.

[Autonomy]

22. Yes, I am male

I am sure you won't like this, then: females tend to select mates from the 'alpha male' paradigm, those who have been socialized in overwhelmingly masculine in-groups and have little ability to express themselves intimately. Females have mate choice across the species. Thus, females perpetutate the so-called male-dominated society.

[redqueen]

24. "so-called male-dominated society"

Wow.

[Autonomy]

29. Over time, species-wide

we are female-dominated.

[Captain Hilts]

32. Can't tell by looking at the WH, Congress, the top box office movies, Nobel Prizes, Op-ed pages, etc

[redqueen]

36. So women *choose* to be denigrated and treated like second-class citizens?

Is that how you see it?

[seabeyond]

40. unfortunately, i know quite a few. society is absolutely conditioning our girls to be exactly that

and see it as a norm. as love. as the way it is suppose to be.

you know

selfworth is in the objectification

[redqueen]

46. Agreed but to say that it is only that percentage of women

who are in charge of all society is way past fucking stupid. It's into batshit crazy territoriy, even.

The *only* reason one could possibly say that that percentage of women is dominating society is because it is the only percentage of women who receive large amounts of support from most men in society. And in that case it is not those women who are in charge, really, is it?

Women grow up immersed in our sexist, and very much male-dominated culture, and they are applauded and cheered if they buy into the patriarchy. Can't really view that as women dominating society. Not at all.

[seabeyond]

47. ah.... i think i got some confused in what post i was responding too. the female in control

is utter bullshit.... lol lol. was not even commenting on that.

or am i more confused

[redqueen]

49. That's what had me amazed...

that anyone could believe that we live in a female-dominated society.

[Occulus]

64. Do you know, I have never once seen either you or seabeyond post one single *positive* thing

about men in general?

It kinda of hurts your credibility, you know. All the two of you seem to be able to do regarding men in general is complain about them. That's not a slam... it's just an observation.

[seabeyond]

65. wow. i gotta wonder why you have not seen one single thing. cause often i stand for male

have done it many times, in many different issues

ask me anything, where you think female is to blame for something, and be surprised

hey, on this very thread, i put onus on female.

[seabeyond]

67. what i dont do is honor a conditioning of society that is fucking up both our boys and girls

since i love them and think so much of boys.... knowing all that they are, i want that for them and work on that for the kids.

if that is me being unfair to boys i gotta wonder about the hypocrisy. mine is not to buy into the garbage that damages, but honors the uniqueness of who the best of the male is.

[redqueen]

73. What... thinking of them as mindless dicks with bodies attached is disrespect?

C'mon... it's true!

Just drain their balls and they'll at least act like decent people for a while... so long as you keep their balls drained... it's just a fact!

:sarcasm:

[seabeyond]

74. exactly. i stand up for a male and say this is not all of who they are, i hate males

what sense does that make. seems to me that i am on male side and the men that promote this shit are the male haters.

[redqueen]

81. I dunno if they're male haters...

I think perhaps they just think very little of themselves, and project that onto others.

[redqueen]

66. I praise men often... artists, athletes, politicians, etc.

I praise many men on DU.

So does seabeyond.

So... not sure what you're trying to prove, but...

[Autonomy]

50. I know you don't realize it

but we're not in the same discussion. There is tons of lit out there on female mate choice in the evolutionary biology field. I didn't just make this stuff up.

I really didn't say any of the stuff you're attributing to me above. The only 'percentage' I could describe is that female influence on the direction of the species approaches 100% over time. At that point, however, 'female' takes on some elements of a construct, rather than just a biological reality.

[redqueen]

52. Female mate choice does not define or dominate society.

It's a product of socialization and most of those choices are made when the women are very young and overwhelmingly naive about the nature of the patriarchy in which they have been immersed since birth.

So, again, it's idiotic bullshit.

[Autonomy]

53. FMC is the ONLY thing that defines society

in the long run.

[redqueen]

54. And when you consider the facts I mentioned?

Regarding those decisions being made by women who live their entire lives in a culture drenched in male dominance, and rife with demonization of any woman who dares to challenge or question the patriarchy... and cheerleading and glorification for those women who buy into it? Are you or are you not aware that many if not most women buy into the patriarchy? That many if not most women reject the label of "feminist" due to demonization of the term which dwarfs that of the term "liberal"?

How do you feel that may influence female mate choice?

[Autonomy]

61. Good question

The time period of which you speak is about the last 2k-5k years, depending on the location. Previous to that, most cultures were more egalitarian, such as the Celts, but they were out-competed by the more patriarchal societies, such as the Romans. In the long run, though, cultures that suppress the ability of major portions of their societies (50% in the case of women) will be out-competed by the more 'liberal' societies. It's no coincidence that these liberal societies rule the world now, and that the extreme patriarchal societies are at the fringes. Evolutionary progress is excruciatingly slow; however, many people theorize that a paradigm shift is at hand. New Agers might call it 'the dawn of the Age of Aquarius', futurists would call it a 'singularity'. Evolutionary success is no longer so closely tied to selection for aggression, and change will then happen quickly.

So, yeah. Those societies who have oppressed women the most will change or die. Those that allow women their autonomy will be most successful.

The women who most closely resemble their mothers who chose aggressive mates are still the majority, but will gradually be out-competed by a newer strategy.

I can't really take part in the assigning of blame. Like I said, it's not so 'us vs them'. We're the same species.

[redqueen]

62. Gradually, yes.

I do take part in the assigning of blame. We're the same species, yes. Yet as in the case with many other examples over time, one group of the species is attempting to control and dominate the other. I do assign blame for that... not just for one gender... but for those of both genders who condone and promite such crap.

[Autonomy]

83. From an evolutionary perspective

there really is no sex or gender, other than mating strategies. Essentially, the males today ARE the expression of their female ancestors' choices. When faced with the survival of her offspring VS loyalty to 'the sisterhood of women', our female ancestors CHOSE to produce descendants who would be oppressive, because it was advantageous to them at that point. She selected for strength and aggression in pre-civilized times, and intelligence and aggression in early civilization. She did not give a crap about "other" females, or even so much about the lot of her own female descendants. All that mattered was the success of her offspring. Those who did not make such choices were out-competed.

Some people say 'no woman would ever make the choice to create such a patriarchal society, so it must have been men'. There is an incorrect assumption hidden in that statement. There's an odd idea that all women are kin, as are all men. But it's not the case. There's no real sisterhood, ultimately. She has no stake in females not descended from her. But she has a stake in males descended from her, and she wants those males to crush the male competition and use the women, if that's what it takes. And it usually does take that. Or it used to.

[seabeyond]

86. just write fiction stories. you weave the story to match the agenda you present

one can equally weave a story with the same info that will tell a whole other story.

yet you believe them to be fact and something that must dictate who we are as people

and that is the garbage we promote to condition

[Autonomy]

90. I have no agenda, other than understanding

I have told no story. It's just math. I've not described everything about the topic here; that would take 500 pages; but I've described the basic, underlying reality.

[seabeyond]

94. the moment. the very moment women were not under male thumb, everything shifted

everything. in such a small flash of time, with all of history, the moment that male no longer had woman under thumb, all this evolutionary bullshit went to the wayside.

that makes your story bullshit.

[Autonomy]

98. I hate to break it to you

but this "evolutionary bullshit" is the ONLY thing that matters. All the ideals and ideologies in the world will not change the course of the 'successful strategy' out-competing all other strategies, and being the only one to last in the long term.

[redqueen]

97. Why do you insist on discussing ancient humans?

Is it somehow meaningful for you?

It has no bearing on this discussion, you know.

It seems to me the point is to score a cheap point... to blame women for the patriarchy we now suffer in.

[Autonomy]

99. Evolution is not "ancient" it is ongoing

It has bearing, and you missed your chance to point out it's lack of relevance when you engaged in the topic.

As I said, I am not in the blame game. I will however take responsibility for a mistake: I assumed I was having a conversation with rational people when I first started.

A wise aphorism: Pain is mandatory; suffering is optional.

[redqueen]

102. Nobody said it was ancient. The time period you choose to focus on is.

And it's blindingly obvious to those you insult by calling irrational why you're doing it.

Sad... and sadly very common.

[Autonomy]

51. And the society is created by 1000s of generations

of female mate choice. They chose aggressive mates who they thought would promote survival of their offspring.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic; it's just not so 'us vs them'.

[seabeyond]

55. theya re conditioned and the more women walked from the conditioning, the more it shifted

proving just how conditioned and controlled in a patriarchal society.

now we have a whole other direction in which our girls are being conditioned on who they are suppose to be as females and guess what, once again it gives male power and control and young girls are willingly walking into this conditioning.

the whole biological evolutionary argument is purely to advance the patriarchal society with control and conditioning.

[dustbunnie]

57. How does your last statement mesh with your first comment in this thread?

You seemed to be implying then that it's all a function of biology, but now you appear to say the opposite.

[seabeyond]

58. my argument is it is NOT a biological function but a conditioning of a patriarchal

society

please point out where i am suggesting biological behavior

[dustbunnie]

59. You said the article makes sense. Why?

There is barely any info in it.

[seabeyond]

69. again, what does that have to do with biology. why cant that article make sense

because fo the bullshit conditioning of our society?

and in this subthread alone i think we have talked about three behavior that could attribute to why boys need the interaction of girls.

[seabeyond]

71. wrong place

[dustbunnie]

75. Yes you're right. This portion of the thread is confusing because you're

talking about conditioning "today," when in fact these kids went to school in the 60's and 70's. The boomer generation.

More recent studies show that boys studying together are more open to excelling in perceived non-macho classes like drama and art.

I wrongly assumed you were thinking biology in the first post because there's no info in the article at all. How many more men were depressed/divorced? 100 or 10,000? Did more of them endure personal tragedy - financial ruin, illness, addiction? Or did they all live the same lives? It says most of the boys attended day school. Did any of them have mothers, sisters, girlfriends or were they isolated in all-male homes? What made the "happy" guys equally as happy as their co-ed school counterparts?

All of those things would matter a great deal if one was to be making claims about conditioning.

[seabeyond]

76. i believe there was a thread just yesterday on all female gender class being positive and all male

gender class not positive. didnt break it down this way.

so there is a little of all kinds of things of late flavoring this subject

[seabeyond]

72. refer to post #68. none of that is biological. non is the fad of evolutionary behavior.

but it is pretty much what posters are saying, when they say they can see why it would be determental to males to be in only male environment. in the society we have today.

[Autonomy]

43. Not at all

No one, individual female has ever had that kind of power to achieve that kind of autonomy to ever have such a choice. The span I am speaking of is ~200k years.

[seabeyond]

30. i know. isnt it cute. guys totally oblivous to the all the time is the way it is of male privilige

lol

[redqueen]

37. It was funny for a fraction of a second.

Then saddening for a moment... then irritating as fuck.

How blind can one be?

[seabeyond]

41. lol lol lool. forgot to give you my little sacastic thing.

lol

i hear ya

[RadiationTherapy]

93. He just kind of flopped it out there, didn't he?

'O, and by the way, let me show you THIS!'

[seabeyond]

27. some women. and those are the women we like to highlight today. many women do not make that choice

many many women.

and that is not promoted cause it does not meet todays agenda.

but i agree with your point. women do play a role in the fucked up gender role we have today

in many different areas.

so.... you assumed wrong, lol lol. i am fine with most of your accessment

[Autonomy]

39. A wise woman once wrote:

none of this applies to all or nothing.

[seabeyond]

42. i agree. the calling it out though is because today we seem to say, this is what women want

MOST woman do not want this. most women with a equal mentality, confidence and self esteem know better and look for a like campanion. but we dont promote that or even let it be known

guys get the wrong impression, conditioned like the rest of us and say, ya but....

women dont want nice men

which is the bullshit and continues the cycle of problems

[Kalyke]

63. That has changed, thankfully.

According to a new study from Durham and St Andrews Universities in the UK, women perceive masculine men as unsuitable long-term partners, and instead prefer men with feminine features, believing they are less likely to cheat.

http://www.aphroditewomenshealth.com/news/20070710051042_health_news.shtml

[gkhouston]

77. Actually, I chose a "non-alpha male" because he was less likely to be an asshole.

Had nothing to do with the cheating-on-me aspect of things.

[seabeyond]

79. mine is just a nice respectful guy. with strong character. you know.... a man. not an

illusion of what a man is.

nice guys do win.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

84. Immature females pick the alpha males

Mature females look for qualities other than the macho show-off mentality.

[WildEyedLiberal]

87. You have a grotesquely fucked up idea of what an "alpha male" is

I'm so goddamn tired of hearing that "alpha males" are the dumb-as-rocks bully thugs who assert their "dominance" through physical intimidation alone. That has nothing to do with being an alpha male. The alpha male in a dog pack doesn't spend his time tearing apart all the dogs below him on the pecking order - they're his PACK and that would be a fucking stupid thing to do. If we are going to apply the term "alpha" to humans, then use it properly - for one who LEADS through strength, be it strength of vision, personality, or physical strength. It has NOTHING to do with the ability to "express themselves intimately."

Jesus God, this is why no one takes "evolutionary psychology" seriously.

[seabeyond]

88. amen sistah.... LEADS through strength, be it strength of vision, personality, or physical strength

many contributed as beta and the true alphas.

or the real men. not the faux men

[lukasahero]

95. Thank you thank you thank you

I said this in another thread recently:

"Alpha male does not mean bad boys or even tough guys. In the canine world (where the phrase comes from that was subsequently applied to the human species - see: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=alpha ), the alpha male is confident, calm and protective of his pack. He is not aggressive for the sake of being aggressive and does not assert his dominance randomly."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=9118803#9119921

I really wish people would get a clue before they speak.

[seabeyond]

96. something to be respected. todays definition is the exact opposite. nt

[Captain Hilts]

17. "Lack of verbal ability" doesn't apply to all male children and doesn't last

very long in a significant way.

[seabeyond]

20. none of this applies to all or nothing. not all guys are fucked up by it

it is about general

[Captain Hilts]

16. I think a lot of that is because male socialization is based on military training and ritual. nt

[Autonomy]

25. Yes, sports teams, fraternities, etc.

[Romulox]

38. The children aren't autonomous entities; they are organized in this manner by their school itself.

I see no evidence for the "Lord of the Flies" thesis when there is simply no "Lord of the Flies" scenario; that is to say, these children behave this way whilst under the constant supervision of adults who obviously not only condone and encourage this sort of behavior, but indeed actively organize it. :hi:

[dustbunnie]

44. I'll bet those boys schools back then had vicious corporal punishments in place.

Probably much worse than the girls' schools.

Either the article or the study is bullshit...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

85. They did

Talk to some survivors of the British boys' boarding school system some time.

[SharonAnn]

34. So, boys benefit from girls but girls benefit from girls. None benefit from boys?

[seabeyond]

45. lol lol. i do from mine. they love me soooo. lol. nt

[Xenotime]

4. If you look deeper, you will probably find those boys grow up to be more violent too.

Society doesn't do enough to subdue boy's violent tendencies early on in life.

[anonymous171]

70. Violence and violent impulses are fine as long as they directed at the right things

[Fumesucker]

5. Flies, Lord of the..

Boys need to be socialized, keeping them grouped together and kept away from girls pretty much guarantees they won't be as well socialized.

[Darth_Kitten]

6. We all suffer from depression and divorce by our 40's.....

:( Well, a lot of us, I suppose. ;)

[seabeyond]

8. nu uh.... lol. well too many. but not even close to all. nt

[Darth_Kitten]

33. oh, come on................

;)

[Sanity Claws]

9. In my era, all children in the Catholic school system

went to single sex high schools. Some of the schools gradually became coed starting in the mid 1970s.

From what I've heard, girls do better in single sex schools.
Interesting.

[ecstatic]

21. I haven't seen any all girls/boys schools... I figured that might be

something done in other countries for the most part.

[Sanity Claws]

48. They still exist in this country.

I know of at least one in the NYC area, St. Regis. It is all boys.

[CoffeeCat]

10. If boys aren't around girls...

...they probably grow up obtaining their view of girls/women from the media.

That's scary.

They learn that girls are objects and little more than sexualized images. When they grow up and
are faced with real females, it's most likely confusing and completely contrary to what they
believed females were like.

[Captain Hilts]

18. BINGO. nt

[redqueen]

26. Scary indeed.

And god forbid they're big Heinlein fans. Lord amighty.

[gkhouston]

78. oh, sweet Jesus. I knew a female sex addict, who once remarked to me in

a rather bewildered and plaintive tone, that she hadn't realized that life wasn't like Heinlein novels. :banghead:

[redqueen]

80. I ran into mostly nerdy guys who expected life to be like that.

I always had a thing for nerds...

[dustbunnie]

28. Most of the boys from that study went to day schools.

They weren't shunted off to scary, isolated schools out on the foggy moors or anything. Meaning, they went home every day to see their mothers, sisters, female neighbors, etc...

[FreeState]

92. I wonder how this affect gay men? n/t

[The2ndWheel]

13. I love one-size-fits-all solutions

Efficient, cheaper, etc. However, the best part about those solutions, is when they don't work, which is eventually always. Some variable won't fit into the picture, then we'll try and force it to fit, which creates a new problem. Then we attempt to fix that new problem, only to have the solution mess up the first problem that we thought we figured out, which makes the first problem worse than the second problem, which was the solution to the first problem to begin with. That cycle continues on like that for a bit.

Our attempts at complete control and prediction over a given situation are like a dog or a cat chasing its tail. Sometimes we get the tail...but then what?

[Captain Hilts]

19. This doesn't work for me either. nt

[dustbunnie]

23. How much more likely? .000002% or 60%?

Are we really supposed to judge today's American society by the British standards of the 1970's? Things have changed somewhat.

There are also some great benefits to single-sex schooling apparently, like girls are more open to pursuing science and politics, and boys are more open to the arts. Both sexes study better and harder and are not as influenced by "fashion."

[ensho]

31. don't blame their depression/divorce on females!

try looking for the real reasons for the depression/divorce

[dustbunnie]

35. They're not. They're blaming it on biology.

It's the same thing the religious do when they push this sanctity of marriage baloney and try to keep women in a subservient role.

[phasma ex machina]

56. "Boys learn better when they are with girls and they actually learn to get on better."

Subtle differences in American and British colloquialisms provide a line pregnant with potential, so to speak.

:rofl:

[ensho]

60. baloney to subject line

nt

[caraher]

68. I attended an all-male high school and taught 2 years at an all-male college

In neither case was the single-sex education a positive reason to be at the school. My high school was a suburban Catholic high school next door to an all-girls Catholic high school (the drainage ditch between them was inevitably referred to as "the moat"). The college is one of the very last holdouts in all-male higher education in the US, and would have gone coed years ago were it not for its heavy reliance on alumni donors who are as a group extremely conservative and resistant to all kinds of change. I'd say each school had a similar environment in which sports had heightened importance and there was an ever-present expectation to conform to stereotypical male attitudes and behaviors (which I'd characterize in terms of competitiveness, locker-room humor, and speaking of females primarily as potential dates/girlfriends).

At the college, the quarterback of the football team was a film major and he actually spent his weekends with his twin brother, who'd transferred to a state school about 50 miles away. He made a documentary about his personal reaction to that experience that was quite revealing. For instance, as if this were blowing the lid off some remarkable secret, he learned through hanging out in the other schools dorms that woman have their own ideas and thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams... In that all-male environment it's far too easy for students to view women merely as potential conquests, in part because of the stunted discourse sometimes fostered when it's "just the guys."

My high school was excellent academically and on that side I couldn't be more pleased. But I think my life would have been much better had I gone to a high school with both sexes represented. I was already pretty isolated socially, and really never had friends until I got to college.

[applegrove]

82. It is amazing what they find out these days. I wonder what we are doing wrong

in this generation that we will find out is wrong in the next. As David Letterman used to say in one of his top ten lists "OATBRAN: THE SILENT KILLER".

[eppur_se_muova]

89. "who attended a mixed school by their early 40s" ??

If you're still attending school in your early 40s, isn't that a trouble sign right there? :evilgrin:

[Bucky]

101. I think Sarah Palin did

[Nikki Stone1]

91. If it's better for girls, then do single sex. Give the boys early counseling.

Girls should not have to suffer intellectually so that boys can have better marriages.

[Bucky]

100. Well, the obvious solution is to make all boys go to co-ed schools, but don't any let girls go there