They walk among us.  They breathe our air, they eat our food, and they watch football.  They are almost 50% of our population. They are men, and until I started at Penn this fall, they did not exist from 8-4, Monday through Friday, for eight years of my life. 

Call me deprived or lucky, I could agree with either adjective. One thing, however, is certain: my middle school and high school experience at an all-girls school has led me to the question: why did I need to be separated from those who make up half of the human race, every day, in order to get a good education and become a confidant woman?  What is wrong with me? 

There are many arguments in favor of all-girls schools. They exist because girls, in general, are reported to not get called on as much; to defer to boys in the classroom; are not as encouraged as boys in math and science; don’t become president of the class or head of the debate team; don’t get as much attention in sports, and are the victims of many other academic shortcomings. The way to fix this, at least according to the all-girls school model, is to put girls in a quarantined, estrogen-charged environment in which there is no threat of being kicked to the backburner in favor of a male counterpart.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the walls covered with photos of “mean boys” with their eyes crossed out and devil horns on their new girlfriends, the old girlfriends shoving thumbtacks through their vital organs.  Seriously.  I loved that yoga was a gym class that ended with aromatherapy oils and back massages from our teacher.  I miss playing dodge ball on field day; we were fierce and skilled, and if there had been boys there, I don’t think it would have been the same.  I think they would have ruined it.  

But how many body image seminars did I need before I could be set loose with the dogs - I mean men? How many successful female investment bankers or female judo Olympians needed to speak in order to convince me that I don’t have to be a housewife? 

I know I sound ungrateful.  Many girls don’t have any of this encouragement, and I’m sure that it has had its positive effects.  My problem, though, is that the all-girls school mentality says that the girls won’t make it with the boys unless they have twelve years of prep for it.  That can’t be true.  At least it shouldn’t be.  Separate is inherently unequal.

So in September 2006, I was unleashed into the wild, to walk among the beasts.  Thanks to my thorough training, I came out with my guns blazing, ready to pop any pig that tried to talk over me in class or raise his hand higher than mine.  It was a popular attitude.  And then something extraordinary happened; It wasn’t a big deal.  Some boys were obnoxious, others were smart, others were funny.  Certainly some girls were just as bad, or good, as the guys.  But mostly, the experience was, well, anticlimactic. 

After all the lectures on the negative portrayal of women in the media and the evils of the glass ceiling, I am now in a classroom with the other.  But at this point, the other doesn’t seem to be so different.  I wonder if I needed all those years of segregation to feel that way.