When you tell people you went to an all-girl's school, you are always asked the same few questions about your social skills and about the dynamic of your graduating class. Or you're constantly being compared to movies and TV shows about all-girls schools. Anyone that went to, or currently goes to, a single-sex school knows exactly what I'm talking about. People also look at you like something about your high school experience was unnatural, weird, uncommon, like it separates you from them. The reality is, it was exactly like most high schools. We showed up, tired and angsty that we had to be there, we went to class, ate lunch and went home. Simple. The only difference between our, and a "typical" high school experience was the lack of seeing large numbers of boys our own age on a daily basis. So here they are, the seven common misconceptions that we all get asked about our radically different high school experience.
1. There was more drama
The most dramatic thing that would happen on a weekly basis was the debate to see who's gone the longest without showering. There were a few hiccups around college decision time, but the lack of a male presence probably caused far less drama. There are no full-on cat fights, no burn books, no one group of "alpha-females" that made everyone else miserable. We all just co-existed. You said hi to people, you could ask most people for help even if you weren't best friends and for the most part, everyone was civil.
2. We're all lesbians
Somehow, not being around anyone your own age with a Y chromosome does not alter your sexual orientation. Crazy, right? There was no sudden urge to experiment or groups of girls making out in the hallway. Most of us don't really appreciate this assumption, not because we have any problem with different sexual orientations, but because it's a stupid assumption to make about an entire school.
3. That we don't know how to talk to boys or socialize
"So, wait, did you like know any boys? How did you meet them? How did you find dates to dances?"
These questions make us want to roll our eyes and walk away. Although it was very different and sometimes difficult to meet boys, it wasn't this huge issue that impacted our ability to function socially. None of us came to college unable to talk to and interact with people of the opposite gender, and it didn't inhibit our ability to have male friends, in high school or college.
4. That we look "hot" in our uniforms
Expectation:
Reality:
PLOT TWIST: girls are gross. Because there was literally no one to impress or anyone who remotely cared what we look like surrounding us five days a week, we don't care either. There were weeks where most of us couldn't even remember when the last time we wore make up was. If you wore makeup to school, people judged you. It also wasn't uncommon for people to brag about the length of their leg hair, and have others respect you if yours was really long. All-girls schools are the safest place to look like an unwashed animal.
5. That it's anything like "Gossip Girl"
I am asked this question far more often than I thought I would. "Gossip Girl" painted going to an all-girls school like class was optional and crazy girls dressed in plaid terrorized you and forced you to drink glamorous martinis at sleepovers. No, we all went to class, and we didn't bully each other by making a snide comment about someone else's $1,200 shoes, and we didn't have a different head band and necklace to match our uniforms for every day of school.
6. That we're all angry feminists
Yeah, we were fostered in an environment where conversations about gender equality were far more common. However, we don't hate all men, think that women are superior to men, or think men shouldn't have rights. We're not inherently angry man-hating individuals who burn our bras and renounce femininity.
We were taught that everyone should have a choice of how to live their lives. If you want to never have children or get married and run your own business and have an incredible career, awesome. If you want to not work and stay at home and raise your kids and have dinner waiting on the table for your husband when he gets home, awesome. If you want a combination of both, awesome. But everyone should have the option to chose whatever life path they want without gendered biases being attached to those choices.
7. That we hated it
Sometimes, yeah, it sucked. But it's high school—high school sucks and the lack of boys didn't add to that. If anything, it made it better. When we all look back on those four years of high school, we think about the wonderfully weird and ridiculous traditions. We think of our sporting events, running around the hallways with our friends, goofing around during our free periods and all of the wonderful people that impacted us along the way. A lot of us said we'd never join a sorority when we moved on to college because it felt like we were already in one. However, a lot of us ended up doing it anyway because we missed being surrounded by sisters. Sisters that love us, encourage us, accept us, laugh and cry with us. And that's what classmates at an all-girls school are—they're your sisters.
