Single-Sexed Secondary Schools Allows for the Breaking Down of Gender Stereotypes Within Our Society.

Society today is besieged by many stereotypes. In Trinidad and Tobago, gender stereotyping is one of the many social barriers that add to the social pressures within our society. Trinidad and Tobago, like the rest of the world, has experienced rapid social and economic changes, yet there still lays an “old-fashioned” and conventional mentality towards traditional gender roles. Many societies perceive that cultural ideologies about gender, influence social norms for appropriate and acceptable bodies. “The greatest gender inequalities are found in North Africa and Western Asia. Countries in East Asia and the Pacific have come close to achieving gender parity in access to education, while in Latin America and the Caribbean there appears to be a slight bias against boys.” Although more women than men have pursued higher education in some countries, this has not necessarily lead to better labour market outcomes for women. It can be recognized that men dominate commercial roles and women subservient subordinate roles. Due to society’s sex-based discriminatory practices, this results in the stereotyping that women are less interested or capable of assuming roles that men dominate.

This situation has increasingly led to a focus on schools. Gender stereotyping is one barrier girls and boys commonly encounter in co-educational schools. Our “old-fashioned” society still feels that girls should take subjects like home economics, art or history, which leads to traditional caring occupations like teaching or nursing as opposed to learning technology, or advanced sciences. This kind of thinking prevents girls from getting the training, which will ensure them high paying technology-related jobs in later life. Boys on the other hand are patterned into being pilots, engineers etc. Boys in co-educational settings are therefore less likely to take subjects in the arts or tackle “female-type” subjects simply to avoid being typecast a “gay/homosexuals” and the likelihood of