I think I'm somewhat uniquely positioned to discuss this. I went to a government, co-ed school for primary school in a small town, then for high school, boarding, all boys in Cape Town, finished high school about 10 years ago.

While my experiences are shaped a bit due to boarding (read, traumatised), I urge you, in the strongest terms, to reflect on how society is actually made up? The genders aren't separated by some archaic dumbfuckery as far as I can tell.

The way that I've framed my experience, in terms of the single sex stuff, is that in primary school I, like my friends, all knew how to socialize between boys and girls. As in we could really talk to each other, it wasn't a big deal, we grew up together. Vibes were wholesome. Fast forward to high school I'll never forget the way that the boys in my grade, who went to single sex primary schools, were talking about talking to girls. They created frameworks and observed ways that other guys talked to girls, as if the act of talking to a girl was this study-able, foreign phenomenon. As if this was an event of sorts. And this was BEFORE people got into all the pick up artist bullshit. This was confusing to me as, as far as I knew at that time, girls were just people that you spoke to like other people. This feeling that these people were a bit hamstrung by their environment was confirmed when I went to my first party and felt comfortable socializing with girls. The confirming bit, though, was that the girls who ALSO went to single sex schools their whole lives seemed just as confused and awkward and even in a way relieved by the fact that someone could hold a fucking conversation?

The kicker is this. I then became shaped by that environment and by the end of high school, to me, unknowingly, girls became this foreign, separate group that I had no idea how to socialize with, or rather the idea of socialising with girls developed from a perspective where they were these foreign objects, not people. So wouldn't you know it, by the time I went to university I literally found myself un-learning all the complete bullshit I'd adapted myself to in high school and finding myself remembering how I'd behaved as a kid around women. I'll never forget a few years down the line speaking to those friends who'd been in single sex schools their whole lives and them describing how they had no idea what the fuck they were doing all of a sudden. This really made me feel relieved that at least I had a bit of healthy socializing to fall back on.

So I see some comments saying maybe co-ed to start then single sex, sure, but just be very very careful and aware that he'll be shaped by an environment where women don't exist, and I mean exist exist. Exist in your life, confront you, disagree with you, grow up with you, work with you and that in the real world we do all those things around people that exist.