Student column -- Girls rule in school

By Lizzie Prosser

After three and a half hours of listening to Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, we arrived in Manhattan fired up and ready to see what the week of journalism had to offer.

We came armed with past yearbooks full of 365 days of pure girl power. We headed to our opening class at the Flint Hills Publication Workshop. When first observing the class, all seemed well.

Everyone was the same breed of geeky journalism student, but the vibe was off somehow. What was so different? It hit me -- that odd stench I had detected earlier in the day wasn’t the hot, musky stairwell. It was, in fact, boy. It never had dawned on me this workshop would be so different from my journalism class in dear old Omaha.

For three years, I have attended Marian High School, an all-girl Catholic high school. It didn’t particularly startle me that I now had Y chromosomes in class, but this detail was just a bit off putting.

When introducing myself, the general reaction of girls from Kapaun Mt. Carmel in Wichita was, “Oh my God! Are you serious? How do you do that?” We’re both Catholic high schools -- both even the blue and white crusaders. I just chuckle at how foreign it seems to them and how foreign it was to me to have the male species in class.

After talking with the Kapaun girls, we broke down the pros and cons for the boy factor.

Marian is centered around empowering women. In fact, the slogan is “where girls are first.” Marian girls take pride in not having to get ready in the morning -- beyond deodorant, brushing teeth and occasionally brushing hair. The boyless environment takes the pressure off. Girls are able to be open and outspoken without having to worry about how dumb they look in front of the boys. Although the girls from Kapaun may be outspoken and not afraid to speak their minds, Bailey Buer admits that an all-girl environment would greatly strengthen the sisterly bond between friends.

The Kapaun girls couldn’t imagine not primping for school. While they are blow drying their hair and coating their lashes early in the morning, the average Marian girl is still sound asleep -- waiting until the very last seconds before it is absolutely time to leave. Kapaun girls slip on their below-the-knee grey skirts, white blouses and navy sweater vests, while Marian girls throw on their above-knee plaid skirts, green polos and maybe even a beaten-up grey sweatshirt.

Marian girl Brooke Urzendowski will admit when seeing the life of a Kapaun girl, she and fellow Marian girls somewhat miss out on the whole high school experience: football games, boys cracking jokes in class and the entertainment the opposite sex brings to the school day.

Girls from neither side, Kapaun nor Marian, can see themselves in the others shoes. From a Marian point of view, boys will always be from Mars, so why bring those UFO’s to school with you? Every day is a simulation of the real world at Kapaun, and every dance is a Sadie Hawkins dance at Marian.

All in all, it’s just school. Boys or no boys.

Lizzie Prosser is a senior at Marian High School and a student in the advanced writing class at the Flint Hills Publications Workshop.