Mrs B-B is attempting to keeping misbehaviour levels amongst girls down by allowing them to do something that boys, at the brother school, are not permitted to do. Her strategy is unsuccessful however because she goes on to say “I’ve never done a formal comparison but I would be prepared to bet that we spend at least three times as long dealing with misbehaviour about hair as our brother school does. All they have to say is ‘Get a haircut.’ We have to have debates on fine points of detail.” That hardly supports a claim that girls are better behaved and more compliant (as has also been claimed) than boys. In general, I think girls do push the boundaries more than boys simply because, in general, we’re allowed to. Rechabit noted how girls seemed more confrontational than boys.