I was going to write my opinion on the whole trying to change society thing, but it turned into a rambly mess, so I'll just comment on something else from the article from a personal perspective :)
I have seen reports that girls (boys too, but the article's not talking about them) in co-ed and all-girls schools differ on several parameters. It would be interesting to know whether there's any difference in the value girls place on appearance, academic ability, athletic ability etc. between co-ed and single-sex schools.
Between the ages of 8 and 11 years, girls tend to be androgynous. They view themselves as strong and confident and are not afraid to say what they think. However, as they cross over into adolescence, girls begin to experience pressure toward more rigid conceptions of gender roles; they become more concerned with how women are "supposed to behave'' and with their physical and sexual attractiveness.
My personality stayed androgynous. I never felt any pressure from classmates to conform to an effeminate way of behaviour. If any, the pressure to be more feminine came from my mother ("you're a girl, your room should be tidy", "you're a girl, do x, y or z"), I always hated that and insisted that my gender isn't a valid argument. Perhaps a factor that contributed to my insistence on not being as feminine as possibly expected were my maths/science abilities, which are typically seen as men's areas, while women are generally supposed to be better with humanities.
On the point of "smart" not being valued among girls, it wasn't so in my experience. On the contrary, I remember that the girls who were weaker in a subject tried to make friends with those who were "smarter" to get them to help them with the subject, there wasn't any shunning of smarter girls. But i's possible that this was just my year group/school/other factors (I was educated in a single-sex school.)