Feminism gone too far?
An interesting debate has emerged about girls' educational programs sparked, however, by an investigation into the situation for boys in schools.
A recent study suggested that girls are outperforming boys by the time they reach the last year of secondary education. Research for the New South Wales Board of Studies indicated that girls are achieving tertiary entrance scores which, on average, are higher than boys'. The gap has increased from 1.6 marks in 1981 to 17 marks in 1993.
Added to this is the fact that, based on both anecdotal evidence and research, boys make up a disproportionately high number of students with "behavioural problems", who are disruptive to other students and whose own learning process is interrupted.
This is not particularly new or surprising. Boys are more socialised to play up at school, to "prove" themselves, to try to impress their peers. They tend to be louder and take up more physical space.
The overall socialisation of boys more easily results in a negative impact on their educational opportunities.
Programs that encourage boys to take humanities subjects, rather than focussing on subjects with more obvious career prospects, and personal development courses which tackle issues such as machoism, would almost certainly enhance boys' self esteem, eagerness to learn and opportunities to benefit from an education system that caters more broadly to the needs of an individual in society.
However, suggestions to improve boys' educational opportunities have taken a more specific bent than this. The establishment media has seized on these latest observations and turned the argument on its head.
In a wave of backlash rhetoric the argument has been put forward that if boys are doing badly and girls are improving their performance at school, then too much attention is paid to girls and not enough to boys.
The argument concludes that time and money spent on programs to assist girls in school should be cut back. Feminism has simply gone too far.
It's all chillingly familiar. It's an argument that sets girls' programs and funding against boy's.
But the worst thing about it is that it is an entirely false argument.
It is still the case, for example, that girls are concentrated in subjects which are not as highly regarded in terms of earning potential in the work force. It is also still the case that it is difficult for girls to enter into non-traditional areas of education or the work force. It is also true that once in the work force women still earn less than men, have less job security and tend to be concentrated in those sectors — retail and service industries — with the worst job conditions.
It's important not to allow the debate to become skewed. Programs for girls in schools are just as necessary now as when they were first introduced. Affirmative action programs set up to overcome the legacy of historic and institutionalised discrimination will continue to be necessary until equality has been achieved. And we're a long way from that.
Kath Gelber