Gender Equality

The twenty first century has no place for discrimination, especially in our schools.  School is an institution where our young children learn to identify with themselves and others.  It is a place where they spend the majority of their early to late teen lives where opinions and identifies are formed.  It is every child’s right to have access to a school that will not discriminate because of their multicultural background, sexual orientation or disability. 

Gay gender identities often take the brunt of discrimination in our schools.  Independent MP for Sydney, Alex Greenwich can only relate too well to these issues.  Greenwich (2013) wrote that he will soon abolish the law of expelling and excluding gay students from schools by introducing a bill to overturn these laws.  Mr Greenwich who is gay himself knows all too well the feelings of expulsion, exclusion and constant bullying.

To date public schools cannot discriminate against a student based on their sexual orientation but private and catholic schools are exempt from discriminating against these students and defend their right to expel students on religious beliefs. Students at private and catholic schools have reported that they are bullied and ridiculed for being gay and when reporting abuse to teachers, they have been told to adapt to a heterosexual lifestyle (Tovey, 2013). 

Private and catholic schools need to review these Acts.  If a child falls victim to discrimination, it affects their identity and their education can be seriously interrupted.  If anti-discrimination laws were present in these schools, there would be less bullying and vilification by other students and teachers.

When it comes to gender equality between male and females in schools it seems that it still exists in co-educational schools.  Gender identities form in schools because of the way females and males are socially constructed and stereotyped in our every day lives. Females in single sex schools do relatively well in mathematics and science because there is no male dominance in the classroom.  Whereas females in co-educational schools rank significantly lower than males in regards to mathematics and science because these subjects tend to be male dominated and regarded as masculine dominated subjects e.g. engineering and science.  Females in these co-educational schools tend to lean more towards more traditional subjects like arts, languages and humanities (Brutsaert, 1999). 

Brutsaert (1999) explains that some teachers may stereotype the genders in relation to these subjects; males get more attention in the classroom with maths and sciences subjects than females.  This may be because in co-educational girls, males and females tend to display typical gender type behavioural roles; males being dominant, masculine and aggressive and females displaying more feminine traits.

Regardless of our race, gender or sexuality we should all be treated equally. There is no room for discrimination against those who are different. Why are they different?  What is considered as the norm?  We are all living human beings, we all have feelings so why are we different?

 References

Brutsaert, H. (1999). Coeducation and Gender Identity Formation: a comparative analysis of secondary schools in Belgium, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 20 (3), p. 343-348.  

Greenwich, A. (2013). ‘Discrimination has no place in schools’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September, <http://www.smh.com.au/comment/discrimination-has-no-place-in-schools-20130919-2u13f.html>.

Tovey, J. (2013). ‘Schools defend right to expel gays’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July, <http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/schools-defend-right-to-expel-gays-20130706-2pirh.html>.