School council removing makes and female representative....

[frogswimming]

Our primary pupil school council has a male and female chair currently. The head is proposing removing this provision so that two pupils of the same 'gender' could be voted in. I feel uncomfortable about this. I think it's sending the wrong message about women's voices being heard. A place should be reserved for a girl. Can I have some help drafting a note to send to the head to outline this. I don't want to get into equality legislation, just keep it light and chatty.

Representative not preventative

@CBUK2K2 While girls continue to outperform boys at A Levels, they are still far behind in STEM areas and whether or not there is a direct correlation, when it comes to positions of power, decision making and highly paid careers, they are far behind. There are still only 47 female CEOs in the Fortune 500, only 13% of peace negotiators are female even though women are more adversely affected by war, 8% of national leaders and 25% of politicians (34% in the UK) are female. News stories are 75% focussed on males and in 2019, the highest paid male footballer was paid the same salary (not advertising or other endorsements) as the top 1,856 female footballers in the world.

Primary school classroom behaviours are among one of the many factors that influence how girls feel about themselves and how they view their futures.

Until women share money, power and decision making, we should continue at all levels to ensure that females are equally represented and support women and girls at every opportunity.

@ChateauMargaux That is purely by choice that girls don't follow stem subjects, look at veterinary medicine which has a very strong female bias.

Men and women are broadly the same, in fact they are more the same than different, them main difference in personality traits is that men tend to be more interested in things, and women more interested in people. There aren't big differences in the average person, but there are at the outliers.

To go in to most STEM fields you have to be very interested in things and not that interested in people, hence most engineers, computer scientists etc physicists etc are men.

Women on the outliers tend to be much more interested in people so are more likely to end up in nursing/teaching etc.

And this ins't a societal construct because the more egalitarian a society gets and the more they try and make boys and girls the same the bigger these differences get. If you don't believe me go and look at Scandinavia where they have put more effort than most in to messing about the equality and the differences have just got bigger and bigger.

@ChateauMargaux Women's earnings and career progression has outstripped men up to the age of about 30 for years, in recent times this has increased to 40. However women then tend to go off and have career breaks and kids and realise there is more to life than working 90 hours a week.

@ChateauMargaux 80% of teachers are FEMALE how much more representation do you want? 60% of university graduates are FEMALE. I'm just not seeing this inequality.

There is nothing stopping women being the next Elon Musk, they just don't tend to choose scalable/entrepreneurial careers.

But I say again - 80% of teachers are female, mothers still do the majority of parenting, so if you want girls to be different its not men you need to be talking to.

On top of this statistically the majority of major financial decisions in the home are made by women in the UK.

76% of teachers are women, but only 36% of secondary school headteachers are female.

@Lougle

But what if the best two for the job are both girls (or both boys)? Why should their sex be the first consideration in appointing them?

Oh behave, it would never happen that 2 females were put into both roles. Males would just constantly be voted in (maybe the occasional token female may get a chance every now and then). It's why these types of roles were divided into male and female in the first place).

At my dc’s school ( secondary); there has commonly been two girls in the head positions, occasionally a boy and a girl, and never two boys.

@ChloeDecker

Do they use fashion examples in maths as much as they use sports ones?).

I’m sorry but this just makes me shudder to read that fashion is the default alternative for girls. Just no.

Fashion wasn't supposed to be a default choice just an example, though thinking about it, at primary age, it's probably not a great one. But at secondary it's not a terrible stand in for sport. It doesn't serve girls well to pretend there aren't interests that they are more likely to gravitate towards in the society they are brought up in - whether we shudder about those interests or not. Making sure subjects don't default to the stereotypical male experience and priorities is a part of ensuring girls are well served.

[quote CBUK2K2]@NumberTheory

1. What you’ve suggested is a random list of books. Teachers don’t have to use these, my son has certainly never come home with any of them.

2. 80% of primary school teachers are female, could we allow there to be some males in books?[/quote]

3. You suggested that the white male was an "endangered species" in books used in class - I provided you with a list of examples recommended for use in schools by a teacher that had plenty of white boys as main characters. My own kids schools have had quite a few of them. I obviously haven't seen your son's classroom, but I've seen my own kids' and talked with my friends about their children's experiences. Male protagonists still the norm with whole class books.

4. No one has suggested there shouldn't be some males in books. Don't make up straw men.

I agree with others that it's not so certain that it would be boys that dominated without the rule, but I don't think that having it be all-female would be that great for the girls either. Instilling the message that this kind of service/community work is for girls isn't positive for either sex.

@dootball

Likely they are trying to make two girls chairs as it's usually tough to get boys to do it.

Yes my son’s school previously had head girl and head boy. Now they have two head pupils who are both girls .

@Hardbackwriter

I agree with others that it's not so certain that it would be boys that dominated without the rule, but I don't think that having it be all-female would be that great for the girls either. Instilling the message that this kind of service/community work is for girls isn't positive for either sex.

Absolutely agree.

An inability to encourage boys into these roles is a big concern.

@CBUK2K2 I can see that I am not going to convince you and that is OK. I am an engineer with a teenage daughter and am involved with a number of organisations who support women in STEM and support girls in STEM subjects in schools. We see lots of factors which impact how women and girls choose their subjects, their careers and their career progression.

There are a huge number of societal factors involved at every stage. Girls arrive at school believing they are just as good as boys but quickly lose that belief, it is not just school that feeds that loss of self belief. When we have quotas for accelerated math programmes on a state wide level, we see higher drop out rates for girls, when we have girl only programmes, they stay. Women only research teams are more productive than mixed or male teams but when it comes to funding, male teams or teams with a male at the head of the team attract more funding. At many points along the journey, people look for behaviours that they associate with success rather than success itself and until we see successful well paid women in all areas, we will not see women follow them.

Things haven't changed in engineering and computer science since I was at university but we need women in these careers to ensure we are building a future world that fits us all rather than a male perspective of what is needed.

I don't believe the gaps are due to women opting out of these paths voluntarily, but due to the fact that it is not a level playing field. It is easier for a mid performing boy to stick with computer science through university and to find a job than it is for a high performing girl. The decision to give up work or take a career break to have children is not equal between men and women and usually comes at the end of battles to have your work recognised, to stake your claim in the boardroom, to then find that it is not easy to keep your career and family plates spinning, often its the last straw rather than a new choice made in a vacuum, and women take time out believing it's a pause and not a derailment, and underestimate the challenges of returning to work.

But at secondary it's not a terrible stand in for sport

Yes it is.

@ChloeDecker

But at secondary it's not a terrible stand in for sport

Yes it is.

In what way?

Thankfully, most teachers and secondary school pupils NumberTheory can see that secondary female pupils deserve more than just fashion as their STEM draw, even if you can’t.

If CBUK2K2 ideas of women liking fluffy subjects more than STEM because they are made of sugar and spice then how do they explain the difference in girls choice of subjects and achievement in those subjects when taught in single sex educational environments versus when taught in co-ed schools?

@Lougle

But what if the best two for the job are both girls (or both boys)? Why should their sex be the first consideration in appointing them?

Right, and we just ignore that history has taught us time and time again, that men will favour men, rather than picking the best person for the job?

You know it should have been women who first travelled to space, they tested better than the men. But NASA couldn’t bring themselves to accept that the first humans in space would be lowly females.

The idea isn't to choose the two 'best' leaders, its that both sexes have the chance to see a positive role model that they can identify with and feel represented by.
We already know that in a world of male leaders, women's needs aren't even visible. When women arent seen as leadership material because of our sex it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy; fewer women push themselves forwards as leaders in the first place, they rarely get chosen as leader, and only then if they act in a way men approve of.

All of this is very basic socialisation 101.

We have houses and each year the children in each house vote for two house captains/vice captains. The candidates give a speech and then the children vote for who they want. The two children with the most votes are chosen.
If only one boy and five girls decide to go for it, why should the boy automatically be selected just because he was the only boy to try (and vice-versa), when he could be the least suitable?

@Naunet... Is that true? Is there a link I could read?

I'd recommend ignoring CBUK2K2 as they've already outed themselves as an MRA troll on another thread. They seem to be actively seeking out threads where women are expressing concerns about women's rights and pointing out 'poor menz'.

They've also exposed themselves as somewhat of a bigot in the process too.

I think your response is good OP, I'd go with that.

@dootball

Likely they are trying to make two girls chairs as it's usually tough to get boys to do it.

It was the same in ds's primary and again secondary, boys were generally not interested,needed encouraged to apply to fill the boy position and there were lots of girls wanting the roles.

Even this year the school photo of the new Prefects are mainly girls.

[quote ChateauMargaux]@Naunet... Is that true? Is there a link I could read?[/quote]
Yep, it’s true. I use to have a really good article about it, I’m just trying to find it now, but in the meantime…
www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/women-in-space/498833/