Gender equality: Schools have been told to encourage boys to play netball and take dancing lessons in addition to traditionally 'male sports'
Posted on 12/27/2007 12:06:29 PM PST by Stoat
Schools have been told to encourage boys to play netball and take dancing lessons in a bid to promote "gender equality".
The move which sees boys moving on to the traditionally female netball court is part of a Government drive to ensure that school children are more 'gender balanced'.
Every local authority in the country had to publish a "gender equality scheme" earlier this year to meet new anti-discrimination legislation.
Scroll down for more...
Gender equality: Schools have been told to encourage boys to play netball and take dancing lessons in addition to traditionally 'male sports'
As a result hundreds of schools have adopted schemes that suggest boys should take up traditionally female pursuits - and vice versa.
Schools most also ensure that more girls study traditionally masculine subjects such as science.
In preparing their guidelines for schools, a string of councils around the country, including Plymouth Leicester, Nottingham and Buckinghamshire posed the question: "Do you encourage girls to participate in rugby, cricket, football and basketball and boys in netball, rounders, badminton and dance?"
Schools are encouraged to develop "open-minded attitudes" and promote positive role models for boys and girls.
They are also asked: "Does your school challenge gender stereotyping?"
The requirement to publish a Gender Equality Scheme came into force in April this year and each local authority must revise and adapt its plan every three years.
The plan is a response to updated sex discrimination legislation that says it is unlawful for schools to provide classes for only one sex where this would amount to less favourable treatment of the other sex.
It has been taken by some cautious schools to mean that not offering netball lessons to boys is discriminatory.
However, some head teachers fear that council guidelines suggesting sports lessons be expanded to offer the same options to boys and girls could be a step too far.
Last night Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "It doesn't make sense to promote things to boys that they don't want to do, simply so you can tick a box on a form."
It is legal for schools to confine competitive sports to single sexes where strength, stamina or physique puts a girl at a disadvantage to a boy.
It appears, however, that some schools may be reading too much into guidelines.
Guidance from the Women Sports Foundation on gender equality says that provision of sports does not need to be identical, but it must attract the same resources and meet the same standards.
It says for example: "Schools will not be expected to run football or rugby teams for girls where there is no demand, nor will they have to run netball teams for boys.
"But if girls demand a rugby team, schools could be expected to provide it."
A spokesman for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said it had not specified that schools provide netball and dance for boys.
She said: "The gender equality duty puts a duty on all public sector employers and people who provide public services to take action to promote equality. It's about outcomes, it's not prescriptive."
I’m under the impression (as a Yank) that there are plenty of people with common sense in GB. The problem is that they are apparently not in positions of power.
“There is nothing in England worth saving.”
This is an absurd statement (and I’m from the US).
My friend, who teaches in a school here in the US, tells me that there can be no strenuous exercises now in gym class in her school district. Why? Because the kids can no longer take showers after gym. Why? Because kids have been taking pictures of other kids naked in the showers with their cellphone cams.
The world will be full of wimps in a few years.
Amen. To the point of being allowed to sexually harass (mho)children during school with the homosexual “point of view”. Thanks to the 9th Circuit Court they can do it without parents being notified.
LOL
What will happen, is the study of science will be feminised, in other words, suitably diluted to ensure females will achieve a pass mark....
My daughter plays on a girls' rugby team at college and enjoys the heck out of it, even as rather petite as she is. It took me a bit to get used to all her bangs and bruises however.
Hitler: "In three weeks England will have its neck wrung like a chicken."
Churchill: Some chicken...some neck!"
There is no dribbling and the ball must be passed within 3 seconds or it’s a foul. Only 2 people on the team can shoot baskets, which is a pole with a hoop on the end - no backboard or net. I always thought it was a dumb game.
LOL
Like all Western countries, we have problems but we are not quite ‘down the toilet pan’ yet...
Nor are you. SO FIGHT!.
All the best.
Raised in the country...not that much variety, I guess. But, I like your definition better... Thanks for the smile.
It’s easy. Just do like I did when my wife insisted I try “swing” dancing. I just threw her into the wall. She’s pretty much left me alone since then.
That's how they justify their employment. Next year they'll find even more inequity.
On the plus side, if our stupid nanny state government is busying itself with stuff like this, it lessens the possibility of doing any damage meddling with anything important....
Just wait. The boys who are being emasculated haven't grown up yet. Have you ever seen the behavior of men who haven't been taught how to be men?
My best guess is it was more or less simultaneous.
It looks like the UK is in competition with the United States to see who can be the sickest when it comes to feminizing boys in the government schools. For God’s sake, if you love your children get them OUT of the government schools.
Torchwood is a Doctor Who spinoff for “adult” audiences. (”Torchwood” is an anagram of “Doctor Who”). I didn’t know about “fixations with homosexuality”. I stopped watching after the second episode because it was so rubbish...
I appreciate it, thank you. Since my earlier posts here I was able to watch a couple of episodes also and I came to the same conclusion. I’ve always loved sci-fi, but this simply wasn’t very well done.
...and the episode “gridlock” (even though there was a gay couple as minor characters) was more positive about faith and religion than any drama series I have seen in twelve months.
We will always have tomboys and we will always have boys who are sissies, but by and large boys and girls like to do different things. And after puberty, both the physical and mental cpabilities and interests of both increasingly diverge. These truisms once were taken for granted. No more. Edducational bureaucrats will always carry matters to the extreme to CTA.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.