What I can do in the short term
 Don’t give up
 Contact friends who have school aged children and ask them about their experience
in the schools
 Have a discussion with my group about going into school to talk to small groups
 Talk to my son’s friends
 Write to AWE and congratulate them on pro-active stance on VAW and gender
justice education
 Use positive (and gender specific) language when describing people and their
actions
 Letters to government reps and ministers
 I will write the journal article I’ve been meaning to prepare about violence prevention
initiatives, the national plan, school programs and union bargaining
 Read Maree and David’s article on pornography
 Consider / create BIG questions that could drive student inquiry (and relate to
gender justice)
 Report back to work around learnings
 Check that Respectful Relationships work is not copping out of adequately
addr4essing gender justice (harms of social construction of gender)
 Provide team with learnings around harms/status of porn industry
 Continue to teach my boys what have been seen as “traditionally” female tasks e.g.
ironing
 Be more vigilant in how I ‘talk’ in front of my 3 year old son... and point out my
friends’ poor modelling when my son is around them... gently!
 Speak to the deputies and principal at my current contract school re possible
programs...after I learn more...
 Have some more awareness of my own language
 Challenge media responses
 Look at my work with more of a gendered lens – reflect and review practice
 Reach out again to an individual I know living with domestic violence – and not be
despondent if they don’t take it
 Go to the Red Rose Rally
 Remind people of the gendered nature of violence against women when discussing
high profile cases of violence
 Keep working in the DV shelter
 Try to stop saying ‘guys” to male and female groups
 Think about gender imbalance in my own school context
 Reflect on presentations today
 Think about impact of porn and implications in school setting
What I can do in the longer term
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Join more feminist groups
Grant support
Create a gender justice research group
Ensure that all have knowledge info, own power, on gender justice and VAW
Speak to others about gender stereotypes/roles and their impact on potential
Sharing printed academic info with my son who works in Qld Health (Youth)
Healthy relationships groups/programs with more schools (primary and
secondary) in partnership with other organisations
Link with parents – (Healthy Relationships) and community education
Spend a week talking to students, both boys and girls, and teachers about the
‘most popular’:
o Connell – Cool Guys, Swots and Wimps
o Walker – Louts, Legends, Greeks, Footballers, and 3 Friends
o Martino – Cool boys, party animals...
Ask students to answer – “What I wish the teachers knew about me......”
Revisit the construction of gender in union communications because people really
still don’t understand
I will be the best aunty I can be to model non-gender stereotyped behaviour, value
judgements and choice of toys/activities for my gorgeous 2 nephews
Speak in my youth work regarding this conference – produce a team change
Finish the PD resource
Implement into all programs
Raise issues with DSVA
Need to write up my data - publishing
Include this topic in my curriculum
Teach my son the rights and wrongs when dealing with women
Bring in other people/trained professionals
Involvement in action campaigns
Leave religion for good
Support friends that also want to engage fighting gendered violence
I’m not going to be silent about language with people who are more powerful than
me
Don’t box myself into gender roles
Broaden my knowledge in the area of gender related issues – research,
conversations with peers and friends etc
Start talking about respect and incorporate it into my daily life – at work with
students, at home with family/children and encourage others to do the same
 Report back to staff at my workplace about what was presented today – encourage
them to read more on the website and take this valuable information on board
 Further my studies
 Continuing advocating for victims rights
 Initiate conversations with new schools about respectful relationships
 Think carefully about the language I use
 Research
 Ask young people
 Take care when making gender-related comments in the classroom
 Be supportive of students’ needs
 Encourage students to feel safe in the school and to talk about any issues they
have
 Talk to the school leadership team about the integration of gender-related programs
 Talk to other staff members about gender issues
 Demonstrate gender equity
 Improvement of the treatment of female staff
 Treatment of female staff by students
 Whole school approach to creating safe school environments
 Look at how to link community into school programs
 Keep Gender and Power on the agenda
 Actively support and encourage young women in leadership roles
 Put more attention on my treatment of students depending on sex/gender
 Talk to my stepson about girls, respect and pleasure
 DET – sponsor programs to engender healthy masculinity
What I would like to see my organisation do
 Pay teachers better
 AWE to maintain a ‘cutting edge’ focus towards gender justice initiatives
 My organisation could be more overt re social justice aspects of gender e.g.
promoting women in leadership, ensuring female voice (or all voices) are heard
 Feminist programs for 5000 women at court annually
 Children’s programs in every high school
 Congruence in gender justice reform practices
 Consider opportunities for facilitating for men and women
 Networking
 Linking AWE to DV prevention sector
 Linking programs to national programs
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Be involved in the 16 days of activism for White Ribbon Day
Group training – all staff/all areas – on gendered violence, bullying etc
Share info from this conference – what their programs could benefit from
Look at policies and procedures that are in place
Speaking up publically about sexual violence – especially responding to the media
Practice what they preach
Network with other agencies to create a coalition and a comprehensive strategy to
respond to the gender-based violence in our community
Expand programs into high schools
Encourage relationships that already exist in schools
Work collaboratively with other agencies
Community education in domestic violence
More support to children that experience violence
More social action campaigns
Linking more with outside services to support
Finding funding to support
Greater opportunities for professional learning
Need to talk about pleasure.. young men to be good lovers
Challenges/obstacles
 Lack of assistance from Govt. Education Departments for teacher training and
additional teachers
 Silence
 People’s lack of knowledge re nuanced ways of understanding and acting for
gender justice
 Time, time, time
 Patriarchy
 Funding
 Change of governments – State and Federal
 Colleagues who perpetuate stereotypes!!
 Prevalent gender violence in the school’s feeder community
 Troubling of inherent attitude
 Accessibility to policies
 Moving outside of core issues from funding body may cause a problem
 Lack of time and resources – partnership with established organisations /
departments who have resources
 Funding
 Available time – competing issues and tasks as a teacher: Increasing need for
trivial activity like assessment and monitoring for political purposes vs important
activity like relationship building
 Getting the Education Department to provide PD for teachers
 Trying to get other staff members to address the issues
 Raising awareness at the university level
 Time to publish
 Habit – personally – family, and professionally
 People like to stick in what they know best / have always done
 Any costs involved in implementing the programs that would suit the young
people I work with
 Funding, funding, funding
 Time
 Resources
 Capacity
 Difference in approaches
 Media - popular perceptions of masculinity and femininity
 Limitation of funding to work outside what you are funded for
 Personal life demands
 Drawing from the expanse of work already out there to ensure schools are getting
the best results
 Engage the Department of Education – where were they represented today?
 Media – education responsibility
 Other pressures competing for time
 Other pressures on those I work with to really engage in this area
 Response from others that this isn’t our responsibility or work
 Teachers are not willing to take time out of their curriculum to develop
programs/training etc
 Leadership team involvement and willingness to change the school practices and
policies
 Time management to tackle a big agenda when my role has diversified away from
strictly gender-based advocacy
 I think the conversation about gender is still contested. I know too many ostriches
who put their head in the sand because a non-stereotypical response is harder
 Being true as a single feminist looking for a feminist supporter as a partner, and
not letting go of this principle in my personal life
Opportunities, Mechanisms/strategies for change
 A HUGE campaign across all of the region’s schools (and the ground work at whole
community level) to foreground “Respectful Relationships Education” within
pastoral care curriculum
 Better inter-relations between the necessary/relevant agencies and organisations
AND the schools
 Future is brighter for young people – women and males
 Increase prevention work delivered in schools
 Linking with non-government agencies/schools, community groups and shared
resources, knowledge and person power
 Getting it firmly entrenched in teacher education – in BHPE, more broadly
 Publish my work
 It is my job - I have my organisation’s support to take a leadership role on gender
 I’ve established a new feminist network and space in which to live and work on
feminist campaigns
 Expand existing work
 More daily discussion
 More interaction with agencies
 More constructive dialogue between providers and developers of frameworks to
respond to violence in our schools and communities
 Sector developed position papers, agreements
 Provide leadership to government
 Apply for other pool of funding
 Alliance with other organisations
 Reduce expectations/flexible timeframes
 All the health related subjects brought together (mental health, gender based
violence, drugs and alcohol etc) under a consistent framework
 Start from a common understanding of gender construction
 Centralised Australian budget for Primary Prevention in schools
 Ensuring ACARA is underpinned by gender justice
Workshop Activity
Reinforcing and challenging gender
regimes in schools
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Reinforcing the gender regime
Boys move furniture
Male teachers to deal with aggressive situations
Staff perceptions
Teachers not challenging language – unaware
of implications
Females in pastoral care positions
Men disciplinarians and leadership
Responsibilities delegated to women
Language
Women 70% of teachers, only approx 20%
principals
Gendered distribution of jobs among staff e.g.
supervising groups of boys in practical tasks
Short skirts / school uniforms
Boys Group – Boys camps
Boys and girls areas e.g. netball court, rugby
oval
Subject differentiation e.g. .Home economics vs
Physics
Sports differentiation e.g. boys netball team,
no girls AFL team
“Guys” to address a mixed group
Sports are competitive – predominantly male
Feminisation of the teaching profession =low
wages
Single sex school – streaming from shared
classes – ‘boy land’ – ‘girl land’ is teaching
‘boys club’ into ‘men’s club’ through
exclusivity and selection
Phoning mother when student is sick
Women in administration
Toilets gendered
Dress uniform
Classroom culture and language (gay, girl)
Girls not encouraged to participate in sport
Challenging the gender regime
 Be conscious of gendered
language used
 The need to organise more in
unions
 Support teacher education that
provides capacity for teaching
gender perspectives
 Staff awareness / reflective
practice – reflection on own
conditioning
 Gender analysis
 Self reflectivity
 Choice in activity
 Full service schools
 Support dress to be fit for
function – not gendered
 Review staff dress codes
 Establish football/cricket sports
grounds for the girls
 Bring in female athletes and
gold medallists
 Campaign to get fathers to
support catering facilities
 Partnering with DV services
 Support greater diversity in
teacher/leadership roles
 All boys and girls do all
subjects at junior level e.g.
metalwork, sewing
 Egalitarian class practices
 Uni-sex uniforms
 RR being in teacher training
 Girls on errands to collect
equipment
 Boys on communication
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Access to sport resources
Oval at lunch
Eating – girls not
Curriculum – talk about cars etc as example
Subject choice
Timetabling – subjects in conflict
Alpha male staff groups
Inadequate teacher understanding
Different uniforms
Girls wearing full length skirts or even
skirts/uniforms
Female teachers must wear skirts, stockings,
and not pants
Staff cannot disclose re personal relationships
that don’t conform to heterosexual norms
Toilet gendered spaces?
Cadets training mandatory
Not allowing same sex partners to attend
formals
Paint handball courts to entertain boys
Division of sports boys/girls
Allocation of playground space
Oval for boys only
Gendered roles in the classroom
Stereotypes on curriculum subjects and
selection of the gender of the teacher
accordingly
Boys get to pick sports teams (and pick boys
first)
Conflicting activities (music/art/sport) means
students must pick one or the other
Male dominated leadership (principals)
Students ignore female teacher requests but do
for male teachers
Promotion of school to the community
Mum as default contact person/responsible
parent
Mums on tuckshop duty
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related errands
This is shifting
Male principals choosing to ‘go
back’ to teaching (rolemodelling for boys)
Male leader move into student
welfare
Some improvements for
parental leave for fathers (rolemodelling)
Leadership for girls
Gender and power in class
Film study and novels that
challenge, textual analysis
Women in leadership
Programs re access to
computers for girls etc
Staff in multidiscipline staff
rooms
Rock eisteddfod
Showcasing boys who don’t fit
with dominant masculinity
(drama, dance, music etc)
Use those boys in leadership
Good managers using nonauthoritarian models of
leadership
Gender equity consultants
Women employed, highly
trained professionals
Challenging or interrupting
gendered spaces
Role sharing female/male
expectations – sports role to
female as opposed to male
Sports-more co-ed for students
Monetary increases to keep
male teachers
Males in a nurturing role
Conscious disrupting of
traditional gender roles