Australia to teach about 'male privilege' to help curb gender violence
Ready to smash the patriarchy, mate? Well, say goodbye to gender inequality and g'day to enlightened schoolchildren, because Australia's kids are learning about privilege.
A new A$21.8 million ($16.5 million) education program has been trialled in Victoria, and will now be rolled out in the state's public schools over the next two years. It aims to encourage "respectful relationships" among male and female students, including addressing issues of "social inequality, gender-based violence and male privilege."
The Respectful Relationships curriculum will run from primary (elementary) school, up until high school and covers topics ranging from sexual orientation, pornography and pay inequality.
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Primary school students will be introduced to concepts like "girls can play football, can be doctors and can be strong," and "boys can cry when they are hurt, can be gentle, can be nurses and can mind babies." High school students will learn all about the terms pansexual, cisgender and transsexual.
The program defines privilege as "automatic, unearned benefits bestowed upon dominant groups" based on "gender, sexuality, race or socio-economic class," with the year 7 and 8 curriculum stating "Being born a male, you have advantages -- such as being overly represented in the public sphere -- and this will be true whether you personally approve or think you are entitled to this privilege."
Sounds awesome, right? Not according to some critics. It's been labelled "taxpayer-funded indoctrination" by Centre for Independent Studies senior research fellow Jeremy Sammut, who sounds like a great dinner party guest.
"The idea behind this program -- that all men are latent abusers by nature of the 'discourse' is an idea that only cloistered feminist academics could love," he told The Australian.
Victorian minister for education, James Merino, dismissed concerns over the program. "We will not stand by while one woman in Australia is killed every week through domestic violence," he told the newspaper.
"It's astounding anyone could think teaching our kids about respect for other people is a bad thing."
According to anti-domestic violence organisation Our Watch, which managed the pilot version of the program and carried out its evaluation, one in three Australian women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15, and on average, at least one woman is killed by a current or former partner in Australia each week.
Great job, Victoria.
Appearing on sociopolitical ABC show Q&A, Greens political party leader Senator Richard Di Natale weighed in on the discussion with a succinct and poignant remark saying "privilege is usually invisible to those who have it."
Jerico Mandybur is the editor of Mashable Australia. Previously, she worked as a digital editor at SBS, Oyster Mag, MTV and ASOS. Tweet her at @jerico_m.
