“Fairness for Everyone?” Then Why Are Only Boys Being Lectured?
A few days ago, two friends whose judgment I respect, Jim Nuzzo and David Maywald, both wrote on X about a new Australian government publication titled Gender Equity for Early Years Education: Fairness for Everyone. So I downloaded the report.
The subtitle immediately caught my attention: “Fairness for Everyone.” Wonderful. Who could object to that? I expected a thoughtful discussion about helping both girls and boys flourish. Instead, I found something quite different.
The report repeatedly presents girls as the group needing protection while portraying boys as the group needing correction. Educators are encouraged to challenge boys’ privilege, reshape their attitudes, and prevent future violence by changing boys. Yet there is almost nothing about boys’ own vulnerabilities—their struggles in school, developmental differences, higher suspension rates, literacy problems, or the tragic fact that many of these little boys will one day grow into the group with the highest suicide rate.
Then I reached the section recommending children’s songs. Most were fairly harmless, but one stopped me cold. The report recommends a song called Come On Boys, describing it this way: “This song was written to shift the responsibility from girls to boys to address toxic masculinity and gender-based violence.”
Read that sentence again: “shift the responsibility… to boys.” The lyrics make the intention even clearer. “Some boys somehow think that they are strong, if they push a girl or make her feel wrong.” The chorus tells boys, “Come on boys, it’s up to you,” and “Respect, respect, it’s our responsibility.”
Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t object to teaching boys to respect girls—not at all. I have spent decades encouraging boys and men to speak their truth in a way that can be heard. That is not the problem.
The problem is the asymmetry. Imagine if the government had instead recommended a song called Come On Girls and described it this way: “This song was written to hold girls accountable and address their toxic relational aggression.” The song began, “Some girls spread rumors around… Leave another girl out or put her down.…” and then declared in the chorus, “Come on girls… it’s up to you.” How long would that survive before people accused it of stereotyping girls? How many editorials would condemn it? How many educators would object that most girls don’t behave that way? Those objections would be entirely reasonable.
So why are they not equally reasonable when the target is boys? That is the question this report never asks.
The issue isn’t respect, kindness, or preventing violence. The issue is that one sex is addressed collectively as the moral problem to be corrected while the other is not. That isn’t fairness for everyone—it’s a double standard dressed up as fairness.
The saddest part is that the report almost never stops to ask a different question: What do boys need? Not how do we change boys, not how do we prevent them from becoming harmful men—simply, what do boys need in order to thrive? That question is almost entirely absent.
Until we begin asking it with the same seriousness that we ask about girls’ needs, we will continue producing educational policies that claim to be about fairness while quietly teaching children that one sex deserves understanding and the other deserves correction.
Perhaps the greatest bias in this report is not what it says about boys, but what it never becomes curious enough to understand.
Men and Boys Are Good
I'm just starting my look through the report. Here's the 2nd sentence on pg 6: "It aims to build your understanding of the prevalence and impacts that GBV [gender based violence] has on
women, children and families." Not at all on men. As a woman, as a mom of sons & advocate for boys, men, & gender equity, as a human, I think it's high time that, if we use the term "gender based violence," we use it to mean ANY violence against ANY human that's rooted in gender. Men and boys can also be victims -- not just perpetrators! - of gender-based violence.
Thanks for putting the spotlight on this subtle but malicious use of "fairness," Tom. The unspoken assumption is that boys are treated fairly and girls are not, so all talk about gender reproves boys and men and coddles women and girls. The aim of such projects is to keep alive the feminist doctrine of male selfishness and misbehavior. Another reason why only boys are lectured, it would seem, is that only women lecture. Who better to tell men what is wrong with them, as men, than women? After all, there's nothing wrong with women (that can't be blamed on men). So women have the collective right to put men in their place. Another question: why do men let women get away with this smug cruelty?