Tory Shepherd: Why are boys taught that girls’ virginity is to be prized?

The narrative of women as virgins or whores to be blamed is handed down by the generation before – in our schools and even parliament, writes Tory Shepherd.

Kids, huh? They do the darnedest things. Where do they get it from?

Did you hear the one about the boys who were encouraged to “build a bitch”? OK, the St Luke’s Grammar School kids weren’t given that instruction.

That’s just what some of the Year 10s called it when they were asked to use a points system to describe what they looked for in girls.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, girls in the Sydney school were “given articles on the importance of virginity and how Satan provides opportunities for fleeting sexual encounters” while the boys were taken aside for a Christian-studies class and given 25 points to allocate for “a lasting relationship”. Here are just some of the options:

You want a virgin? Six points. Use another five points if you want them to be fit, fun, or wise. Four for friendly or sporty-slash-sexy. Three for good grooming, good manners, or good pedigree. Two for being not too tall, not too short, but the “right height”. And for a bargain basement one point you can pick someone who “cares for the world”, who is serious, generous or adventurous. Or has money, good hair, or nice eyes.

This is what the boys, reportedly, called “build-a-bitch”. Where do they get this from? From adults of course.

In this specific case they got it directly from the silly old-fashioned teacher. Who in turn was inspired by retrograde religious beliefs. But kids don’t have to go to St Luke’s to be bombarded with lessons about how virginity should be prized (well, women’s virginity, anyway), men should get to pick brooding stock that is right for them, and that a woman’s job is to keep that virginity intact until the breeding begins.

Girls are mothers-in-waiting. Then they should be mothers. Then grandmothers. While television ads are full of bumbling men who can’t separate the colours and the whites in the washing because, well, none of that stuff is really their job, is it? And if they’re not bumbling, they’re the token male at the school drop-off, praised just for doing their job. Or they’re joking to their friends about how they have to “babysit” on the weekend. (Not all men, of course.)

The World Health Organisation even got in on the rigid-gender-roles act this week, declaring women should stay booze-free until they hit menopause (note, that’s about 50 for the average woman).

In its latest alcohol action plan, WHO recommended women “of child-bearing age” refrain from alcohol in order to keep their baby-making kit in tip-top order. While there are well-known dangers to drinking while pregnant, this advice was so extreme WHO had to dilute it in the end. And apologise for the insinuation that women should put the sanctity of possible future babies above their own lives.

Also this week we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of Barnaby Joyce returning to the deputy prime ministership. He left the first time over a sexual harassment allegation, which he vehemently denies. Remember, this is the guy who warned about giving females protection against cervical cancer in the form of the Gardasil vaccine. People might say: “Don’t you dare put something out there that gives my 12-year-old daughter a licence to be promiscuous”, he said. Later he said he was merely reflecting the opinions of some unnamed person who might have held that opinion.

Sure. Point is, the guy who brought up promiscuous 12 year olds is the same guy responsible for having the “bonk ban” imposed on Parliament House after he had an affair with his staffer. And the same guy who said his reproductive choices were no one else’s business, while robocalling women spouting anti-abortion propaganda. And under his watch this week, a couple of Mr Joyce’s allies in the Coalition party room raised concerns about subsidising childcare. In a push for more support for stay-at-home mums, backbencher George “the Member for Manila” Christensen reportedly suggested women were outsourcing the care of their kids. It’s OK for men to outsource the care of their kids, apparently, but not women. Women are just mothers, remember?

During the past few months we’ve heard endless stories about men assaulting, harassing and belittling women – particularly in the nation’s parliament. They’ve come with a hefty side-serve of victim blaming. And we’ve heard stories, like the thousands gathered by Chanel Kontos, of schoolboys raping and abusing their female peers. Again, with victim blaming on the side.

These are the narratives passed from generation to generation. Women as virgins at risk of defilement, or whores to be blamed for their own defilement, or empty vessels whose value lies in their fertility.

And men are both the perpetuators and beneficiaries of those stereotypes – not in some dim and distant past, but today in our parliament and our schools.