Xavier says all-boys’ schools face challenges educating on sexism
A leader at Xavier College’s has weighed into the St Kevin’s tram chant scandal, saying the school works hard to battle “entrenched attitudes” but concedes more needs to be done to change the way some boys demean girls.
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The religious leader of Catholic boys’ school Xavier College has weighed into the St Kevin's College tram chant fallout, saying they need to do more to “challenge entrenched attitudes, language and practices that demean girls among boys”.
Jesuit rector Fr Chris Middleton said it was a challenge for parents and schools, and single sex schools to shape culture.
“While I am not convinced that an all-boys’ school context is markedly different from any other context involving young males in our society, I would concede that in a coeducational context, strong young women may be in a better position to directly challenge attitudes and behaviours of their male peers,” he said.
Fr Middleton’s comments came in a newsletter to the Kew-based school community late last week which has been widely shared among other schools and teachers, including Melbourne Grammar School.
Melbourne Grammar School is facing its own gender battles with a female house leader calling out “toxic masculinity” among some students and former AFL player Brad Green, now employed by the Melbourne Grammar school’s footy department, told to remove a tweet downplaying the crude St Kevin’s chant.
“In a boys’ school more work needs to be done in inculcating a greater awareness of the issues involved in gender and sexuality,” Fr Middleton said.
“Educationalists, psychologists, sociologists have much to say about gender and about perceptions of male and female roles, and some would argue that a correct focus on girls’ education has not be matched by a similar focus on what works in boys’ education.”
He said boys were too easily labelled “bad” in such situations.
“This is a time of growing insights into human behaviour and of promising moves towards equality, but it is also a time of some considerable confusion and conflicting expectations around attitudes to relationships and sexuality. And boys often feel that they don’t know where they stand, or where girls stand, when it comes to gender issues.”
Fr Middleton said the publicity engulfing St Kevin’s, in Toorak, was a reminder of the need for more work to be done in “shaping school culture, and the ongoing challenges around gender relations for young people today”.
“We are not starting young and bringing them together to talk about how to relate to each other and the vulnerabilities and emergent sexuality that young women have in common with young men,” he said.
“It is a challenge for parents and schools, and perhaps more so, for single-sex schools to find ways to do this well.”
Fr Middleton urged people to “look beyond easy condemnations or blame games”.
“We need to challenge entrenched attitudes, language and practices that demean girls among boys. We need to challenge stereotypes on both sides, including the one that boys don’t have feelings or can’t be hurt in the relational game. We need to reflect on how we all model relationships. Above all, we need to encourage conversations.”
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Finally, while Fr Middleton said Xavier was adopting important initiatives to deal with the area “it would be foolish to claim that some of our boys are immune from sexist and even misogynist views and actions”.
He said he believed the number of women in leadership positions across Xavier’s three campuses was possibly higher than comparable schools.
He said the school invited women, educated about domestic violence and spoke openly about masculinity, homophobia and other important issues.
“In all this we need to be careful to avoid the simple negative stereotyping of young men. The wisdom of St Ignatius, to look to the good first, applies fully to the way we speak about being a young male today,” he said.
Fr Middleton said this generation was more able to express their feelings than earlier times.
“There will be stuff ups, especially around gender relations and social media use, and some embedded, hidden traditions, may still need to be challenged and removed, but I retain genuine confidence in the generation of young men who are graduating from Xavier,” he said.