What Happens to Girls in High School?

While there is rightly considerable policy interest in gender inequality, there has been surprisingly little attention given to the high school years as a key environment for this inequality or as a possible intervention point. Today’s analysis by Abigail Lewis (@AbigailLLew) at Per Capita (@PerCapita) provides a comprehensive overview of how a number of key gender inequities take root in high school, turning happy, confident girls into anxious young women who are already accustomed to experiencing violence and are on track to be paid less than the young men they graduate alongside.

This analysis draws on research undertaken for an upcoming Per Capita report on gender inequity across the life course in Australia, launching in March 2020.  Sign up to Per Capita’s newsletter to be alerted to its publication.

98% of school-aged girls in Australia say they are not treated equally to boys.

That’s a near consensus. Almost every schoolgirl in Australia, going back to school this week, is returning to an environment where she feels she is treated differently from the boys in her class.

Girls walk in the doors of high school in year 7 feeling confident and optimistic, but young women are walking out at the end of year 12 less happy, less confident, and with less belief in their own potential. What happens to girls in high school? How does a lifetime of gender inequality become entrenched in these years, and is there a way to break the pattern?

Girls enter high school confident and capable, but by graduation the story has changed for many young women. Understanding why is critical to creating an environment where all students can flourish and reach their full potential. Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash.

While 75% of girls entering high school in Australia believe they will “have every opportunity” to become a leader when they grow up, this falls to only 57% of girls by the time they leave school – and 40% of those girls say that gender is the biggest barrier to their chances of becoming a leader (Ibid.).

56% of girls view themselves as confident at the age of 10; by 17, only 44% of them do. Girls leave high school feeling less positive about the future and less happy with their lives overall than boys do.

Per Capita will be releasing a report in March 2020 exploring how gender inequity is experienced across the life course in Australia. This blog summarises a chapter focussed on the high school years: critical years  during which so much of the scene is set for a lifelong trajectory of gendered inequality, and, importantly, years that offer a key intervention point for policymakers. Gendered violence, the gender pay gap, and gendered health issues: all of these problems require attention earlier in the life course and, I argue, particularly in the high school years.

Violence against girls is already prevalent at school

We have an epidemic of gender-based violence in Australia, and young women are subjected to violence at higher rates than women of any other age group (see p. 8). Of the 1 in 5 women in Australia who report experiencing coercion into unwanted sexual activity, half stated their first experience was before the age of 17. A quarter of sexually active Australian students in Years 10-12 reported an experience of unwanted sex to Our Watch.

Young people aged 13-16 are actually more likely than other age groups to express beliefs or attitudes that excuse or condone gender-based violence, and young boys in this age group are three times more likely than girls to state that ‘pressure for sex’ is not abusive (op. cit.). In the 16-25 age category, 1 in 5 younger people of both sexes believe a woman under the influence of drugs or alcohol is partly to blame if she’s sexually assaulted; 1 in 5 believe men should take control in relationships; 1 in 4 thought it was normal for men to pressure women into sex; and 1 in 4 did not think it was serious if a man slapped his girlfriend when he was drunk.

Australian teenagers spend more than three hours of every day on social media, and girls are significantly more likely to experience harassment and abuse online, especially sexual harassment. 70% of teenage girls in Australia report online bullying, harassment, and abuse, including receiving indecent or sexually explicit material, being pressured to produce and share indecent or sexually explicit photos or footage of themselves, having such material shared without their permission, online threats, cyberbullying, and cyberstalking.

Constant access to the internet via smartphones means young Australians view sexualised images of women at earlier ages and with more frequency than previous generations, and are also exposed at a younger age to more pornography, which is more violent than ever before (p. 27). When young people are exposed to sexualised, objectifying, degrading, or violent images of women earlier in life, they are significantly more likely to replicate these images and these behaviours in their adult relationships (p. 34).

Girls are streamed out of high-paying careers at school

Girls’ participation in secondary school mathematics and science continues to decline at an alarming rate. The proportion of girls who chose to study no mathematics subjects after Year 10 in New South Wales tripled from 7.5% in 2001 to 21.5% in 2011 (p. 9). In Victoria, significantly more boys than girls complete all VCE STEM subjects except biology and psychology (see graph, p. 29). Australian students tend to take subjects that commit them to or exclude them from a STEM-related career pathway by the age of 14, and girls are being streamed out (p. 86).

Girls don’t stop studying maths and science because they perform less capably in these subjects. Instead girls, who tend to be more risk-averse and have a higher level of anxiety about their academic performance, under-estimate their skills in STEM subjects and then take subjects they believe they are better at to VCE level. These beliefs are guided by the cultural dominance of the view that STEM is a male domain, by an absence of female role models in the STEM field, and by the fact that girls tend to out-perform boys in arts and humanities subjects but perform equally to boys in STEM subjects, leading them to believe that they are worse at STEM subjects. This pattern continues throughout the life course: women remain much more likely to compare themselves poorly against other students than men, leading to a perception of under-performance.

The loss of girls from STEM subjects in high school means they are less likely to qualify for or study STEM subjects at university - and therefore less likely to take up STEM careers (op. cit.). Only 16% of STEM graduates in Australia are women, and those graduates tend to be employed by traditionally ‘female’ sectors like healthcare and education. Traditionally ‘male’ sectors still employ very few female STEM graduates: only 12% of STEM graduates in construction and 15% in transport are female.

Since STEM careers tend to carry higher salaries, this has a significant impact on the gender pay gap: in Australia, two thirds of the gender wage gap amongst new university graduates can be attributed to the STEM gender gap. 32% of male STEM graduates make their way to the top income bracket, earning over $104,000, but only 12% of female STEM graduates do. Furthermore, women in STEM face high levels of unemployment and higher levels of job dissatisfaction, making success in STEM careers difficult for women even when they overcome the barriers to the required qualifications.

Young women’s physical health suffers at school, with lifelong consequences

Two of the most common health conditions affecting women in Australia are polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which affects 1 in 5 Australian women, and endometriosis, which affects 1 in 10 (p. 18).

PCOS can cause menstrual irregularity, depression and anxiety, fertility issues, and higher risk of diabetes and heart disease. PCOS usually begins in adolescence, but 70% of women are not diagnosed (p. 2).

Endometriosis is a chronic condition that can cause very heavy or irregular menstrual bleeding, painful sex, bladder and bowel problems, and infertility. It also begins in adolescence, but Australian women commonly wait an average of 8 years to be diagnosed; 8 years in which healthcare providers routinely ignore their complaints, fail to diagnose them, or give them incorrect advice.

The high prevalence of PCOS and endometriosis in Australia, the fact that both conditions begin in adolescence, and the continued failure of healthcare providers to diagnose, manage, and treat these conditions, means there are high numbers of girls in high school across the country who regularly experience significant pain during the school day, and are at risk of serious reproductive, physical, and mental health concerns that will impact the rest of their lives.

Girls also start to limit their physical activity in high school. While 68% of teenage boys report participating in sport in the last year, only 47% of teenage girls say the same. Girls worry they will be judged or harassed while exercising, especially in the presence of boys or men. As adolescent girls go through puberty, their self-consciousness is heightened and they become more concerned about the shape and weight of their bodies, which they have been taught is linked to physical activity (or lack thereof). Anxiety around physical activity is therefore exacerbated because adolescent girls believe that since they do not see themselves as ‘thin’ this means they cannot be ‘fit’ or ‘sporty’, and also because they see physical activity as an arena in which their bodies will be on public display to others. To avoid the anxiety, girls avoid participating in physical activity.

Gender norms also affect girls’ decisions to participate in sport. Traits such as “strength, competitiveness and aggression” are coded masculine, not feminine (p. 14), and many girls will have internalised this from a very early age. Schoolgirls in one South Australian study explained that it is not seen as ‘feminine’ for girls to play sport and that they would be labelled as ‘butch’ or ‘manly’ if they played ‘too much’ sport, either because they would physically develop muscles and therefore no longer look ‘feminine’, or because they would be teased by other girls for deciding not to partake in more traditionally ‘feminine’ activities, or because they would be put down by boys if they tried to participate in ‘their’ sports or if they outperformed them.

Even the structure and timetabling of physical activity in the high school context can be uncomfortable for girls: attending other classes wearing sports clothes (which can be ill-fitting and ‘unattractive’ at one end of the spectrum, or highly sexualised on the other), or returning to class sweaty and with messy hair after playing sports (especially when the school has strict neat appearance/uniform rules for girls), or the requirement to change and/or shower in front of other classmates, can all compound anxiety around physical activity.

Girls are twice as likely to experience mental illness

Although girls and boys experience similar mental health patterns before puberty, during the teenage years girls’ mental health outcomes worsen significantly compared to boys (p. 5). Teenage girls are twice as likely as males to deal with a probable serious mental illness, usually an anxiety or major depressive disorder, and more than twice as likely to be hospitalised for intentional self-harm: nearly 1 in 4 girls aged 16-17 in Australia reports having self-harmed (pp. 12-15).

Poor mental health outcomes in young women are driven by high levels of stress about school, studying, and body image; two thirds of girls with a potentially serious mental illness described themselves as ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ concerned about body image. Girls are much more concerned than boys about coping with stress (56% compared to 26%), body image (42% compared to 15%), school or study problems (42% compared to 23%), mental health (39% compared to 20%), and social media (21% compared to 10%) (p. 25). Boys are more likely to be concerned about drugs, alcohol, and gambling than girls, but at much lower rates in general (7%, 5%, and 4% respectively) (ibid., p. 26). This research paints a sombre picture of girls in school dealing with extremely high levels of stress and anxiety.

Grave consequences resulting from inaction

The impacts of young women’s gendered experience of high school ricochet throughout young adulthood and across the life course. Subject choices in high school limit subject choices at university and ultimately impact career choices and progression. Mental health struggles that are rooted in stress, body image, social media, and pressure to perform certainly don’t fall away when the final school bell rings. Poor health outcomes linked to gender inequality have lifelong health consequences. Experiences of sexual and physical violence at a young age and, importantly, the responses to these events, embed long-lasting norms and beliefs.

We need to intervene to help teenage girls. First and foremost, we need to be systematically measuring and tracking adolescent girls’ experiences of school. The Department of Education collects some data on STEM participation and some state government departments like VicHealth measure girls’ participation in physical activity, but there is currently no national body or process through which we can effectively assess the emotional, physical and intellectual progress and wellbeing of girls in their school years.

Schools and governments need to work together to encourage ongoing participation in STEM subjects for girls. Knowing that girls disengage from STEM early, STEM-specific career advice should be offered well before senior high school. Schools should promote diverse images of STEM careers and efforts should be made to develop a program for STEM work experience placements earlier in the high school experience.

Governments should work with health professionals to examine and review their current policies and services around diagnosing and treating girls and young women. We need a national health literacy campaign around reproductive health conditions that begin in adolescence, like PCOS and endometriosis, including resources and education programs for girls themselves, their parents, and their healthcare providers.

And we desperately need government and civil society to develop programs and initiatives to engage young men and boys in conversations about masculinity, sexuality, and violence and to take action against gender-based and sexual violence. ‘Respectful relationships’ education in classrooms is a fantastic start, and governments should build on this by fully resourcing implementation a whole-of-school approach to tackle gender-based violence, training teachers, educating parents and families, and responding more appropriately to disclosures and reports of violence, both online and offline.

As schools go back this week, we cannot ignore that girls are going back to an environment where damaging gendered inequities are taking root and becoming normalised. Those of us who know teenage girls or have been teenage girls ourselves know that they are strong, capable, and resilient, but they are being asked to withstand unacceptable levels of stress, anxiety, and violence. If we are serious about policy solutions to gender inequality, we must start paying proper attention to interventions that can be made earlier in the life course, during these critical transitional years.

This research was undertaken to inform a chapter in an upcoming Per Capita report on gender inequity across the life course in Australia. Look out for the report’s launch in March 2020; make sure you don’t miss it by signing up to Per Capita’s newsletter or following on Twitter @percapita.

This post is part of the Women's Policy Action Tank initiative to analyse government policy using a gendered lens. View our other policy analysis pieces here and follow us on Twitter @PolicyforWomen

Posted by @SusanMaury @GoodAdvocacy