Teachers at an exclusive all-girls school in northwest Sydney have been asked to stop referring to their students as 'girls', 'ladies' and 'women' and to use 'gender-neutral' language instead.
Some 'senior research fellow' at some university said the use of gender-neutral language such as 'students' in place of 'girls' and 'boys' was part of the Safe Schools agenda to erase gender differences so as not to reinforce 'binary stereotypes'. They must also implement an anti-bullying program for lesbian, gay and transgender (LGBTI) students. Well, I'm all for 'binary stereotypes' because, last time I looked, the vast majority of us were still 'binary', meaning male or female.
But that's not all! According to guidelines created by the NSW Teachers' Union on how to deal with lesbians and gays, boys should dress up as girls as part of 'non-gender-specific free play' and teachers should avoid terms like mum or dad when discussing parents.
Yet another example of political correctness run amok. The politically correct class in Australia bears many similarities to an evangelical religious movement and, like many religious movements in history, it considers that anyone who rejects even one of their doctrines is not merely misguided but part of an evil conspiracy and deserving of suppression.
And their list of doctrines is growing:
- Formal legal status for same-sex marriage.
- An alarmist view of climate change and its causes.
- Depiction of Australian society as essentially racist.
- Support for a bill of rights.
- Scepticism about the police and other law enforcement agencies, especially in relation to anti-terrorism legislation.
- Indifference to issues of border security.
