HOW DOES YOUR SCHOOL ADDRESS WOMEN?

A CHECK LIST

Does your promotional material show females as active and equal participants to males?

Are your counsellors aware of special needs of women students?

Are academic, personal or career counsellors advised of the special counselling styles and information appropriate to promote equality between the sexes? Are there enough women in these positions?

Are there sufficient extra-curricular activities of interest to both sexes?

Are there an equal number of sufficiently distributed female role-models or professional success in your school? (i.e. teachers, professionals, administrators).

Are women encouraged to excel in fields not traditionally female?

Have all aspects of you curriculum been rigorously examined for biases which either exclude or discriminate against women?

Is material relevant to women's condition included in equal concentration to that relevant to men?

Do you examine your written material to make sure it is not overtly or inadvertently sexist?

Is there a hidden curriculum which favours a masculinist bias?

Is the teaching methodology equally empowering to males and females?

Are teachers trained and expected to be aware of sexist biases and the different learning and communication styles of male and remale students in our culture?

In preparing your women students for the work-place, do you make sure they are aware of problems of discrimination (systemically) or sexual harassment or exclusion from the informal network of information?

Educators should ascertain women's visibility in all teaching materials which must be written in non-sexist language. It may be possible to integrate historical or theoretical feminist material into the main body of instructional materials for courses which, on the surface, appear very distant from such concerns.

Counselling Essential Component

While feminist course content and program orientation are essential, it is also important to develop an appropriate educational context. Promotional material should include pictures of women and be placed where women are likely to go. Counsellors should be trained to recognize the women's needs and be given a feminist perspective. Appropriate financial, educational, personal and vocational counselling services should be developed. Extra-curricular activities should be planned with women's special needs in mind. Above all, programs should encourage women to take time for themselves beyond the class room. Too often women feel they are "stealing" time and attention they do not deserve. They must be trained to take care of their own personal needs for health, recreation and companionship. Research shows that too frequently women's self deprivation of small comforts and recreation leads to extreme burnout and lowered self esteem; for many women this means back to square one. Women trainees must learn to be aware of working conditions: What is systemic discrimination? What constitutes a health hazard? What is sexual harassment? What are the local resources for working women? How do you build a support base when you are in a minority position with low seniority?

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