GENDER BIAS IN EDUCATION: PERCEPTIONS OF MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, increasing numbers of girls and women are moving into intellectual and occupational spheres traditionally seen to be masculine (Francis 2000). These changes involve the performance of new forms of femininity, a distancing from variants traditionally perceived as normative and the adoption of qualities previously viewed as masculine. Yet this new reinvented femininity is just as regulated as previous forms of femininity. Girls and women are clearly paying a price for their success, as women develop illnesses of stress previously only seen in men, and various obsessive-compulsive disorders continue to grow among female students (Walkerdine et al. 2001). The downside of female 'success' is apparent in the double and sometimes triple shift of many female academicians juggling work, child care and further study, while younger female students are caught up in a different juggling act between high academic achievements and positioning themselves as attractive and desirable to male peers. This paper remains a humble attempt at exploring the reason behind a colossal loss of valuable national intellectual resources in the higher education sector and suggest a new prespective with the prevalent social system in mind.