Between May and July 2017, one in five teachers considered leaving the profession. Why? Because of continuing high levels of on the job stress, and problems associated with work-life balance. And almost half of the teachers surveyed said they felt stressed “most of the time’’ or “fairly often’’ during a typical week.
Australia’s teaching profession is predominantly female. About 75% of secondary teachers and 82% of primary school teachers are women. In 2016, there were approximately 310,000 full-time female teachers.
Our Watch, funded by the Federal Government, was established to ‘end violence against women and their children’. It’s also the organisation responsible for the ‘Respectful Relationships Education in Schools’ program for Australian schools.
Our Watch claims:
- One in three Australian women has experienced physical violence, since the age of 15.
- One in five Australian women has experienced sexual violence.
If the claims are true, in Australian schools:
- up to 100,000 full-time female teachers who have experienced violence are teaching our children about ‘respectful relationships’
- up to 62,000 full-time female teachers who have experienced sexual violence are teaching our children about ‘respectful relationships’
- up to 100,000 female teachers who have considered leaving the profession due to stress are teaching our children ‘Stress Management’ – Unit 5 of the Respectful Relationships program.
If you think there’s a problem here, you’re right. To make matters worse, the Australian Education Union claims nearly every teacher has endured workplace bullying.
I’ll say it again. Australia’s teaching profession is made up predominantly of women.
Therefore, some women who are allegedly qualified to teach our children how to be respectful and safe are abusing other women in the workplace.
Of its own admission, Our Watch states that gender based violence is, ‘violence that is specifically directed against a woman because she is a woman, or that affects women disproportionately’.
Could it be said that Our Watch has no place in Australian schools? Or should it be said that the use of the word ‘violence’ is merely a tactic to secure ridiculous amounts of funding for scare campaigns designed to disguise the real and genuine issues of ‘bullying’ that women face, at the hands of their own gender.
This may well be the beginning of a confronting but necessary national outcry. For the sake of our women and children – let’s hope so.
copyright © Cheryl Lacey 2017
Cheryl Lacey is an educationist and advocate of agitating change in Australian education to face global challenges facing Australia and Australians.
cheryl@cheryllacey.com www.cheryllacey.com
