Australia’s All-Boys Schools Need to Stamp Out Toxic Masculinity
We need a fresh take on education for young men — including the many who go on to hold positions of power in government and business.
Time to prepare for the real world.
Photographer: izusek/E+/Getty Images
Education really does start at home, if protests outside one of Sydney’s most prestigious boys schools against plans to allow girls to attend are any indication.
“BOYS WILL BECOME 2nd class citizens in their own school. CO-ED = LESS diversity,” read one sign outside Newington College, which has educated a long list of politicians and judges among others. One alumnus, whose son was also an Old Newingtonian, as its old boys are known, held back tears as he said he’d hoped to one day see a future grandson attend the 160-year-old institution in the city’s inner-west. “But I won’t bring him to a coed school,” he told 9News. Another blamed the decision to go coeducational on “woke toxic masculinity-type palaver.”