More recently, late last year there was an on-line discussion with as much heat - on the education emphasis in Australia and how girls (on the grand scale) do better than boys at school but when they get to university, the reverse occurs.
The breadth of this discussion raised numerous issues associated with this phenomena, but a concerted considered opinion was based around the idea that young men realise they will be the ultimate bread winners and need to get on with it.
On the other hand, young women at some point during their tertiary studies attain a subsidiary but an all-encompassing focus, and as the with mother as mentioned above, in the subliminal hunt for a husband, that will retain them in a life style to which they have been accustomed.
Mind you none of this new or even rocket science.
In other words, it's a man's world out there, a cry that the feminists have been making since the 1950s and championed by such leading feminists as Germane Greer. Women do not get the same fair go as the men. Recent statistics seem to indicate that women lag behind in company board positions and similar areas.
Women as high achievers and in all their roles, have been acknowledged and heralded as in this Christian Today article below. (au.christiantoday.com)
PSI Conference of Young Emerging Writers
Having said that, where young men and young women compete on a level playing field, young women demonstrate their excellence with as many performance results as the young men.
The Press Service International young emerging writers "function" in such a real life situation. There were 50 young men and young women "writers" in 2013 whose articles were published monthly in Christian Today.
Last year the Basil Sellers Young Writers Awards were initiated where a group of seven Panellists from both Australia and New Zealand marked each article over an eight month period to determine the Awards which were presented last September in Melbourne.
I discovered very quickly that competition was never between themselves as each young writer (young men and young women) came afresh with a wide variety of topics from their respective life and ministry experiences. Rather the competitive effort came from within themselves to write something better, or more profound (or whatever), than their last effort.
Award results
The Awards provided a level playing field, and the Panellists results when their markings were tallied, showed that the young women were right up there with the young men (there were a few more young women than young men).
New Zealand 2nd place was a drawn result (after 8 months – astonishing) with Casey Murray (Auckland) and Sophia Sinclair (Christchurch).
Australian 1st and 2nd were Alison Barkley (Newcastle) and Laura Veloso (Melbourne).
It must be noted that the Panellists marks from the top to say, eight or nine down the tally lists were reasonably close. In other words there wasn't much difference between them.
For the young men, New Zealand's Daniel Jang (1st) was well ahead and Sam Burrows who won the Theological Development award, was one point ahead of drawn 2nd. Brad Mills of Auckland was only 1.5 points behind Casey and Sophia (2nd). Australian Thomas Devenish was only 2 points behind Australia's second place Laura. It was tight regardless of how you looked at it.
As the New Zealand results were so close, as we did not know how the points tally would pan out and with only a few weeks before the awards conference, it was arranged for all five to be in Melbourne for the Awards – Daniel, Sam, Casey, Sophia and Brad.
Level playing field
This illustrates that where there is a genuine level playing field and where the competitive nature is not primarily based on bettering someone else to gain some kind of advantage, it demonstrates young women are on par with their young men counterparts.
These "winning" young women say of themselves in their bio's at the end of their articles:
Alison Barkley
My home is in Newcastle and I'm a post graduate student from Deakin University and am serving in an aid organisation in the Philippines.
Laura Veloso
John and I have 3 young boys and live in a rural setting just outside Melbourne. I am trained in child welfare and primary school teaching and have done short term overseas missions and am trained in youth leadership.
Casey Murray
I work in marketing for an Auckland company that sells nail guns, where I eat large amounts of chocolate and wears pretty dresses in an attempt to avoid becoming 'one of the boys.' In my spare time I like having inappropriate conversations with friends and I write to try and make sense of it all.
Sophia Sinclair
Writing is both a personal and professional passion of mine - with training in Theatre, English Literature and Journalism I love of all forms of communication! After working in journalism, public relations and the performing arts I'm currently taking some time out to focus on a new adventure: motherhood! My husband Andrew and I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, where we enjoy spending time with our large extended family and serving our local church.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Dr Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at
www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html