e) The changes in educational attainment of males and females in recent years are due to many factors. 20 years ago women were not expected to, and did not succeed academically but instead, aimed to become a housewife. Girls were given no incentive to do well in school as they knew all the well paid, high profile jobs were for the men and equal opportunities were not regarded as important. However, today girls are achieving better than boys in education with the proportion of women attending higher education being higher than the proportion of men.
This change can be explained firstly by the feminist movement, which has led to changing attitudes towards women’s roles and also to their expectations of career opportunities. Men were always expected to go to work and support the family and girls were expected to make marriage and motherhood their primary concerns. Feminism has helped to challenge these ideas and to give girls greater confidence in their abilities. Sue Sharpe in a 1976 survey discovered a girl’s main priority was ‘love and marriage’. The same survey in 1996 revealed a girl’s main priority had changed to ‘a career’ and ‘being able to support herself’ showing a change in women’s perceptions of their wants and roles in life. She also discovered that girls were more confident, assertive, ambitious and more commuted to gender equality.