The lack of respect may be unintentional, but it is palpable

There's an old saying: no one trips over mountains - it's the small pebble that makes you stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will have passed the mountain. I was interested to read last week that the father of NSW Premier Kristina Keneally had told her from an early age that she shouldn't play football ''like a girl''. He is quoted as saying: ''I knew that if she didn't play like a girl, but played to her capabilities, she would be very successful.'' I wish this statement confused me. But we all know what it means. Somewhere, somehow, to play like a girl is to be deemed second-rate, not quite as good, a poor man's equivalent. No one wants to play like a girl. It's an insult. Advertisement: Story continues below In public life, we witness professional, competent women being referred to as ''girls'' by their male peers. The lack of respect may be unintentional, but it is palpable. The language we use in front of our young women is an example of a pebble that stops them from passing mountains. The restrictive nature of our terminology, and the attitude with which it is spoken, is so endemic we barely notice it enough to challenge those who use it or to question its message. Words are powerful. Our words and expectations shape the future and the destiny of every child. Our children listen to us; they watch us and they believe us. Our fears become their fears; our hopes become their hopes. What we believe, they believe. Young women are not fools. They learn from the comparative language used that expectations of their success are somehow less than for their male peers. Education is all about removing the pebbles that leave children believing they are not capable of passing mountains. Education challenges the belief that young people should be choosing soft options, playing well within themselves and lowering expectations. We don't educate our young women, and provide them with every opportunity, to have them earn 83 per cent of what their brother or their boyfriend will earn for the same role. We don't use girls to help ''socialise'' the Rosetta Stone German behaviour of boys. We don't educate young women so they can moderate the behaviour of boys in the classroom and help raise male academic standards. These views are unfair on girls and offensive to boys, who are quite capable, with good teaching, of fully engaging in their own learning. We don't raise our girls to play sport ''like a girl''. We raise them to play sport, constrained only by rules of good sportsmanship. These are not women who are being raised to defer, on the basis of gender. They are not women who are being raised to be second best, when they have the capacity to do better. They are not women who are expected to be silent, or to not think, or to act a certain way, because there is a boss who blusters or a bully who intimidates. If our world were perfect, our young women could perhaps play second fiddle, choose not to be involved, watch from the sidelines. But it's not. Our world is far from perfect. It is spiritually bereft, environmentally unsustainable, beset by conflict, war and poverty. There are mountains to climb. Now, more than ever, we need to educate a generation of women who have the courage and the determination to climb these mountains and bring about change. We need women in medicine, curing insidious diseases and illnesses such as cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We need women who are trained and skilled in diplomacy, politics and international relations, with knowledge of foreign culture and language, to resolve political conflicts and bring about peace. We need women who are engineers, architects, construction managers and urban planners to help create an aesthetically beautiful, functional and sustainable world. We need women who are called to be spiritual leaders, trained in theology, helping those who are lost to find peace. We need women who are capable and prepared to hold our nation to account for the ethical foundation on which we base our society.

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