Woah, Man: NSW's Updated HSC Syllabus for Physics Drops All Mention of Women's Achievements

You'll no longer learn about women in physics in NSW high schools.

If you're a female student studying high school physics in NSW, don't expect to learn about women's contributions to the field.

That's because 2018 signalled a change for the HSC (final exam) syllabus, with a shift toward the more mathematical and classical topics of physics. 

The new syllabus will ditch more of the history and context of physics theories (deemed too "feminine") in favour of practical work and more "depth" studies.

But, perhaps most strikingly, according to SBS, the new syllabus fails to mention the historical achievements of women in the field, completely. For a field that is trying to encourage more women in the field, this is a pretty big deal.

As someone who has been painstakingly going through this syllabus to create content to help struggling teachers and students cope let me tell you some of the many places @NESA should have included JUST A FEW of the incredible women in physics and our contributions to physics: 9/

— Kathryn Ross (@astro_katross) September 5, 2018

It isn't the first time there have been calls for a more "masculinised" (because nothing says masculinity like calculating energy and matter) course.

In a 2017 Australia Day speech, Professor Michelle Y. Simmons criticised physics courses in Australia for being too "feminine".

"One of the few things that horrified me when I arrived in Australia was to discover that, several years ago the high school physics curriculum was 'feminised,'" Professor Simmons said.

"In other words, to make it more appealing to girls, our curricula designers in the bureaucracy substituted formulae with essays. What a disaster."

As one astrophysicist pointed out on Twitter, it isn't about including women for the sake of it, but because their work is so integral to modern day physics.

Note: this isn’t a “you have to include women for equality”, these women are pioneers in the field of physics and have radically changed or improved our understanding of the universe. They BELONG here. 10/

— Kathryn Ross (@astro_katross) September 5, 2018

Header Image: iStock.com/skynesher