For professionals in fields such as suicide prevention and climate science, the future can seem bleak. But sometimes action is the most effective form of optimism.
Implied school policies and unwritten school rules counter any move towards transformation. Using an implicit rule to, for example, prevent boys from wearing earrings when girls are allowed to do so is discrimination, and perpetuates outdated, binary notions of gender.
This stems from an outcry that "head girl" and "head boy" reinforce the idea that leadership roles can only be occupied by people who conform to traditional gender roles.