A strange phenomenon is sweeping the country which sends waves of panic through boys' schools. Across the country on the day the Higher School Certificate results are released, one collective cry from former Year 12 male students can be heard …"Oh no … my girlfriend beat me in the HSC!"

Access to education has always been an important part of the movement for women's liberation because education improves employment prospects. The good school results achieved by young women today are undoubtedly related to the programs set up over the last decade to help the performance of girls at school. In recent NSW studies of the top performers by subject in the 1995 and 1996 HSC, the overwhelming majority were female. This has also had an impact on women's attendance at university - in 1996, the highest ever proportion of women enrolled at Australian universities.

The strong performance by female students is being used to promote a number of fallacies, including that sexism doesn't exist in schools any more.

But if sexism doesn't exist in schools any more, why do boys still do better in particular subjects, such as engineering science, and why do boys' schools offer subjects like motor mechanics and metalwork, while girls are offered food technology and the like?

And what about the persistent sexist remarks and gestures suffered by all girls at the hands of their male peers? It is still the case that girls who don't fall into the "beauty image" trap are called tomboys and ostracised by the "trendy" groups of the school.

Young women today might be doing better in many subjects at school, but the federal governments' funding cuts to the education sector are going to make accessing tertiary education much harder for most women. A significant number of women at university are mature-age students. Because of women's average lower income than men, these women will find it a lot more difficult to continue their studies with higher fees. Many of us just leaving school will have to work for years before we can afford to go to university. The campaign to keep education accessible is extremely important and relevant for women.

In this "post-feminist" era that we are supposed to be living in, young women are often told that the fight is over, the battle has been won - or we are told that feminism is a lost cause. But we, as high school students, are affected by sexism and inequality in schools every day. It is our responsibility to challenge these myths, to encourage women students to join the feminist movement and fight for our (still to be won) right to equality within and beyond school grounds.