**pink lover**

Girls 'hampered by failure fears'

Friday, May 7, 2010,7:40 AM

Girls have a greater fear of failure then boys despite outperforming them at all stages of school, a report said.

And these worries could seriously affect their chances of succeeding in school and work, the Equality and Human Rights Commission study claimed.

It also suggested girls often aim for careers reinforcing gender stereotypes, such as teaching, childcare and beauty.

A government spokesman said all children should have access to good quality impartial careers advice.

But some 94% of the 1,000 English teenagers surveyed for the report said they needed better careers advice.

The Commission's report suggested 1/5 of young people had not receieved one-to-one advice, and did not understand how to achieve their desired goal.

It said despite girls' success at GCSE, 3/4 of women still ended up in the 'five Cs' of employment- cleaning, catering, cashiering, caring and clerical.

This was partly due to stereotyping of subject choices at school, and school staff consciously or unconsciously encouraging boys and girls to seek what they perceived to be gender appropriate subjects.

The report for Britain's equalities watchdog looked at what factors affected children's chances of succeeding in education. It found that although a child's social background was the biggest determinant of whether they would succeed, gender also had an effect.

Some 46% of white working class girls feared educational failure, compared with about 1/4 of white middle class boys.

White working class boys and white middle class girls were equally fearful of failure on 38%.

Children from poorer backgrounds tended to be less confident of success generally.