Cigarettes and alcohol should be banned if

porn is, says industry group

IF pornographic magazines are banned from supermarkets, cigarettes and alcohol should be
too, an adult industry group says.

A group of child experts yesterday announced they had asked for a review of the rules under
which magazines such as Playboy and Ralph are classified, arguing they were increasingly
explicit and contributed to the sexualisation of children.

In a letter to a parliamentary committee signed by World Vision Australia chief Tim Costello,
actor Noni Hazlehurst and 35 academics, child professionals and advocates, the group said such
material should be restricted to adults-only premises.

However Eros Association chief executive Fiona Patten said that measures to stop pornographic
magazines getting into the hands of children at places like the supermarkets and petrol stations
were in place.

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For instance, more explicit magazines can't be brought by anyone under 18, have to be
wrapped in plastic and the cover must remain unrestricted, like those on Zoo Weekly or FHM.

"If you want to prohibit all age-restricted products from non-age-restricted premises that's fine,
then get rid of cigarettes and alcohol as well," she said.

"We've done what we can to restrict access to (magazines)."

Ms Patten, also the leader of the Australian Sex Party, said the adult industry agreed with child
advocates that the national classification system was flawed.

"But merely trying to ban (material) or pushing it under the carpet is not going to solve any of
that,'' she said.
In a parliamentary committee submission, the foundation said ensuring current display
requirements for adult publications were being properly adhered to would reduce the number
of complaints about them.

"It would also be of benefit if all states had the same requirements," the foundation said.

Boys not better than girls at Math, study finds

Boys are not innately better at math than girls, and any difference in test scores is due to
nurture rather than nature, researchers suggested today.

According to new research published in the journal Science, the "gender gap" in math, long
perceived to exist between girls and boys, disappears in societies that treat both sexes equally.
When girls have equal access to education and other opportunities they do just as well as boys
in math tests.

The research, led by Prof Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University in the US, investigated
whether a global gender gap exists and whether it was the result of social engineering rather
than intrinsic aptitude for the subject.

"The so-called gender gap in math skills seems to be at least partially correlated to
environmental factors," Sapienza said. "The gap doesn't exist in countries in which men and
women have access to similar resources and opportunities."

Researchers analysed data from more than 276,000 children in 40 countries who took the 2003
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Programme for International Student
Assessment (Pisa) - the internationally standardised test of maths, reading, science and
problem-solving ability.

Globally, boys tend to outperform girls in maths (on average girls score 10.5 points lower than
boys) but in more "gender equal societies" such as Iceland, Sweden and Norway, girls scored as
well as boys or better.

For example, the maths gender gap almost disappeared in Sweden, while in Turkey girls scored
23 points below boys in maths.

Average girls' scores improved as equality improved and the number of girls reaching the
highest levels of performance also increased, the researchers found. In Britain, girls fared only
slightly less well than male classmates, with female pupils scoring an average of 0.7% less.
The research also found a striking gender gap in reading skills. In every country girls perform
better than boys in reading but in countries that treat both sexes equally, girls do even better.

On average, girls have reading scores that are 32.7 points higher than those of boys (6.6%
higher than the mean average score for boys). In Turkey, this amounts to 25.1 points higher,
and in Iceland, girls score 61.0 points higher.

Sapienza said: "Our research indicates that in more gender equal societies, girls will gain an
absolute advantage relative to boys."