Gender discrimination can start innocently, as when grade-school boys yell, "Boys rule, girls drool," on the playground.

It can be more insidious, too. Ann DeVilbiss remembers when her little brother became very upset after spotting a woman driving a truck. "He's like, 'Why is she driving that truck? Only men are truck drivers!' "

That's one of the reasons Ann joined SAGE -- Student Advocates of Gender Equality -- at Carmel High School.

"A lot of times people, not only like in our school but throughout the world, ignore issues of gender equality, or they don't think about them because they're such ingrained stereotypes," she explained.

Hadley Moore, Orestis Herodotou and Colin Stahl also joined SAGE in an effort to battle stereotypes and injustice and to educate themselves.

"I just think the whole gender-based discrimination is absolutely disgusting," Colin said. "A lot of the aspects are just built into society."

Founded in 2001 by Julia DiBenigno, a 2002 Carmel graduate, the club is open to all students and has about 40 steady members. Its mission is to raise awareness of such obstacles in society as sex stereotypes, sexist language, and sexist traditions that limit women and men.

"I think we could probably all agree that at every school there are prejudices, there are stereotypes and there is disrespect. But (Julia) saw a real need to have a club that promoted not only school unity, but also respect for people regardless of gender differences," said Hadley, the club's 2002-03 president who believes sexism is particularly harmful in schools.

"I think that if you're in a learning environment in which you feel uncomfortable, you are unable to excel academically (and) socially," she said.

The students cited several issues at the school that show the need for SAGE. Orestes complained about one stereotype in which "boys are better at sports than girls, but it's easier for girls to do well in classes because they're better students or something."

"I know a lot of great students who are males, and I know a lot of great athletes who are women. So people should just realize that there's not a distinct line there," he added.

Another complaint is that while girls are offered similar opportunities to boys under Title IX of the federal Educational Amendments of 1972, which bans sex discrimination in schools, they still don't receive the recognition.

Ann explained the situation at Carmel: "The girls' basketball team is really successful, and yet they don't have that many fans, and it's not as recognized. And I think that's definitely because of gender, because people aren't used to girls playing sports, even though it's been happening for a long time. They still don't think of it as exciting. They think it's not gonna be as physically challenging."

"We have these huge school pep rallies for our football team, but you would never see something like that for the girls' soccer team, which has won state for the past like four years," Hadley said.

Stereotypes not only hurt the sexes involved, but the club itself.

"I get made fun of a lot for being a man-hater because I am an officer of SAGE," said Ann. "Yeah, a lot of it is just good fun, but I think it shows also that issues like gender equality are viewed sort of by this stereotype of a woman who hates men and blames men for all her problems. That's not what we're trying to promote in SAGE. We're trying to promote awareness and make people think about issues that they wouldn't think about otherwise."

Members meet once a month after school. SAGE regularly sponsors discussions on topics that are sometimes controversial, such as sexual double standards or how the legalization of abortion has affected women, men and society.

Orestis explained how SAGE tackles these difficult topics. "We take those individual issues and read about them and learn about how they're affecting society, and a lot of times we use a lot of statistics. Then we have like an open debate about how all of our members and students that show up feel about those issues and some things we can do to deal with them," he said.

The group has been encouraged by the attendance at some of their discussions.

"I've had people whom I don't even know, who read about it in the school paper, come up and say, 'I'm coming to your meeting because obviously this is such a divisive issue, but it's also something that I think a lot of teenagers are finding is important,' " said Hadley.

SAGE has focused its efforts at getting the club's message out and recruiting members at school.

"I think the school represents sort of a microcosm of the community. I think the way we can reach the community the most is by talking with students," Ann explained.

However, it does do some community work with Fresh Start of Indianapolis, a domestic violence shelter, and hopes to do more.

SAGE members also try to live what they preach.

"I really try to promote the idea that every human being, regardless of gender, regardless of race, regardless of religion or any sort of trivial criteria, has value as a human being, and that everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Sometimes I'm not even sure if it is so much a gender issue -- it's more of a respect issue and a tolerance issue," said Hadley.

Although all of these students have graduated from Carmel High School, SAGE continues.

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Lauren Alfred, 17; Valeri Simmons, 14.

REPORTERS: Katie McDowell, 11; Stephanie Ray, 13; Katie Stergar, 12.