Posted on 04/01/2006 2:17:28 PM PST by neverdem
The moment is close when the United States will be composed entirely of victim groups. For the last year, the press has sounded the alarm about a new gender crisis in education: boys reportedly make up a declining portion of applicants to, and students within, colleges. More than 56 percent of undergraduates are women; two-thirds of all colleges and universities report receiving more applications from girls than from boys, according to a recent New York Times op-ed. The implication is obvious: we—the federal government, state bureaucrats, and the endlessly expanding diversity industry—need to do something! Even New York Times columnist John Tierney, ordinarily a ruthless debunker of big government, called last week for the federal Department of Education to “figur[e] out how to help boys reach college.”
And so the future is clear. That rustling sound you hear is the migration of university deans and associate provosts, “managing differences” consultants, and ed school faculty to the next big employment bonanza: helping boys succeed! Boys are poised to become the newest victim class, requiring a sturdy structure of advisors, trainers, and counselors just to get by. The requisite helping apparatus is already in place: the professions and academia overflow with committees on the recruitment and retention of minorities and women; they will undoubtedly be only too happy to expand their mandate to boys.
But what, you say, about girls’ hallowed victim status—how can it co-exist with a newly designated male oppressed class? Not to worry. The great thing about victim thinking is that it is not zero-sum; it is win-win. Each individual, each group, can be a victim in his or her or his/her own special way. And victims can provisionally join the oppressor class for special occasions—the alliance between Western white liberals and Third World peoples of color, for example, was unceremoniously broken when Episcopal priests and congregations in Africa declared their lack of enthusiasm for gay ministers. No need, then, to dismantle the vibrant private and public Title IX and women’s “equity in education” offices. Girls can be victims vis-à-vis boys when it comes to sports and representation in math and science. And boys can be victims vis-à-vis girls when it comes to enrollment in undergraduate education in general, and in such majors as anthropology and psychology in particular.
Here’s a better suggestion for the alleged gender gap in education: do nothing. If boys lag in undergraduate enrollment, let them study a little harder, or stay a little more focused, on their own. They don’t need the inevitable new bureaucracies in order to pull up their own bootstraps.
Sure, it’s tempting to use the boy shortage to dismantle feminized progressive education. The contempt for competition and fact-based learning that dominates at education schools undoubtedly does contribute to some no-shows among the male student population. When schools place more importance on group collaboration and sharing than on the achievement of mastery in a subject, when the conquest of trigonometry becomes less important than the collective reconstruction of the Yoruba counting system, some portion of boys will tune out.
But the costs of creating a universal victim population outweigh the benefits of using boys’ victim status to overthrow progressive nostrums. Yes, group learning and enforced equality of achievement are probably not optimal for male accomplishment, but they are not fatal, either. Even in a classroom dedicated to the construction of community, a motivated boy can glean knowledge. And it turns out that boys aren’t underrepresented in college math, computer science, engineering, the physical sciences, or business, just in the soft subjects that are of less practical use anyway. The boy shortage may be more a product of colleges’ retooling themselves to attract females than of any study deficit on boys’ part.
The refusal to declare and minister to a new needy population could be revolutionary. It could launch a shocking proposition into the world: problems that an individual can solve are the individual’s responsibility to solve. Letting boys choose for themselves whether to compete academically, without the ministrations of bureaucrats and consultants, may be the only way out of the current “crisis.”
What happened to Tierney? Here's one of his best. Recycling Is Garbage
And it turns out that boys aren’t underrepresented in college math, computer science, engineering, the physical sciences, or business, just in the soft subjects that are of less practical use anyway.
OK, no sweat!
Lets face it--we all oppress each other, either intentionally and unintentionally. It is an inherent part of the human condition. Most people accept and deal with it. Liberals try vainly to fix it. Unfortunately, they waste our tax dollars and destroy our values in the process.
As a conservative I've been feeling very oppressed lately.
The focus on girls has left boys a bit short changed. Tell you what, Heather, how about you tell the women to STFU when they allow gender segregated classrooms? How about we go back to a more masculine oriented educational system when boys were treated like boys instead of being asked to mimic girls?
Oh, with respect to title IX, how much money does the Div. 1A football, basketball, hockey and baseball teams bring in versus the woman's dyke hockey, soccer and basketball teams? More than you can count.
There is only one solution: abolish government.
"Each individual, each group, can be a victim in his or her or his/her own special way."
How fun! We can all be victims, now...
**The focus on girls has left boys a bit short changed.**
If you recall, when the femenazis went to improve the performance of girls, they figured how how to hobble boys so they could be equal. For example, we learned that boys were too aggressive in class participation so feminazi teachers were told to not call on boys only girls.
**Tell you what, Heather, how about you tell the women to STFU when they allow gender segregated classrooms?**
If liberals are running education, we need gender segregated classrooms so the feminists can not abuse the boys anyomre.
**How about we go back to a more masculine oriented educational system when boys were treated like boys instead of being asked to mimic girls?**
Actually, feminists mimic their idea of men - rude, unfair and hateful towards the opposite sex. (We have a few on FR.) Boys who act like boys are corrected to act like girls. It's a mixed up, crazy world...in gender bender Utopia. Also, lets permit boys to react normally to homos who approach them as a sexual object of affection instead of calling them criminals and names when they feel a natural rejection and aggression towards homo sex.
"Lake Wobegone...where all the children are above average."
It is a mathematical, statistical certainty that at any given moment in time a survey of any given group concerning any given subject will show variations from "the norm".
It is in the definition of the "norm" that we find a thicket. The infamous "women make 69 cents to a man's dollar" line for example, ignores the fact that a huge amount of that disparity is by choice, a statistically significant portion of women do not WANT full time, career advancing employment, would not take it if offered.
Show me genuine discrimination, I will head to the ramparts. I would give Free Republic a more generous donation, but I am helping fund legal fees for a gay guy down the street whose apartment manager is trying to toss him.
My default mode is to doubt any arguement that discrimination must exist because "figures show...." whatever. In the immortal words of Samuel Clemens, there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics."
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