Don't blame girls, women [Gender wars in education]

USA Today ^ | 28 August 2003 | Jacqueline E. Woods

[Lorianne]

Don't blame girls, women By Jacqueline E. Woods The American Association of University Women (AAUW) is troubled by recent suggestions that girls and women are somehow to blame for the fact that boys are not excelling in certain academic areas. Is there a "gender war" being waged against boys, as some have claimed? Gender inequity in education is a complex issue. Two years ago, AAUW published "Beyond the 'Gender Wars,' " a summary of the views of some of America's foremost researchers of boys and girls regarding a range of gender-equity questions. One of the major conclusions shared by these researchers was that we do not need to "fix the boys" or "fix the girls."

[StatesEnemy]

Hmmm.... it seems this is the same type of splittail that was blaming boys (men) when Barbie was lamenting upon th difficulty of math.

Bring back free for all recess, stop persecuting boys for roughhousing and eating sandwiches in the shape of "assault weapons", and bring back 'hands on' science classes.

[OpusatFR]

Of course these women are to blame.

I had to pull my oldest son out of gubmint school when his third grade (female) teacher punished him constantly for being a boy. Her statement to me, "I don't like little boys."

It's too bad I was always taught to be a lady.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

A Business Week report stated recently that MBA programs are one of a few remaining "old boy domains,"

If they really looked hard, they would see that garbage collectors are 100 percent men, a true bastion of the men's old boy network. Feminists piss me off. All they want are jobs with esteem, power, and money. Jobs that require getting dirty are a no, no. Look at car garage mechanics, ditch diggers, coal miners, and the like. They are all men. When they get the firemen and policemen jobs (pardon me but I am too old to say firefighters and police officers), watch out. Don’t get caught in a burning building or trapped by a gang of thugs, ‘cause the women can’t help.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

"Worse, the implicit solution sounds disturbingly close to advocating rolling back gains for girls to address our concerns about boys. "

GOD FORBID that someone would express concern for the welfare of boys in schools!

This is simply unacceptable and must be stopped immediately.

This 'implication' (some idea in her head) cannot be tolerated, while anti male feminists have run the table in schools for 30 years.

[Still Thinking]

I had to pull my oldest son out of gubmint school when his third grade (female) teacher punished him constantly for being a boy. Her statement to me, "I don't like little boys."

Seems to me that if she said that, you would have legal grounds to sue her for entering the "teaching" profession.

[independentmind]

Nor did it mention that women's participation in computer science courses actually has been declining for the past 20 years.

Do you think this is the result of job discrimination?

Perhaps men, as a group, are more naturally suited for some jobs.

[JoeSchem]

Girls still overlooked

A Business Week report stated recently that MBA programs are one of a few remaining "old boy domains," but it failed to mention the comparable underrepresentation of women in computer and information science, technology and engineering courses and careers. Nor did it mention that women's participation in computer science courses actually has been declining for the past 20 years.

AAUW was founded more than a century ago, when education and employment opportunities were severely limited by gender, race and other social characteristics. Although great inequities still persist, it is true that women and girls have made great strides. These advancements, however, have never been at the expense of men and boys.

So if girls are behind, it's the men's fault, even in fields like computer science and engineering where the test scores are objectively measured. But if the boys are behind, it's their fault, even if the evidence is overwhelming that girls are receiving preferential treatment. What's most interesting is that the writer simply states that it's not the women's fault, and then adds nothing to support her point. This is feminist thinking: "I have said so, therefore it's true."

[OpusatFR]

We tried and got blown off. This, of course, was in our younger, poorer, less educated days. Pity the lower middle class family of male children. Not only are you frowned upon because of your class, but also because you are at the mercy of social engineers who view everyone else as louts and borderline idiots needing their Supreme Guidance and Mana. (Not to mention the politically driven agendas of Affirmative Action locking the white, male underclass out of the economy.)

Of course, now, I would take our education and wealth and make life a living misery for anyone with the balls to make a statement like that. It was excellent for our sons to be subjected to this type of nastiness. They are NOT democrats decades later.

[Lorianne]

Personally, I believe men (on average) are more interested in certain professions (such as engineering, computer science) than are women. And since people are generally better at what interests them, it follows that men are "better suited" to certain jobs. The term "better suited" doesn't sit well with me since I don't believe anyone without interest in those fields would be "better suited for them. Witht the interest, they are simply likely to be better at doing them.

Likewise women's interests (on average) fall more heavily in certain occupations. Women (on average) have more natural interest in certain occupations, and therefore tend to better at those than men.

However, logically, if you use mathematical parity as a gauge of discrimination, that would apply to both sexes. Therefore those who contend that male low educational performance and dwindling college attendence (using numerical disparity as the evidence) is due to discrimination ..... then it logically follows that there was discrimination against women when the numbers were opposite ... and that there is discrimination against women in certain occupations where they are in smaller number.

One cannot logically use the rationale of numerical disparity = discrimination, unless one is willing to apply the logic across the board.

[Lorianne]

I agree with your points.

[independentmind]

Seems to me that if she said that, you would have legal grounds to sue her for entering the "teaching" profession.

You may be right, but I know more than one mother, who after having a son, was somewhat surprised to discover that little boys are really radically different from little girls.

[independentmind]

Oh, so men are more interested in some subjects than women are. Seems to me that was not my question, but I'll rephrase it.

Do you think that men, in general, have a natural aptitude for some subjects which is superior to that of most women for the same subjects?

You are, of course, aware that there are many recent studies which claim to prove this?

(I won't call the studies scientific, lest some pompous ass grill me on my qualificiations to even use the word.)

[OpusatFR]

Bull.

[SauronOfMordor]

We have the elementary grades being almost entirely staffed by women. College women get indoctrinated daily in feminism and the eeeevil of men (and boys). And we are to assume this does NOT carry over into the classroom then these women get their education degrees?

[quebecois]

"The flames of a gender war are being unnecessarily fanned, implying that educational achievement is a zero-sum game and that girls' achievements have somehow come at the expense of boys'"

This chick has a lot of balls to say this. The libs have spent 3 or 4 decades playing the "zero-sum game". How many times have we seen articles bemoaning the lack of black school performance? How many of these articles directly blame whites for the gap?

And the feminists have made blaming men for sex inequality into a religion.

Now that boys are falling further behind, she bristles at the suggestion that the same mentality that her ilk have been using might be directed back at her. The libs never cease to amaze me.

[FairWitness]

You may be right, but I know more than one mother, who after having a son, was somewhat surprised to discover that little boys are really radically different from little girls.

Our son is 29; my wife still regularly says, "I didn't know boys would be like that"!

[IronJack]

Even within this article that supposedly addresses (and even admits) the disparity between educational attention being given boys versus that given girls, this writer serves principally as an advocate of MORE attention to GIRLS!!

But the educational gains of girls haven't come at the expense of boys. Nor has the "liberation" of women come at the expense of men.

And Brutus is an honorable man ...

[JudgemAll]

Yawn, as if another layer of fix in schools is going to help... as if "schools" and "programs" were the sole source of service in the US for kids ..... it's all blablabla in order to have some psuedo social "elite" come up with the voice and monopoly of educational services.

[Lorianne]

No. You cannot have an "aptitude" for something that holds no interest for you. For example, I would be a very bad brain surgeon, not because I'm a woman, but because I have absolutely no interest in medicine, surgery, blood, etc.

But I have a great interest in architecture and am a quite good architect. Being a woman neither hinders nor helps my ability in this field. It is all due to natural interest and natural aspiration in this one particular field and has nothing to do with gender.

Now there are some occupations where one's sex may work for you or against you. For example, female gynecologists may have an edge over male gynecologists simply because she has the same point of reference. I don't think one gender is particularly better suited to be gynecologists, but females may have a small advantage in perspective. (Likewise male urologists over female urologists).

And of course any work which requires great physical strength would naturally favor males (in general).

But in general I think people are best suited to occupations in which they have an abiding interest and aspiration. Not all tall people are basketball players, even if they could be trained be. Only the ones who are very interested in basketball, and are tall, end up being the good players.

There are plenty of people who could become capable lawyers. They have the brains and could probably make a decent career out of lawyering. But they have zero interest in law, so, instead, they do what they are interested in and are probably better at that than they would be as lawyers.