Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Boys' crisis?
4 comments
A few months ago, author Lionel Tiger spoke at my college. He had written the book "The Decline of Males" that claimed that since women have started advancing in society, men have been experiencing hardships as they ascend in society.
Right.
Needless to say, most people attended his lecture to argue against his ideas, me being one of them. Well, new reports put forth by The American Association of University Women attempt to disprove this theory. They claim that “girls’ gains have not come at boys’ expense,” and that when it comes to education, the largest disparities exist between different races and classes, not between genders.
Amen. I don't understand how people like Lionel Tiger can make the case that there is a "boys' crisis" when women are still earning only 77 cents for every dollar that men make. Doesn't sound like a crisis to me.
Right.
Needless to say, most people attended his lecture to argue against his ideas, me being one of them. Well, new reports put forth by The American Association of University Women attempt to disprove this theory. They claim that “girls’ gains have not come at boys’ expense,” and that when it comes to education, the largest disparities exist between different races and classes, not between genders.
In examining a range of standardized test scores, the report finds some intriguing nuggets about the interplay of family income, race, ethnicity and academic performance. For example, it finds that while boys generally outperform girls on both the math and verbal parts of the SAT, the male advantage on the verbal test is consistent only among low-income students, and that among black students, there was no consistent advantage by sex from 1994 to 2004.
The report points out that a greater proportion of men and women than ever before are graduating from high school and earning college degrees. But, it says, “perhaps the most compelling evidence against the existence of a boys’ crisis is that men continue to outearn women in the workplace.”
Amen. I don't understand how people like Lionel Tiger can make the case that there is a "boys' crisis" when women are still earning only 77 cents for every dollar that men make. Doesn't sound like a crisis to me.
Posts
May 20, 2008 at 1:34 PM
You should check out this mind-bogglingly sexist article by a self-proclaimed "boys advocate." Here's the money quote:
And our schools continue to get ever more feminized. Competition, one of boys’ favorite motivators, has largely been excised in favor of “cooperative learning,” (which, in the real world, usually means that the bright do the dull’s work.) Stories of heroism and bravery are replaced with tomes about relationships and female heroes. Recess is increasingly being replaced by yet another round of phonics. Girls are told they can accomplish anything while boys are taught that masculinity is an anti-social trait that must be extinguished. It’s no surprise that the number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001.
Here's my post on the matter.
May 20, 2008 at 2:11 PM
They just feel there's a crisis that it's not okay any more to beat your wives and girlfriends and all that other shit. And to the quote below... Oh no! Female heroes??? The world is ending!!! Oh, and what's wrong with telling a girl she can accomplish anything? What's wrong with telling boys that being a macho, violent asshole isn't a good thing? What a sexist prick. Recess isn't being replaced by schooling because of feminism... that's because of No Child Left Behind and other things the government is doing to control education.
May 20, 2008 at 3:01 PM
That is disgusting. A classic example of how many men are threatened by feminism and the advancement of women, when they really shouldn't be. Believe it or not... the world won't be so horrible when men and women are equal!
October 12, 2008 at 9:59 PM
Father rights' groups are claiming that women and men are already equal and in many times better than women. They are using financial resources to outfinance women and tending custody traps in man-dominated courts to take children from mothers. Is this what equal rights means? Is it OK to say that women and men should be equal to the expense of children's emotional and psychological well-being when they have to endure warring parties at home and the financial future of women who have to pay child support when divorce is already an expensive proposition for women? The Supreme Court already abandoned the "Tender years" doctrine inspired by social science which proposes that small children should be with their mothers.