Ack! I've fallen off the face of the blogosphere!

I'm still here. Bear with me.

And in the mean time, watch this video. It's a couple months old, but I just saw it and found it incredibly heart-breaking and, at the same time, uplifting. It's from the NoVo Foundation.

This whole Texas textbook debacle makes me shudder. It may sound cliche, but true change does rely heavily on our children. But how can they understand what needs to change if they are being fed B.S. in school? The entire schooling system angers the hell out of me. I wasn't taught a damn thing about feminism until twelfth grade when I had a feminist teacher for my U.S. government class, who finally explained women's suffrage in a way that I understood. Still, she was forced to teach us how to pass the AP test instead, and had to leave behind most of the truly important stuff.

Well I'll tell you: I don't remember one thing on that AP test, but I do remember her telling us how Alice Paul was sent to prison, where she went on a hunger strike and was force-fed meals through a rubber tube inserted in her throat... and all so women would be treated like human beings. Still, my eyes weren't truly opened to feminism and the importance of equality and all the social injustices that exist in this world until I went to my super liberal college. It's so upsetting to me that children are being given textbooks that glorify Christopher Columbus (and leave out his slaughtering of Native Americans), exclude the LGBTQ movement, and devote all of two pages to women's rights. And it's about to get worse! From CredoAction.com:

Led by far-right ideologues, the Texas SBOE recently gave preliminary approval to a plan that would radically change what children across the country learn in history class.

The ultra-conservative majority on the board (none of whom are experts in any academic discipline and many of whom are explicitly anti-science) took the curricula proposed by teachers and made over a hundred changes to "correct" the perceived left-wing bias.

But it gets worse. Since Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the country, material written to cater to the Texas curricula will find its way into textbooks across the country unless textbook publishers take a stand.

We can't allow a small group of extreme ideologues on the Texas State Board of Education to re-write history.

Children who use textbooks conforming to the new standards will not learn anything about the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson or his thoughts on the separation of church and state. When they learn about the Civil War, they'll have to study Jefferson Davis' inaugural address alongside Abraham Lincoln's. And when they study the civil rights movement they'll have to learn about the "unintended consequences" of Great Society programs, affirmative action and Title IX. Oh — and Joe McCarthy was right all along no matter what historians actually say about it.

*bangs head on desk repeatedly*

Write to the United States' largest textbook publishers and tell them this is unacceptable, please. The future of this country depends on it.

My favorite part:

It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions.

Inevitably, there's controversy surrounding this speech. Some are claiming that Obama is putting too much pressure on students to "fix" the country, but I saw this speech as a message of encouragement. Students are the future, and it's important to encourage them to see school as an opportunity to discover their passions and talents.

Also, conservatives are claiming that in addressing children, Obama was trying to "sell" his political agenda. Parents protested the speech, carrying signs with such phrases as: "Mr. President, stay away from our kids."

As far as I know, it is extremely common for presidents to address children and schools, and as far as I know, Obama didn't say the words, "SOCIALISM GOOD DEMOCRACY BAD" to the children, so where is the problem again? E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post says it well:

Upon Barack Obama's election, even my most conservative friends who supported John McCain said Obama could do a world of good for poor children in the country by stressing the importance of education, hard work, staying in school and taking responsibility. Yes, those are often thought of as conservative values.

But when Obama proposed to do just that on the first day of school, the far right -- without asking any questions or seeking any information -- decided to pounce, on the theory that everything Obama did should be attacked relentlessly as part of some secret and dangerous ideological agenda.

The Republicans must be terrified of Obama turning our children into zombies:

As soon as you get a free minute, check out "A Woman's World" on the New York Times website. It's a gallery of user-submitted photographs "that illustrate the importance of educating girls and empowering women." The photographs are beautiful, and feature women from all around the world. Thank you, Times, for putting this together.

Oh, happy day! Obama's budget for the year 2010 has been revealed, and nowhere does it include federal funding for abstinence-only education. Not another tax dollar will go to these failed programs, and instead, Pres. Obama is proposing a new pregnancy prevention initiative. Hopefully, his new program will prove to be effective.

Read the entire budget here.

TONIGHT at 7PM ET, the PBS NewsHour will explore the status of women in Afghanistan, and the endless obstacles they face. From an e-mail sent to me by Women for Women International:

• 85.1% of women have no formal education
• 74% of girls drop out of school by 5th grade
• Only 1% of girls in rural communities attends school
• Nearly 79% of women are illiterate
• The average salary is just 48 cents a day
• On average, Afghan women give birth to 7 children
• 1 out of 8 women die from causes related to pregnancy or child birth

If you can't view it tonight, be sure to check your local listings for other times it may be airing. It should be a really interesting and eye-opening program, so do your best to see it!

Wow, you know that abstinence-only education is really bad when even Mississippi is considering changing it. This seems like an ongoing trend with states that have so blindly clung to abstinence-only education for several years: people start to realize that teen pregnancy and STD rates are soaring, and realize, "HEY, maybe we should teach them how to put a condom on!"

A report from the Center for Disease Control shows that Mississippi has one of the sharpest increases in teen pregnancy rates and rising rates of STDs. As a result, comprehensive sex education programs are being tested in two districts. Unfortunately, it requires parental consent to participate, so undoubtedly many students will be missing out. But at least law-makers are slowly starting to admit that saying "just wait until marriage and everything will be fine" isn't all that effective.

The National Sexuality Resource Center is attempting to stop the ridiculous attempts of legislators to cut funding for courses on queer issues, women's studies, and sexuality. Their excuse is budget cuts, but it's no coincidence that that these specific courses are getting the axe. It's so upsetting. In my view, the things I learned in my women's studies classes are far more applicable to real life than anything I've learned in any math or science class.

To help save sexuality and gender studies, sign the online petition put together by the NSRC.

Two high school students, with the help of the ACLU, are suing their school over its refusal to allow them establish a Gay/Straight Alliance-type club. The school is, not surprisingly, in Florida. The superintendent claimed, "a club highlighting sexual orientations will not be permitted as it would violate school board policy." School board policy doesn't allow teaching respect and celebrating diversity? If that's true, then this is a policy that needs to be changed.

In a perfect world, the Supreme Court would rule that a school prohibiting the establishment of a club that strives to create a more accepting educational environment is unconstitutional, thereby forcing every school in the country to allow students to establish gay-friendly clubs. Just within my friends alone, I have heard several stories of schools not allowing these clubs to be made, or giving an extremely hard time to any students who attempt to organize one. It's infuriating, and I wish more students would make a big deal out of it, like these two students are, because it is a big deal.

Thankfully, more schools seem to be realizing the obvious fact that abstinence-only education doesn't work. In Pittsburgh, the school board will vote on whether or not to change their current abstinence-only sex education to include discussion of contraception and "alternative lifestyles" (GLBT people, I'm assuming?) Proponents are hoping that comprehensive sex ed will help lower the high birth rate of Pittsburgh teens, which make up 14% of all births in the city.

Abstinence will still be stressed as the only reliable method of remaining free of STIs and unplanned pregnancies, but contraception will be discussed for those students who may not wait until marriage. Supporters of the change are citing multiple studies that show that comprehensive sex ed leads to more teenagers delaying sex.

It really seems like a no-brainer to me.

People are working hard to diversify New York's elite public high schools, such as Stuyvesant, but their efforts are falling short. According to The New York Times:

Among the 21,490 public school students who last year took the exam, the single gateway to eight high schools, 6 percent of blacks and 7 percent of Hispanics were offered admission, compared with 35 percent of Asians and 31 percent of white students. The disparities were the worst at Stuyvesant, where 2 percent of blacks, 3 percent of Hispanics, 24 percent of whites and 72 percent of Asians were accepted.

My guess is that this is more of a class issue than a race issue. Many Black and Hispanic children come from low-income families and can't really afford tutors and books. Additionally, a lot of their parents have a job, sometimes two, and can't always be around to supervise and make sure their children are studying hard. I think it's the same reason as to why Ivy League universities are predominantly White.

Also, a lot of these kids lack the motivation. They see their parents working two jobs, struggling to make ends meet, and they think, "I'm going to end up like that." Sometimes it works the opposite, where kids will see the hard lives their parents lead and will vow to make a better life for themselves, but that isn't always the case. It's a class issue. Upper-middle class White and Asian children have the privileges that support their acceptance into these elite schools; Hispanic and Black children generally don't. It's a vicious cycle.

During National Ally Week, a kindergarten teacher, Tara Miller, passed out cards to her students. The children were asked to sign the card to pledge that they will not use anti-GLBT language and will promote respect for GLBT people.

Parents, school board members, and teachers alike are furious, claiming that these pledge cards were not "appropriate" for kindergarteners. Because we'll be damned if we teach our children to be respectful of all kinds of people. I wonder if "I promise to never use racial slurs" pledge cards would draw an equal amount of negative backlash. Doubt it.

And, not surprisingly, Fox News has once again succeeded in presenting a biased and one-sided presentation of a news story. Check out the article posted on their website, so intelligently titled "School Claims Up on 'Gay' Pledge Cards Given to Kindergarteners." I challenge you to find one person Fox News quoted in that article who actually agreed with the pledge cards. I know they exist. Instead, the article was filled with people who said things like this:

"[There is] tremendous peer pressure put on children to accept a pro-homosexual philosophy and attitude."

Really? Cause I have yet to see some of this pressure. Instead, I could easily argue that there is far more peer pressure put on children to reject homosexuality and make GLBT people into outcasts.

But no one talks about that.

What does everyone think about this new "gay-friendly" high school that might open in Chicago? Apparently, it won't be exclusive to GLBT students, but it will work hard to be completely accepting and create a comfortable atmosphere for those who have been tormented for their sexual orientation. Lessons on sexual identity will be included in classes, and counseling will be provided to all students.

I like the thought behind it, because GLBT students are being brutally harassed in normal high schools and are therefore more likely to miss class and less likely to graduate. However, I feel that creating a separate school will only encourage more of a division between heterosexual students and homosexual students. If all GLBT students and their allies are put into one school, homophobes won't be forced to accept and understand these students. And that's not good. I think that incorporating lessons on sexual identity is a wonderful idea - but I think it should be put in all schools. Education on GLBT people should start young - maybe around 4th or 5th grade - and should continue to high school. I don't think separating people is the answer.

Thoughts?

This is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. A middle school in Virginia has decided to follow the sexist ideology of author Leonard Sax, who wrote the book "Why Gender Matters," and teach boys and girls separately and differently. His philosophy? We are trying too hard to "feminize" boys and "masculinize" girls, and we should just accept the fact that males and females have different brains. It should be noted that very little solid scientific evidence exists to support this claim - and even if some evidence does exist, it is liable to change within the next few years, as it has been for the past several decades. For years, scientists have been falsely identifying certain characteristics of "male" and "female" brains, and attributing the more dominant and positive characteristics to men. I don't think this is any different.

According to a report done by CNN, "Boys don't have to sit in desks, reviews have become relay races" and "Girls work more in groups, in less stressful non-competitive settings." In the video, you can see young boys running around outside to learn vocabulary words, while the girls sit inside, doing math problems. Which setting would I have liked better as a 12 year-old? My money is on the fun outdoor activities. What child wouldn't better like to get out of the classroom and run around, regardless of their gender? But according to Sax, boys "suffer" in a traditional classroom setting.

This is completely outrageous. You cannot generalize an entire sex - there are undoubtedly some boys who do not enjoy sports and would rather work in a classroom setting, and there are inarguably some girls who would much rather run around outdoors than sit in a desk all day. I absolutely refuse to believe that all girls work better sitting inside and all boys work better being active outside. Just observe what CNN says the Department of Education's take is on this new teaching style:

"The Department of Education says this can provide some benefits to some students under certain circumstances."

Some benefits! Some students! Certain circumstances! Oh GEE, sounds to me like all boys and all girls aren't exactly the same! I appreciate the insight into our education system, and the suggestion of new and innovative teaching styles, but this guy is just going about it all wrong. There are indeed many students who despise classroom settings and have trouble paying attention while sitting in desks - but they are both male and female! Let's put our rigid gender norms aside for a moment and consider keeping classes integrated, but making them smaller. One girl who participated in the experiment claimed, "I liked it more because I could concentrate." I don't believe that was because all boys were removed, I think it was because she was in a smaller group of children, so she was better able to concentrate and was given more attention by the teacher. Additionally, instead of keeping kids in the classroom all day, teachers could try a combination of both - a few hours in the classroom, and then some time outside participating in relay races to learn vocabulary. Or, the relay races could be optional, allowing those who don't wish to participate to stay inside and continue working. Everyone wins, and we don't impose nasty and misguided sexist beliefs on young and impressionable children. We don't teach them that boys and girls are inherently different, thereby feeding into our exclusive Barbie-vs-GI Joe culture, and we don't encourage the fact that males are meant to be active and females are meant to be calm and "non-competitive."

I can't believe that this school would even consider such a terrible teaching style. I just hope they haven't done irrevocable damage on these poor kids.




(Thanks to Jamie for the link!)

Hold onto your hats, I'm about to get really really really angry.

Mr. Roy Den Hollander, a Manhattan lawyer and self-proclaimed anti-feminist, is suing Columbia for offering Women's Studies courses. His claim? Women's Studies courses are "a bastion of bigotry against men" and the program at Columbia "demonizes men and exalts women in order to justify discrimination against men based on collective guilt."

Clearly this man has never sat through a Women's Studies class in his lifetime.

This same lawyer has also sued nightclubs for offering "Ladies' Night" in which women get discounted drinks, and has sued the federal government over a law that protects women from violence. His website boasts, "Now is the time for all good men to fight for their rights before they have no rights left. Contact Roy to help battle the infringement of Men's Rights by the feminists and their allies."

Seriously... who the HELL does this man think he is? I've taken many Women's Studies classes because it's my major, and I can honestly say that none of my classes preached any kind of hatred or discrimination towards men. In fact, men are encouraged to take these classes to better understand women and the overall concept of gender. If men were NOT permitted to take these classes, that would indeed be blatant discrimination, but that is just not the case at any school to my knowledge.

If his argument is that there should be a Men's Studies program, well my answer to that is: IT IS CALLED AMERICAN HISTORY. There would not be a need for a Women's Studies program if other courses were not guilty of focusing predominantly on men in the past. Women's Studies has developed out of necessity - to help spread knowledge and respect for a group that has been oppressed. These courses also exist to inform young American students about the terrifying and appalling things that are being done to women abroad. I'm not saying that men are not without their hardships, but it is the women who are getting their clitorises cut off in Saudi Arabia, the women who cannot leave their houses without veils in Iran, and mainly women who are being brutally raped by enemy intruders in the Republic of Congo. Women's Studies classes are essential to keep young people up-to-date on these important issues.

Would this anti-feminist lawyer oppose Black Studies, calling it discrimination against white people? Because at my school, there is no "White Studies" major, but there is a Black Studies major. Why? For the same reason - oppression and ignorance has led to a need for such classes. The same thing can be said about Queer Studies classes. And about Jewish Studies classes.

It is what it is. Sexism still exists, racism still exists, homophobia still exists, and antisemitism still exists. And why is there so much hatred towards these groups? Because people do not understand them, and they are afraid of the unknown. College courses are a way to spread understanding and abolish these prominent divisions that exist in our society. Clearly Mr. Den Hollander does not understand this concept, and is so quick to claim that men are being deprived of their rights by feminists. He is throwing the blame in our faces, when ironically, becoming a feminist has helped me develop a newfound respect and understanding for men. It was in one of my GENDER/WOMEN'S STUDIES classes that we did a unit on the extreme pressure men feel to act masculine, and I saw a perspective I had never seen before.

But it is just too bad that Mr. Roy hates me because I am a feminist. Just too bad.

Whoever made the decision to have the 1992 talking Barbie doll utter that terrible phrase, "Math class is tough!" can suck it, because new stats are showing that girls are kicking butt when it comes to math.

A recent study that involved examining test scores since 2002 found no significant differences in the math scores amongst boys and girls. And women are now earning 48% of undergraduate college degrees in math.

So, while math may not be my forte, other females are proving that our brains are not "wired differently." We just needed some time to realize our full potential.

For those of you who are college students in the U.S., I encourage you to go here and fill out a survey for the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition. This survey helps them gauge exactly which campuses are lacking in providing the necessary resources for people of all sexes, gender identities, races, and sexual orientations to feel accepted and comfortable at their schools. Their goal is to help make colleges all over the country a safe learning environment for everyone. You can help by giving them information.

(Thanks to Georgia for the link!)

I thought I'd stick with the "making history" theme that I've seemed to have adopted for today's posts, and talk about what's going on over at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin was recommended Wednesday to be the next chancellor at UW-Madison. Martin is an out and proud lesbian, who teaches Women's Studies and German Studies, and has also written a book: "Femininity Played Straight: The Significance of Being Lesbian."

If Martin is actually elected as chancellor, UW-Madison will become the largest university to have an openly gay leader. There are only a handful of other openly gay university leaders, but they are all at small schools. UW-Madison has about 40,000 students.

Hot damn.

I posted the other day about the American Association of University Women publishing a report that debunks the "boys' crisis" in education.

Today on Yahoo, I came across an article that argues against that report by claiming that there is, in fact, a boys' problem.

There was also opposing article that offers a counterpoint to the first article's argument.

I understand that boys may be falling behind in the sense that more females are earning degrees, but why is this viewed as a problem? If men are still earning more in the working world, and are still obtaining higher-ranking jobs than women because of the glass ceiling, then where is the issue?! Maybe women earning more degrees and graduating at a higher rate is the leg up they need to finally equalize the working world. Additionally, the first article writes that "women are earning 62% of associate's degrees, 57% of bachelor's and 59% of master's." I don't see a gap that is large enough to cause concern. So women are earning 7% more bachelor's degrees... so what? Are we ever going to experience a time when they are completely equal? No way. But again, let's look at the bigger picture here. I don't see any sort of "boys' crisis" in a world in which women are earning 77 cents for every dollar that a man makes. It just doesn't make sense.

Why don't we focus on the more important issues, that being the enormous discrepancies between the races and the classes? I posted awhile back about affirmative action, and I included some appalling statistics regarding the immense gap between white college students and black and Hispanic college students. Now there's a crisis.

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.

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.