Letters to the Editor
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Number vs proportion
Interesting. My son is starting college at a four-year liberal arts school next fall, and on the campus tour in March, we were handed demographic information for the class that entered last fall. It was 68% girls and 32% boys, and a footnote stated that those numers were typical for recent college entrance classes all over the U.S. So while the sheer numbers of boys graduating from college may be increasing, I wonder how much of that is due to 1) more kids going to college than 25 years ago, and 2) the baby boomlet that my son is part of. I've read other articles that claim the percentage of boys who go on to graduate from college has gone down. (At any rate, my son's reaction to his future school's male/female ratio was, "Well, I like those odds.")
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Hate to say it
but does this mean that the previous Girl's Crisis was illusory compared the effects of ethnicity and economics? They did evaluate 40 years of data, after all..
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Conflating two different problems
'As for the specific question of whether boys are being hurt by the past 15 years' educational trends, the study points out that the number of boys graduating from high school and college is at an all-time high. It also suggests that "perhaps the most compelling argument against a boys' crisis is that men continue to outearn women in the workplace." '
Haven't read the study yet but read the article in the Times this morning. I'm appalled at the weak and manipulative reasoning being put forth.
To say that boys are not being hurt by the advancement of girls is NOT the same thing as there not being a "boy crisis."
I wouldn't be able to provide stats off the top of my head here to document whether there is or isn't a boy crisis as I understand the term, so I won't claim to know...but I think our culture treats boys just as abominably, albeit in different ways, as it treats girls. (I actually remember a middle school gym class during which a visiting coach from the high school flat-out told the boys that they better play a team sport if they "wanted to be anybody" in high school.)
To say that there is a "boy crisis" is not the same as saying--and there's no reason it necessarily implies--that it's the fault of gains made by girls. And to find that boys haven't been hurt by attention paid to girls does not mean that they're not in trouble.
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So that means
According to the words YOU quoted - there is no gender income disparity treated as a sole independent variable.
Looks like the women have parity. Now stop complaining.
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@creepo
Well, the AAUW was the group that first came-up with the "Girls Crisis" statistics back in the 90s.
Sounds like a really unbiased group, if you ask me. No axes to grind at all...
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Another Inconvenient Truth
Interesting that the AAUW waited 16 years to come to the conclusion that gender was a secondary issue.
Men's advocates are woefully underrepresented in gender politics and the media.
One heroic exception is Warren Farrell who used to be on the Board of NOW and now writes on the inaccuracies of the media treatment of the "myth of male power."
On equality of income, he has done exhaustive research ("WHY Men Earn More") that shows that almost across the board, when you hold education and years of service constant between the sexes, women earn at least as much as men, and in some professions--MDs, JDs, and technical jobs--women frequently earn MORE. Most articles quoting the wage gap do so apples to oranges, ie a woman with a BA and ten years experience vs. a man with an MA and twenty--hardly an accurate comparison.
Too bad Larry Summers was not allowed to have a rational debate on science and gender. All too freqently cognitive dissonance results in hysterical shrillness.
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I felt the "boy crisis"
I don't agree that to support boys means to but down girls; one does not need to gain at the expense of another. However, in my son's life, I can see the boy crisis in action.
In first grade my son had a well-regarded teacher at school. The trouble started the first week, and continued for months. My son did not perform well in this classroom...the room was crowded with furniture, artwork, stuff, there was an overemphasis on fine motor activities and when he misbehaved she would take away recess. His behavior was getting worse...he was crawling around on the floor, hiding his papers, chewing his clothes. I was at a loss over what was going on. The teacher said he was ADHD. I just didn't believe it. He was such a great kid at home...a typical, active boy...not hyper or easily-distracted.
Then I read The Minds of Boys. What a relief! I started to understand what was happening...and to understand that, especially in lower grades, elementary schools are mostly under the employ of women, and mostly unintentionally, create an atmosphere that is difficult for boys to succeed in. (I am disappointed that this study started at fourth grade...my son is now in third grade, and I think this has a very big impact K-3). A lot of this has to do with what is being taught in these early years...lots of fine motor work with writing, finite notetaking, etc. Where my son is a gross-motor child all the way...too bad he's not tested on his basketball skills, he could ace that class! Bottom line is that most boys are not has fine motor oriented as most girls (I said most, not all) and most boys are usually more gross-motor oriented than girls. Elementary school is full of lots of fine motor activities that can set boys over the edge.
The book taught me to understand my son...his need for physicality and rough play (it made me so much more tolerant of that), how he processes information (putting physical activity into homework...like practicing spelling words by tossing a ball back and forth), and the best way for him to learn. I bought our principal a copy of the book. It raised a lot of issues for us....like why were 80 percent of the discipline cases boys, and 80 percent of those African-American (in a school with 50 percent AA population overall). We tend to want boys to sit down and shut up when they are not really built for that. For instance, my son's constant humming and fidgeting drove me crazy...(be quiet and do your homework!)...but then I realized that it was his way of keeping his mind engaged.
My son spent the second half of first grade with a new teacher...she gave him much more room to move, made physicality a part of the normal day, and worked to engage him on his level. He's had the same teacher for second and third grade, and she is also great at engaging both boys and girls.
A friend of mine is a elementary school teacher. When she had her son, she said it completely changed how she taught class. She had no idea she was biased toward the girls until she was raising her very active toddler boy. I think this may be the case for a lot of teachers...we understand and are comfortable with girl behaviors but get nervous with boy behaviors (sit still, be quiet! stop fidgeting!).
I don't think that because we make our classrooms more engaging for boys do we make it less engaging for girls. Good teachers can adjust for different learning styles...but to say that the boy crisis is a myth, or came up only because we focused on girls...it makes me frustrated. Boys are in trouble more in school, they are put on medication more frequently. Creating an open and trusting atmosphere for both boys and girls, and not catering to one at the expense of another, is how it should work.
I am so happy to say that my school is filling with bright, young teachers who have so many new tools to engage students of all levels and gender. It is fantastic to see it in action. Good teachers know how to engage students of whatever sex, race, ability. Now I know what my son needs to succeed an I look for teachers who can provide that.