Letters to the Editor
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Lunkheads
A very interesting read, but one question came to mind: why was the initial question constructed with the word "lunkhead"? This choice of word already structures the debate so that we are thinking about more divergent levels of accomplishement. Furthermore, I find it implausible or at the least very unlikely that such language would have been used had this article been about the debate over affirmative action for black or Latino students.
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Re: permissiveness is the problem
If it is it apparently affects boys differently and more negatively than girls. Do you think, assuming widspread hormone treatment doesn't become the norm, you would enjoy being a girl or a woman in a society where the boys were raised in an authoritarian "beaten into line" (I'm speaking figuratively) system and the girls were raised in the present permissive system that is apparently serving them so well, or well enough anyway. Anybody see any potential problems here?
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what domini said
Just to add an example to back up what she said: I live in a state that, like others, is experiencing something of a construction boom and a big labor shortage in that sector. The construction industry, the labor unions and some state government agencies have teamed up to promote construction as a great career that one can start right out of high school. There are ads all over TV these days urging young people to go into construction work. There is also a new, comprehensive state-run training program for would-be construction workers.
This effort to develop more construction workers isn't aimed specifically at boys and young men, but the reality is that most of the people who will go into these jobs are male. They're good jobs, too, with high pay, lots of technical skills required and lots of future potential.
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Undressing Affirmative Action
I find it curious that those decrying affirmative action for boys are the same that support it for underrepresented minorities and for women in programs where their populations are disproportionately low.
The accepted basis for affirmative action programs (via Grutter v. Bollinger) is that "diversity is a good thing." The supporters of traditional affirmative action in this article don't seem to fear the absence of male voices on campuses, though. I think this is likely because, despite Supreme Court pronouncements to the contrary, supporters still see affirmative action as a form of reparations and use "diversity" arguments as rhetorical cover.
I don't oppose affirmative action in all forms, but I do think some degree of intellectual honesty is in order: either diversity is important and our universities should have a free hand to engineer their student populations, or affirmative action is about paying a debt. The latter, it appears, isn't constitutionally viable, and the former lacks a clear constituency - liberal elements will never allow affirmative action to benefit white males, and conservatives are too invested in meritocracy to allow it.
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Correction
I don't mean to quibble, but I have one slight correction. Tom Mortenson's daughter IS married. I should know - we were married 2.5 years ago.
And I bet she's going to love being included in the article...
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Is Bush an example of the conservative investment in meritocracy?
I assume that the claim was meant ironically.
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My visceral response
to the alarming disparity in male/female college enrollments is that we've spent several decades telling men and boys that they're stupid, oafish, crude, etc. I think we are now reaping what we sowed. We don't need to have affirmative action for young men, we need to stop the deluge of negative messages, particularly about intelligence. For starters, Salon could remove the picture of the boy in the dunce cap from this article.
And the idea that there aren't any positive role models for boys is beyond absurd. If you can't think of any learned, erudite men, who have made more and better contributions to human progress than women can even dream about, you ARE stupid.
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affirmative action
KR said:
"The accepted basis for affirmative action programs (via Grutter v. Bollinger) is that 'diversity is a good thing.'"
Actually, the basis for affirmative action is to promote greater representation of groups who have been discriminated against, not just people who are underrepresented by the numbers. White men, as a group, have never been discriminated against - regardless of what some of them would like to think.
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How telling
"And the idea that there aren't any positive role models for boys is beyond absurd. If you can't think of any learned, erudite men, who have made more and better contributions to human progress than women can even dream about, you ARE stupid."
The entire point of affirmative action is to increase opportunities for under-represented populations. If men already have these role models and the same opportunities, they don't need affirmative action.
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thats a relief
"Basically, the gap between men and women in college comes almost entirely from Black and Hispanics, and most of that comes from poor and working class families. Among white families, there the gender gap is quite minimal, if it exists at all, especially in the middle and upper classes.
Solving the "gender gap" means figuring out why Black and Hispanic men do not attend college at the rates that white men do. End of story. "
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Well now that we have realized the problem is one faced by racial minorities, and not men in general, the female liberals can breathe a sigh of relief. No more squirming! I mean issues concerning racial minorities are ones we can get behind! When it was just a more general issue about white males, yuck, no liberal in her right mind could summon sympathy for "them." Phew, now we can all feel better and the universe is righted!
The racial explanation does not address the increasingly symptomatic problems young males of all races are having in elementary school and middle school.
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Success Is Relative
When I was in elementary school I had terrible problems with math and, to a lesser extent, science. Tested in the 7th grade, I discovered I had disabilities in quantitative reasoning and abstract functions. This diagnosis allowed me to skip all but Algebra I and II and Geometry I and II while earning a "college preparatory" diploma. I went on to a state university, graduated with honors, and am now a successful professional. How does this relate to the article at hand, other than the fact that I am a guy?
Simple: If at any point some idiot from the district office had decided to pull the rug out from under me by denying my disability claim, thus pushing me into such self-explanatory subjects as trigonometry, chemistry, physics and calculus, I would have failed to graduate at all, let alone as a college preparatory student. Most of the folks at the district office were women, and they were universally skeptical of my claim. I was re-tested repeatedly while in high school. Meanwhile, girls with similar problems were assumed to be telling the truth and had no trouble at all.
So if there is a war against boys, its been going on a long time. I know because I experienced it first hand...from '79 to '83.