{"id":11916,"date":"2018-11-25T18:13:33","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T00:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=11916"},"modified":"2018-11-25T18:13:33","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T00:13:33","slug":"girls-rule-boys-drool-part-nth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/11\/girls-rule-boys-drool-part-nth.html","title":{"rendered":"“Girls Rule, Boys Drool”, part Nth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ann Althouse regularly observes that if a data item tends to show men better off or better at something in some area or another, it\u2019s taken as a sure sign of sexism.\u00a0 If, on the other hand, women are revealed to be better at something, it\u2019s a sign of women\u2019s innate superiority.<\/p>\n

Witness a September article from the New York Times that I happened to stumble upon:\u00a0 \u201cWhere Boys Outperform Girls in Math:\u00a0 Rich, White and Suburban Districts<\/a>\u201c; the key item in this article is a graphic, which is reproduced at Coyote Blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"
http:\/\/www.coyoteblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/gender-gap.png<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The upshot\u00a0of the data visualized in this manner is that, up through eighth grade, girls perform better than boys on\u00a0English tests regardless of their socioeconomic status but that, on average, boys and girls score the same at math tests, though this masks gender gaps swinging in different directions depending on whether the children attended richer or poorer schools.<\/p>\n

If one takes it as a given that, as seems to be borne out by longtime understanding of relative skills of each sex, girls are better at verbal skills and boys better at the sort of skills that underlie math skills, then this shows that boys in poor families and poor areas are in serious trouble.\u00a0 And the Times recognizes this, to a certain degree, writing,<\/p>\n

Black and Latino boys and those in poor neighborhoods often get the message that doing well in school is not manly, a variety of research has found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the article still misses the point when it focuses on girls\u2019 academic success as normal, but elements in which boys do better as something for which blame must be assigned and which must be overcome:<\/p>\n

Although well-off districts encourage boys in math, they don\u2019t seem to encourage girls in the same way. Researchers say it probably has to do with deeply ingrained stereotypes that boys are better at math.<\/p>\n

Teachers often underestimate girls\u2019 math abilities, according to research by Sarah Lubienski of Indiana University and Joseph Cimpian of New York University, who also found the gender gap in math was largest for students from high-income families. They found that as girls move through elementary school, they lose confidence in their math skills \u2013 more than they lose interest or achievement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in the meantime, 56% of college students are female<\/a>, as are 57% of new college graduates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oh, and in the meantime, Boy Scouts of America invited girls to join its primary program, no longer \u201cBoy Scouts\u201d but merely \u201cScouts,\u201d in sex-specific troops, and the Girl Scouts has now sued them<\/a> claiming that they have the exclusive rights to the name \u201cScouts\u201d in connection to girls (incidentally, this is something that was not an issue in other English-speaking countries when the boys\u2019 organization invited girls in because the girls\u2019 organization had always called themselves \u201cGirl Guides\u201d).\u00a0 But the differences between the GSUSA and the BSA\u2019s offerings for children is striking, as the Boy Scouts, or Scouts, or \u201cBSA,\u201d continues its emphasis on character development, leadership, and the outdoors and the Girl Scouts promotes Girlpower!, for instance, with a new push for STEM programs<\/a> to increase girls\u2019 interest in, and eventually women\u2019s representation in, STEM fields, as described in Friday\u2019s Trib (with an emphasis on promoting jobs \u201coutside of stereotypical science roles\u201d\/outside of laboratories, though it\u2019s not entirely clear what that meant, that is, if it was simply meant as a wide-ranging introduction to careers or they had something else in mind; some time ago, in a blog post I can no longer find, I wrote that girls are being told that they can be scientists without being nerds in an implicit rebuke of boys as nerds).<\/p>\n

So, again, society is throwing all manner of resources into girls\u2019 success, then lamenting that young men are increasingly failing to succeed in life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/wwworks\/15344079560<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ann Althouse regularly observes that if a data item tends to show men better off or better at something in some area or another, it\u2019s taken as a sure sign of sexism.\u00a0 If, on the other hand, women are revealed to be better at something, it\u2019s a sign of women\u2019s innate superiority. Witness a September […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[440],"class_list":["post-11916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boys"],"yoast_head":"\n"Girls Rule, Boys Drool", part Nth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ann Althouse regularly observes that if a data item tends to show men better off or better at something in some area or another, it's taken as a sure sign\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/11\/girls-rule-boys-drool-part-nth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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