The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has just published a new report entitled “Where the Girls Are” that concludes that schools are not handicapping boys in order to address perceived gaps in education for girls. They conclude:
“Educational achievement is not a zero-sum game, in which a gain for one group results in a corresponding loss for the other. If girls’ success comes at the expense of boys, one would expect to see boys’ scores decline as girls’ scores rise, but this has not been the case.”
Perhaps not, but are SATs the whole story? My biggest concern as an educator is the declining enrollment among young men in college. In this previous post, I noted that the official student profile report published by the California Postsecondary Education Commission reports that enrollment by women in the CSU, of which Cal Poly is a part, grew from 53.2% to 57% between 1993 and 2003. In the University of California system, enrollment by women grew from 50.6% to 53.5% over the same period.
If schools are so great for guys, as the AAUW claims, why are their college enrollment numbers dropping?
If we have schools largely staffed by women and run according to female rules, is it any wonder males don’t want to play? My all-time favorite symptom from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: “Often gets up from seat when remaining in seat is expected.” Isn’t it easier to change your expectations about remaining seated than to diagnose and treat a psychological disorder?
In itself, this “symptom” shows a lack of understanding of physiology. Five-year-old boys already have about 40% more muscle mass than 5-year-old girls, and the body works according to a “use it or lose it” rule. But we’ve all been taught the 70s mantra that any differences between males and females are socialized, so we should be able to socialize activity levels out of males.
At the college level, I am astonished to hear from my students about the “male-bashing” that takes place in classrooms. If you substitute another “group” name into statements about men, people would be horrified, yet it seems “okay” to say anything negative you want about males. I wouldn’t want to sit in class and hear those things about myself, either.
So I hope that other researchers continue the work of the AAUW, but remember to look beyond test scores to how people are treated as people. Or not.
9 Comments
Whitney Ford · May 20, 2008 at 11:06 am
This is interesting, I agree with you about the male-bashing, this behavior seems to be accepted when it is men being “bashed”, if this were turned around and it were men “bashing” women, people would erupt in anger and this is just not fair. Men have to be overly careful about what they say about women in order to avoid the sexist card, but it does not seem to be the same for women.
JolieByrne · May 20, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I think that male-bashing is definitely a problem in today’s society. Not only is there a certain amount of prejudice against them in the classroom, but this inequality carries over into everyday life. It is interesting to note that if a woman is proud of being female, then she is called a “feminist” and this has a positive connotation. However, if a man is proud of being male, then he is called “sexist” by most people. We need to get rid of our double standard and establish some real equality.
itsmuoi4 · May 21, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Like the person above is saying…I sense a double standard or bias in this and of course who would want to be talked about negatively. However, I think the increase in females working in classrooms and the toleration of “male-bashing” may have an effect on the decrease of males in school but not strongly. Thinking reversely, when males use to dominate the education system and females weren’t allowed to attend certain schools or the armies, would we blame that on the males and “female-bashing”? The increase in numbers of females, to me, is a sense of determination against previous gender bias. If previously schools were unfair to women and now it is unfair to men, maybe we should look at how the women escape the unfairness and apply it to men. (I don’t know if any of this makes sense 🙂
mbernie · May 21, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I personally have never heard any “male bashing” but maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention. I’ve heard that women can handle more tasks at once and that men are better at doing one task or very few tasks very skillfully. This in itself may be the reason why men, more and more, are choosing not to go to school. Women are finding more success, perhaps, in school because they can handle the many tasks that school entails on the other hand men might be finding that they want to focus on a career in one area rather than doing school. This comes from the evolutionary view that men had to be very skillful hunters, which took years to develop and hours if not days to make the kill and women had to handle the home, cooking the food, childcare, etc.
A_Jolly · May 24, 2008 at 10:14 am
Inequality is still very prevalent among males and females but I must say that I am glad I am female because I think males have much more pressure to be providers and to be tough and yadda yadda. I think we all know good and well that men are expected to be “men” and women have alot more freedom to be whatever they want to be. To comment on the whole ADHD (not staying in thier seat) thing, I think that goes back to the hunter/gatherer days. Men with or without ADHD should be more inclined to “wander off” and feel the need to burn off energy. And as far as the “higher female college enrollment” aspect, I think it is mainly due to the fact that females want higher pay. At least that’s my reason for attending. I could only hope to make at least half of what my husband makes (90K with absolutely no college education.) But I think about my parents (she has a bachelors degree but still only makes half of what my father makes and he has only a high school diploma). But even with those figures, I’m still glad to be a female. And even though men make more money than women, and don’t always say the right thing, and all the rest of the stuff that makes women mad, I don’t think that “male bashing” helps anyone accomplish anything.
jmgraham · May 27, 2008 at 12:56 pm
The never ending male-female battle of dominance. As far as college enrollment, I think there are so many different aspects to consider. Like the maturing of the frontal cortex for example: females mature before males, one side affect being that males find it harder (for the while that they’re behind) to focus on future rewards for present behaviors. Consequently, that could have an affect on their work ethic in high school for college enrollment. That among so many other variables…so I think it’s unrealistic to simply blame women for being the cause of lessened male college enrollment. I do however agree about the double standards for “male bashing”. The men are just supposed to take it while the women are allowed to be offended. But, let us all remember, that there are still way more female sexist jokes out there than male jokes…I think it’s just a matter of when and where you are. Both male and female “bashing” is occurring and will continue to occur until true equality, comfort in one’s own place, and appreciation for the other sex is obtained.
l.ogden · May 27, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I am not too worried about female enrollment exceeding male enrollment. Perhaps it is a brief period of overcompensation from new found feminist encouragement, which gives females in general a little extra motivation. Maybe part of this is that women have equal opportunity now, so we must take advantage of it, where the male perspective is that he can do what he wants as he has always been able to do. Also I think high school male peers are tougher on men who want to study more (rather than do as little as possible in order to have more social time) than women are on their female peers. Various factors contribute to the current enrollment changes, but I think it is just part of the ebb and flow which will change in different directions throughout time.
gferraro · May 28, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Why are children expected to have the attention span of an adult? I think that we put too much pressure on children learning concrete information, which is especially hard for the boys. When I was little I went to an alternative school where they believed that social learning was more important than sitting us down for eight hours a day. I think that this was way easier especially for the boys. Obviously since children are sponges and we need to teach them but we also need to take into consideration their needs. Boys should’t be given “special treatment” but they should be recognized as different.
KCCHAFFEE · June 2, 2008 at 6:55 pm
For the last few years I have worked with middle school students who have “issues or poblems,” atleast by the schools definition. Usually it’s something having to do with social behaviors, family life, or academic underachievement. After many times simply trying to talk to them about their “issues,” what I found was that if they are given an alternative, such as a sport to play, or a project to do, they respond much better. I believe that schools need to take into account the fact that not just boys, but girls as well, are growing, active people. It would be in both the schools and students best interest to try to incorporate some more physical and artistic activities into a normal school day. This would help with the restlessness the teachers are constantly trying to eliminate and would help boys to become more interested in being at school in the first place.
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