Some people think that boys are hard-wired so that they learn more slowly, perhaps because they evolved to fight off wolves more than to raise their hands in classrooms.But why has the problem gotten worse lately?
[In “Why Boys Fail,” by Richard Whitmire] argues that the basic problem is an increased emphasis on verbal skills, often taught in sedate ways that bore boys. “The world has gotten more verbal,” he writes. “Boys haven’t.”...Hey, I thought we needed to worry about fanning the flames of violence. Face it, Kristof, the world of men has ended. You — you men — in your geekhood, transformed your world of action into a world of text, and we women sat down and started typing, typing circles around you, the way we talk circles around you from the earliest possible moment ...
Some educators say that one remedy may be to encourage lowbrow, adventure or even gross-out books that disproportionately appeal to boys....
Indeed, the more books make parents flinch, the more they seem to suck boys in. A Web site, guysread.com, offers useful lists of books to coax boys into reading, and they are helpfully sorted into categories like “ghosts,” “boxers, wrestlers, ultimate fighters,” and “at least one explosion.”
... and so women rule and women will rule... unless somebody pulls the plug.
Posts
151 comments:
Until suddenly, a foreign enemy sees our wordy weakness and the battle is on.
Then we need the real men, the fighters, the action heroes, to rescue the verbose.
Baby is cute. She is so ready to talk.
Me, I would drink and wear headphones. It's a good thing I didn't become a mom, I'd be in jail.
Doug---we posted simultaneously.
Your strategy doesn't work with us happy bluestockings.
Well, let's talk about that later on!!!!! -:)
In my work, I help a lot of hands-on kinda guys go to college. Live in a culture without much of a reading habit.
There is a huge difference between the guys who never read anything and the guys who read the newspaper and magazines about their hobbies and technical manuals.
Even a bit of recreational reading keeps up the reading comprehension and exposure to proper grammar and spelling. It's huge in maintaining those verbal skills.
But The Canon (Cannon?) of what gets read in school--it's about relationships and cultural diversity and yawn.
I support Guy Reading.
"we women sat down and started typing, typing circles around you..."
I'm not sure why getting to do all the work is the benefit. Keep typing and working.
We're just going to sit a spell, until a spider needs killing or the trash has to be taken out.
If women are such masters of the word and men are grunting, silent idiots how come men still write better than women?
Verbosity and eloquence are different things.
Zing!
If you emphasize teaching to girls and not boys then you end up with what we have. Girls have gained and surpassed the boys.
We also have the pussification of America to contend with. God forbid a boy gets mad or shows any anger. Off to meet with Stuart Smalley you go.
Hey and if boys want to be boys give them some drugs to make them calm down.
"But why?"
There is one, and only one explanation: It's transparently institutionalized and societally-approved sexism on a genocidal scale.
Students are taught by our Womens' Studies professors to deliberately undervalue what men have to offer, since we're all rapists and subjegators. Teachers, thusly, grade boys lower intentionally on subjective matters such as verbal ability that cannot be quantified. This bestows self-esteem on the girls - or something.
Men must be penalized as a form of reparations for the patriarchal sins of their fathers.
The Pope can rape the little deaf virgin Larry's - and get away with it - whereas he'd be strung up in the Vatican courtyard by his neck until dead if his priest-molesters were raping little Virgin Mary.
Society hates men because we teach this hatred in our colleges and universities. Entire departments are devoted to the dehumanization of men.
Look across the quad, Ann. You're part of the problem.
"we women sat down and started typing, typing circles around you..."
If you give 12 women 12 typewriters and an infinite amount of time...
Remember to click on the links.
The government controls education. Subdued and passive people are easier to subjugate. Women tend to vote for Democrats and other collectivists because they like feeling taken-care-of.
The 19th Amendment ensured our eventual enslavement.
I did! I'm just being provocative!
Baby in the clip: See, Mom and Dad, I have the delivery down pat, now just slip me some words and I'm done here.
"Remember to click on the links"
More reading?!
So bossy!
Not even some tantalizing ghost or boxer to tempt us even. Click on the link to read more emotional stories about people who study other peoples reading habits? No thanks! Not unless there's something that explodes out of Kristof's head.
ooohhh... terrorism....
cyberterrorism? What a ripoff. Nothing ever explodes in cyberterrorism. I get charged for more electricity, that's all.
We have only option and that's to say "Yes Dear" and then to go on doing what we want! In other words: "Screw 'em!"
The education establishment has surrendered to Politically Correct denial of men's skills as worthy of merit. That finishes off the lost boys who have had no father type to around to teach them manhood. It is those two devastating blows that leaves behind 30 year old boys who refuse to be destroyed again by ever trying to act as a man should act again. I did re-watch Gran Torino on HBO last night, and that was Clint's message to us. Society's now recommended all powerful force is the Alinsky method's ridiculing skill. It has become a mean and nasty world now because of that skill, and the Blogosphere has become its finishing school.
@Paddy That's not the link that was crucial to understanding what I'm saying.
Don't read everything at the links, necessarily, but please see what the links are. The links sometimes complete punchlines, etc.
When women rule the house will fall,
To say that takes a lot of gall;
But look around and watch them jabber,
Oblivious to all but their palaver.
Wait, I'm a homosexual man, I don't ever have to listen to women...
Except for mom and Liza Minnelli
We have the great example of a gynocracy in action with our public school system. How's that working out for you?
Besides writing better, men dominate all the arts, technological development, scientific discovery, and the crafting and building of pretty much everything.
Feminism is just another tentacle of cultural Marxism designed to overthrow the established order and is fulfilling its goal to weaken and destroy us.
Women in charge are sure to get us all enslaved or dead before it's all over.
Wait, this has something to do with Nancy Pelosi doesn't it?
Verification word: tweecat. An unmanful pussy!
I was a math prodigy as a child and I remember taking a test in 8th grade where I scored off the charts in math and ok in verbal. By the time I took the GRE I scored off the charts in verbal and OK in math. My anecdotal view is that boys take longer to get good at verbal skills because they just aren't that important until you start trying to attract girls and even then they aren't that important if the girls are naturally attracted to you.
I was trying to think of the various books I had to read during my time in public school and all I could come up with off the top of my head was:
-Great Expectations
-Wuthering Heights
-A Separate Peace
-Various Shakespeare works
-Various poems by early American writers
-Hatchet
-The Girl Who Owned a City
-Walden (selected readings)
I think there may be something to the argument that the reading lists are not male friendly.
"Besides writing better, men dominate all the arts, technological development, scientific discovery, and the crafting and building of pretty much everything."
Plus we have the peens! Don't forget the peens!
Verification word: punfun. What do you get when you toss a stick of dynamite into a French kitchen? Linoleum Blownapart!
You — you men — in your geekhood, transformed your world of action into a world of text
We created the internet for the cheap distribution of porn, not text. You'd keep everyone at 1200 baud in a grass hut.
One more thing, the boys really haven't fallen behind when you get to elite positions in science and math. Much to Larry Summers dismay.
Palladian said...
"Wait, I'm a homosexual man, I don't ever have to listen to women...
Except for mom and Liza Minnelli"
Even then, it's all a bluff.
Here, I'll answer Freud's question for you once and for all:
What do women want? To be dominated by strong good men.
The alternative is neurosis in women and suicide in men.
On a side note I remember back in 10th grade my English teacher used to have our class play taboo.
Being the ardent feminist she was she felt the need to divide the class into a team of boys and a team of girls. We probably played it about 10 or 12 times throughout the entire year and the guys never lost a single match, even when she helped the other team.
Jayne, are you calling Shakespeare a pussy? Come on! I don't know what Shakespeare you read, but there's more than enough violence, murder, intrigue, war and ghosts to undo the psychological damage of being forced to read Wuthering Heights.
"...boys take longer to get good at verbal skills because they just aren't that important until you start trying to attract girls..."
Girls are really attracted to boys who can conjugate.
I got a perfect score on both parts of the SAT. But even that didn't impress Lance, the soccer captain in my homeroom.
This isn't a big problem at Cal Tech and MIT. Where real talent wins, men do fine. Where BS wins....
These statistics may be testing red haired women against brown haired men. No wonder there is all this confusion.
So if we just make The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs mandatory reading in fourth grade everything will be okay.
The systematic cultural denigration of manhood came out of the closet the year "Shakespeare in Love" out polled "Saving Private Ryan" at the Academy Awards.
Remember to click on the links.
Well, your link "fanning the flames of violence" leads to a whole list of articles. Can I assume that the article by Boortz is the one you wanted us to read?
My own take is that the female K-12 teachers from about twenty years ago onwards entered the system believing the feminist propaganda that the curriculum was slanted against girls, and subsequently they unconsciously -- and sometimes consciously and even blatantly -- slanted the educational program against boys.
So what is the measurable upshot? Well, 60% of the college population is female, and some college administrators admit that if they didn't put their thumb on the scales to admit more men the same way they did, or do, for underrepresented minorities, then it would be even worse. Consequently 1/3 of all graduating women should expect to either not marry or marry a man with much less education. I don't think that's good.
But just as it was with African-Americans back in the 60's and 70's, the first step to be taken by the educational establishment is to recognize that they are biased, and to take action to fix that. Starting with the curriculum.
A final thought -- if we exclude women whose degree is in any field that ends with the word "studies," then they can marry a man who has no college and not be particularly educationally advanced with respect to their spouse. Personal opinion from a mathematician.
Palladian,
I'm not calling Shakespeare a pussy but I am suggesting that when you are in junior high and high school the vast majority of guys are not particularly interested in it.
Now perhaps that would change if they focused on the war, deaths, and intrigue found within the works but most schools have done away with such discussions.
What do women want? To be dominated by strong good men.
Did you really write that, Meade? Your spouse has a better sense of humor than mine if she caught me typing words like that.
jayne, I suppose that's why they read "Romeo and Juliet" instead of "Henry V". Actually they don't read "Romeo and Juliet" anymore either because of the dark spectre of teen suicide.
@Palladian, jayne is quite right. For instance if you translated the duel at the end of "Macbeth" into modern talk it would come out sort of like:
"Get outta my sight, MacDuff, I've killed been killing MacDuffs until I'm bored with it."
I submit that then the boys would eat it up.
Women will rule until the shit hits the fan. Then the smart ones will discover the value of men, and the stupid feminists will die.
What do women want? To be dominated by strong good men.
I doubt that dominated is the word to be used here.
Partner with, perhaps.
Domination doesn't belong in ANY relationship whether from the man or the woman's perspective.
"Don't read everything at the links, necessarily, but please see what the links are. The links sometimes complete punchlines, etc."
A good writer doesn't rely on others to finish their punch lines.
Deleted-for bad grammar-I was empathizing with the men too much.
I think we're all agreed that the feminist war on men has a big part in this, but would we have a TOTUS for POTUS if assertive men weren't driven into the hills?
Just as the National Socialists have worked the past generation to split the country into petty, bickering camps (black vs white, Hispanic vs Anglo, etc.), haven't they also done everything possible to neutralize opposition to them by denigrating the one group who would otherwise oppose them with revolution? Think about it.
Ann Althouse said...
... and so women rule and women will rule... unless somebody pulls the plug.
No, geeks rule and most of them are guys, so women will have to defer at some point. Sorry; but, when somebody does pull the plug, we may wish we had more of the old-fashioned kind around.
Doug Wright-OG said...
There's only way to regain our manly rule: Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, just like we used to!
Does that include The Zero?
A big problem is the emphasis on rote learning rather than problem solving. This is exacerbated by No Child Left Behind and other federal programs which emphasize testing.
That said, I agree with other commenters that just plain discrimination is a big contributor.
(In a related vein, my oldest son hates reading most books. He will, however, read material that he can apply, like a manual for a game. I made the brilliant suggestion that he write book reports on computer manuals. That went nowhere, but if you think about it, such reports would be far more valuable than yet another summary of a fiction book. BTW, his solution was more elegant--he wrote reports on non-existent books. Still cracks me up.)
Oh and
What is the internet really for?
DBQ
LOL!
We gotta keep the funny guys around.
Speaking of Shakespeare, my eleventh grade English teacher got even the otherwise disinterested druggies involved by using Twelfth Night and teaching us what it really meant (she skipped the oral sex innuendo, but there was enough left over to keep everyone entertained.) This was 1979. You couldn't get away with it today.
Other things she did: we read the play out loud in class since it's, well, A PLAY--meant to be performed and not read--and then we went to a production (in Albany at the egg in the Empire State Plaza [a reference to an Althouse post some months ago.])
It worked. Kids that had displayed almost no interest before got involved.
What do women want? To be dominated by strong good men.
The alternative is neurosis in women and suicide in men.
Meade I doubt it, and it begs the age old question; what came first the neurosis, or the egg.
[yes, I know I'm botching the hell out of that.]
My son did not like school. He was hyperactive and hated sitting still. He wanted to be out doing something active. I tried everything and then he discovered history and sports biographies. He was particularly interested in the Civil War and started asking for books on the subject.
One day the school called and told me they were banning him from the school library. I asked why, did he cause a disruption, did he mutilate a book, what? And I was told no, nothing like that. The librarian was concerned that his choice of reading was too limited and had too much emphasis on war and sports. So the solution, in the stupid school's mind, was to ban him from access to any books. I, in my naiveté, was happy to know he was reading anything, but the school wanted to punish him.
"We are investigating the relationship between media coverage and political information."
Really? At the end of the survey it said you were testing correlation between political positions, political knowledge, and belief in authoritarianism.
"The librarian was concerned that his choice of reading was too limited and had too much emphasis on war and sports."
Wow. Instead of banning books, they are banning the boy. That's obscene censorship and that librarian and school should be made to realize this. That's worth a lawsuit right there, preventing your child from an equal education.
I agree the boy pundits at the NYT have falled behind. Cause Herbert, Friedman, Krugman, Brooks and Kristof suck big time.
I wonder what is like to get a liberal group's press release, use it to cut and paste your OPED column and get paid well to do that!
The boys haven't fallen behind. Men and women are tied at the hip, all the boys who have fallen behind are the future husbands of the women who have 'pulled ahead' of them, and women will be falling over themselves to marry them.
Women are smarter than men, that's the fact. Females, even at the younger ages are more mature and more focused on achievement than boys. Just the way it is. I am from the first huge wave of women going to college for things other than a MRS. I have a daughter that went to a coed, albeit private, grammar school and a single sex high school. Loved the single sex high school. In fact in the 7th grade the math teacher experimented with separating the boys and the girls for the first semester. She had to combine them back the second semester because the girls were so far ahead of the boys they would have finished the text and the years work in March. Hmmm. That was 13 years ago.
Why aren't boys achieving, got me. My grandson is reading at a second grade level in kindergarten and is assigned extra homework because he does his homework i 5 minutes and wants more. He requested the extra work. Maybe we need to clone him.
Really, the excuses that they are taught by women who were women's studies majors is just a load of crap. They are taught by the same type of women that have always taught. If men would grow a pair and try teaching, maybe the boys today wouldn't be so "pussified".
Vicki from Pasadena
"The librarian was concerned that his choice of reading was too limited and had too much emphasis on war and sports."
A similar thing happened to me in the ninth grade. After writing several reports for world history class on various battles, the teacher took me aside and told me to not write any more reports on war.
(Contrast that to a later teacher who, after I wrote some papers on space exploration, invited me to attend a series of seminars at RPI on space exploration given by luminaries. Or another teacher [American History] who picked me to attend a conference on the Holocaust. The latter teacher worked really hard at getting students involved--he was a true honor to the teaching profession.)
"Women are smarter than men, that's the fact."
That's a self-refuted argument if I've ever heard one...
South Park used to closely follow current events and discussions of trends in the NYT...now it anticipates them.
This reminds me of those churchgoers who pray for an hour a week — in public — and spend the rest of their time engaging in whatever nasty behavior they please. Why do they do this? Do they think they'll get absolution? Eh. You have to actually believe to think there's absolution. If they really believed, they wouldn't behave like that. I think they, in their selfish interest, hope to gain favor and to prompt other people to believe and behave virtuously"
This is the single reason why I don't believe in organized religion. I worked with a man in the '70's who would yell at people if they weren't "saved" or "born again". They he would go and cheat on his vouchers to get an extra buck or 2 from the company. Jerk.
Vicki from Pasadena
Women are smarter than men, that's the fact.
Says the new misandrist. You liberals are really full of shit.
"We created the internet for the cheap distribution of porn, not text."
This may get to the problem. Now that males have such easy access to porn, it has sapped their energy to achieve for the purpose of getting to real women. Without that motivation... why?
HKatz,
Overlapping bell curves.
It is in men's nature to look outwards and to explore more so than women. To abstract rather than socialize.
That being said I'd infinitely prefer a President Palin to the sociopath-in-chief we're suffering under now, if for no other reason than the fact that she possesses more of the masculine leadership qualities than the entire Democrat party combined.
That and the fact that she loves her country, as opposed to having been raised to despise and to conspire to destroy it.
Yes Ann. Men have issues with the written word. I guess that explains the dearth of male novelists, thinkers and writers over human history.
Christ Althouse- that sounds like the bogus reasoning one would read in the NYT.
I take back earlier compliment about you. You have obviously peaked and are now in a state of mental decline. Heh.
Palladian said...
"Women are smarter than men, that's the fact."
That's a self-refuted argument if I've ever heard one...
Exactly right. If women really were smarter than men, they wouldn't be writing and buying books like THIS.
All men are inferior except men descended from Vicki's loins.
--Vicki
Men would screw all day and night
Except they can't and so they settle for
Writing, painting, composing, building towers to the sky
And beating the shit out of other men.
Now that males have such easy access to porn, it has sapped their energy to achieve...
Democrat entitlement programs=porn.
ed: Nothing manly includes "The Zero!"
"This may get to the problem. Now that males have such easy access to porn, it has sapped their energy to achieve for the purpose of getting to real women."
Not all males do their work out of the desire to get to "real women". Leaving aside the fact that you discount the contributions of homosexual men by that logic, it's a fundamental mistake to reduce human motivation to sexual pursuit. I believe such simplistic ideas are wishful thinking on the part of women, because if women don't believe that men do everything that they do in pursuit of the sexual conquest of women, it confirms their fear that men actually have higher pursuits and motivations and that women are really just brood-mares and caretakers after all.
The (heterosexual) successful men that I know, and I'm talking about scientists and engineers not sports figures or actors, pursued their vocations in spite of women not in pursuit of them.
"All men are inferior except men descended from Vicki's loins.
--Vicki"
vicki doesn't capitalize, ricpic! sexist! patriarch! inferior!
ricpic, that would be downright nasty except for the fact that I am not genetically linked to my grandson, son of my step-son. Eat that, rightie jerk.
And Alex, nasty, nasty. You have just proven my point. Do not have to resort to profanity to get my point across. The vast, I mean vast majority of the profanity I read on this blog comes from men. I have to assume that you are uneducated men who cannot find works in your vocabulary or even a Roget's Thesaurus to get your point across. Really, you liberals are full of shit. Tell me something new, that one is getting pretty tired. We're all full of it on both sides. Except we have the decency at least provide he public a better standard bearer that Joe the plumber. Don't you think his 15 minutes are up.
My daughter, who is a MCCain lover saw the pictures of McCain and Palin yesterday and asked, " Does McCain not want to get re-elected?" Hmmm Food for thought.
Hey Meade, we don't by Hustler or any of those "titty" magazines. Must prove something. I suspect that reading and beating off to those obviously airbrushed pictures of unrealistic female forms must drain the testosterone from your(not you specifically,men in general) loins.
Vicki from Pasadena
"Now that males have such easy access to porn, it has sapped their energy to achieve for the purpose of getting to real women. "
As Balzac said, there goes another novel.
vicki, don't bother with "Alex". He's not a real commenter. In the next thread he'll say inflammatory things about "teabaggers" to get the right-wingers all riled up.
He's the world's lamest agent provocateur.
Women are smarter than men, that's the fact. Females, even at the younger ages are more mature and more focused on achievement than boys. Just the way it is. I am from the first huge wave of women going to college for things other than a MRS. I have a daughter that went to a coed, albeit private, grammar school and a single sex high school. Loved the single sex high school. In fact in the 7th grade the math teacher experimented with separating the boys and the girls for the first semester. She had to combine them back the second semester because the girls were so far ahead of the boys they would have finished the text and the years work in March. Hmmm. That was 13 years ago.
No, your data doesn't support your conclusion. I can accept that girls do much better in school, at least until college. But the rest of it? Try explaining why males still almost entirely dominate in Nobel science prizes.
I think that the better explanation is first that girls really are a bit ahead of boys up through maybe high school.
But, as importantly, K-12 in particular, has been feminized. Males need a lot more activity. So, what do they do? Ban games on the school ground, eliminate recess, and sedate the boys who can't, as a result, sit still.
I saw this dynamic as my kid went through school. An amazing amount of credit is now given for homework, group projects, and oral presentations. Back when I was in HS some 40 years ago, I could overcome bad homework grades for refusing to do mindless busy work, by acing the tests. And group products? My physics lab partner in HS would cheat off my tests and get Ds, while I would usually get the high grade. You wonder why I don't like group projects?
Not any more. Back then, I might get an A- or B+ if I got a high grade on the tests. Now, maybe a C+, or at best, A-.
I really couldn't do the drudgery required until my mid-20s, well after my first college degree. A lot of it had to do with male hormones.
So, we moan about our males falling behind our females, when what we are really doing is complaining that our males are just not female enough and don't excel in the same areas as the females do.
All the boys
want to talk
Would like to talk about those problems
And the girls
say they're concerned
That they are
concerned with decisiveness
And it's all
Hard logic
To follow and the
Girls get lost
And the boys
say they're concerned
That they are
concerned with decisiveness
Women are smarter than men, that's the fact.
This is a completely stupid statement.
There are many different types of intelligence. Some are generally gender related in that males tend to be better at math, sciences, spatial relationship. While women are more verbally orientated.
Some people are more musical and others are mechanical.
To say one gender is "smarter" than the other is foolish because there is no comparison between different mental strong suits.
The best poet in the world is not any smarter than the best mechanic in the world.
Completely different skill sets and different mental processes. This doesn't mean that the poet can't also be a mechanic. Some mental processes are compatable with others, like math and music. But neither make one person smarter than the other.
But to make a blanket statement that women are smarter than men....is frankly ignorant and shows a great deal of prejudicial thinking.
Men and women do tend to have different mental processing and differing strenghts. This is why we NEED each other. Compatability.
The girls don't want to play like that,
They just want to talk to the boys.
The just want to do what is in their hearts,
And the girls want to be with the girls.
Girls want things that make common sense,
The best for all concerned.
They don't want to have to go out of their way,
And the girls want to be with the girls.
Girls are getting into abstract analysis,
They want to make intuitive leap.
They are making plans that have far reaching effects.
And the girls want to be with the girls.
And the boys say, "What do you mean?"
And the boys say, "What do you mean?"
Well there is just no love,
When there's boys and girls.
And the girls want to be with the girls,
And the girls want to be with the girls....
This is precisely why we should fire all the teachers that are destroying young minds. They are overpaid failures and their bloated salaries and pension plans are bankrupting municipalities throughout the nation.
We should simply put kids in front of a computer to learn and attach electrodes to their gonads and shock them when they get something wrong.
Oh and water board the real dummies.
No, your data doesn't support your conclusion. I can accept that girls do much better in school, at least until college. But the rest of it? Try explaining why males still almost entirely dominate in Nobel science prizes.
Suppose men and women have the same average capability in math and science. If the distribution of female ability has a smaller standard deviation thant he male distribution, then you'll see more men in the extreme tails. More men at the very top (Nobel prizes). And more men at the very bottom (unable to do simple addition). And in fact, I think this is what we see.
As far as why a male class would advance more slowly than a female class, it might be because a male class has to move at the pace appropriate for its thickest member, who may be thicker than the thickest female. That and it's probably easier to teach a bunch of people all with about the same ability (the all-female class) than it is to teach a class with a wide range of abilities (the all-male class).
And of course, there's cultural and perhaps biological issues there too, as well. But differing male and female distributions could explain a lot.
Torture is essential to learning.
I went to Catholic school.
Torture is essential to learning.
Yes, I read below grade level in elementary school until it was beaten into me properly. Same with math!
I still have the imprint of a metal ruler in the back of my head.
I have to admit it knocked some sense into me.
I can't stand it that Dust Bunny is such an adult!..he he.
Men and women do tend to have different mental processing and differing strenghts. This is why we NEED each other. Compatability.
This and becuase men can open stuck jars and reach the high things in the kitchen and women will remember where you left your keys and socks.
:-D
I should add to my previous post that I have seen no evidence that females are smarter than males. Rather, it appears that both sexes have IQs on the bell curve with essentially the same mean. BUT, the standard deviation for males is greater, which means that there are more smarter males, just like there are more dumber males.
As a result of this, I have always wondered whether there was some linkage with IQ on the X chromosones. If so, then a female's two X chromosones would average out, while the male would get his IQ mostly from his mother.
There do seem to be other sex linked differences too, mostly to the detriment of males, such as significantly increased rates of autism, Asperger's, Downs (?), dyslexia, ADHD, etc.
A lot of women's better ability to communicate comes, I think, from the different ways that the two sexes' brains are wired (on average, of course). Female language centers are much more diffuse, and I believe they also have more interconnections between hemispheres. (Which is one reason why the women who have had strokes are apparently much more likely to regain speech than men are).
Palladian,
You're making too strong a correlation between academic achievement and intelligence. Which isn't a smart thing to do.
I think the whole problem with our country today is that not enough of the geeks and hipster dofus assholes that are running things did not get a pop in the mush to teach them some respect. See that's the problem with so much of the country these days. Most of these dudes needed a good smack once in a while to let them know what is what.
So when they cry about this and that, you can tell them "You want to cry...I will give you something to cry about."
It would really cut down on the whining.
On both sides of the aisle
When I was in school many of the male teachers and administrators were jocks and WWII military veterans, in long term marriages with children of their own.
They were good role models and there were no discipline problems (never mess with a jar head, never). Most had daughters so there was plenty of encouragement for the girls as well.
These days the administrators are likely to be women who think boys are noisy little delinquents who do not take well to mind control. Bring on the Ritalin!
Boys are led to believe school is primarily a source of punishment.
I have always wondered whether there was some linkage with IQ on the X chromosones. If so, then a female's two X chromosones would average out, while the male would get his IQ mostly from his mother.
That is a very interesting train of thought.
Much like the recessive gene for color blindness, which is carried only on the X chromosome. When there is an X(colorblind)Y there is 100% chance of color blindness. SO if a tendency to higher intelligence (IQ) or a higher level of math IQ is on the X gene it will be more dominantly expressed in the Male (XY) configuration than if it were on the XX configuration. Averaged out, as you say.
My mother was color blind. Carrying a double recessive on both genes. So naturally my brother is color blind and my male offspring have a 50/50 chance of having the syndrome.
"Remember to click on the links."
I don't click New York Times links.
Sorry, Ann.
If you want to make a point, find another propaganda outlet to quote that isn't undermining my country.
Our son was determined to have "fallen behind" when he failed to draw a nose on the "face test" drawing used to determine kindergarten readiness.
His answer, when asked later that day why he hadn't put a nose in his drawing: "Mom, I didn't know how to draw nostrils."
We took him out of the traditional school system at the end of 6th grade after he began experiencing severe headaches and talking about not wanting to live anymore. He re-entered the system again as a young adult, able to make his own choices and apply himself in ways that interested and worked for him
He currently works a set designer and master carpenter for a college theater program, successfully taking ideas from vision to concrete created reality, helping students do the same.
Sometimes a "missing nose" has a lot more to do with expectations than ability.
“The world has gotten more verbal,” he writes. “Boys haven’t.”
Bzzzzzzt. The education system has gotten more verbal, which isn't remotely the same thing as the world. Only an academic could fail to understand the difference.
UC-Davis in fall '07 was 44-56 male-female. Let's look at the six most-female of the top 20 majors, and the six most-male:
Human Development, 8-92
Animal Science, 17-83
Psychology, 28-72
English, 30-70
Sociology, 30-70
Communication, 32-68
Mechanical Engineering, 90-10
Civil Engineering, 75-25
Economics, 66-34
Managerial Economics, 60-40
History, 57-43
Mathematics, 56–44
Which set of those looks like it's preparing people for dealing with "the world", and which is just giving people academic credentials?
You know what's really cute, though? The woman with the Communication degree actually thinks she got an education for her tuition dollars.
Bruce, If you remember correctly, women have only been allowed to play reindeer games for the last 30-35 years. No Nobel laureates? Get ready. There will be plenty. Make all the excuses you want, girls rule, boys drool!! (Just having fun.
Vicki From Pasadena
Well, Ann, you're right. Women are move verbal, better typists, do what they're told in school and get better grades. Given all that, is there any possible reason to keep men around anymore, other than, say, for digging roots out of the yard?
"Given all that, is there any possible reason to keep men around anymore, other than, say, for digging roots out of the yard?"
I guess when the shit hits the fan and the time comes to hoist the black flag and start slitting some throats, Ann will appreciate having a man around.
I wonder if the learned lady readers will get the reference?
"I saw this dynamic as my kid went through school. An amazing amount of credit is now given for homework, group projects, and oral presentations."
Those were probably my least favorite activities in all my years of school.
-The homework (outside of math and science) was usually tedious busywork;
-Oral presentations scared the crap out of me and seemed pointless;
-Group projects pissed me off because it usually just ended up being one person doing all the work for everybody else.
For my money, Dust Bunny Queen nails the thread:
Some people are more musical and others are mechanical.
To say one gender is "smarter" than the other is foolish because there is no comparison between different mental strong suits.
The best poet in the world is not any smarter than the best mechanic in the world.
To this I would add that both genders have "outliers" that turn the usual assumptions of male/female talents on their heads.
And MamaM is exactly right, in my experience:
He currently works a set designer and master carpenter for a college theater program, successfully taking ideas from vision to concrete created reality, helping students do the same.
The successful set designers and electrics designers I've known are some of the sharpest, best-balanced people you could ever want to meet: sensitive and artistic, but pragmatic and highly skilled.
They rock.
Other things she did: we read the play out loud in class since it's, well, A PLAY--meant to be performed and not read--and then we went to a production (in Albany at the egg in the Empire State Plaza [a reference to an Althouse post some months ago.])
I always hated reading plays. It really makes no sense. I did like Julius Caesar.
K. Hussein,
"guys who read ... technical manuals."
National Semiconductor's manuals and application notes from the 80's and 90's were absolute treasures of clarity and informativeness, and were quite fun to read. Intel's weren't so bad either.
N. Hussein,
Hmmmm, somehow I missed out on all the rape and subjugation (though I do have some Viking ancestry via one branch of the family.) I suppose what you're saying is that it's too late now?
HKatz,
Oooooh, yeah! "A Good Man is Hard to Find".
Dusty Bunny: "I doubt that dominated is the word to be used here.
Partner with, perhaps.
Domination doesn't belong in ANY relationship whether from the man or the woman's perspective."
It's always been my impression that women have better orgasms with dominant men.
Let boys be boys. What they need is not to be embarassed about what they are into, yet raised by men who respect women and children. No wonder boys raised without men go wild.
You've been given a button by a powerful alien species. If you press the button, everyone who majored in Human Development, Animal Science, Psychology, English, Sociology, and Communication will forget everything they know about these six fields. If you don't press the button, every single person who majored in Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Economics, Managerial Economics, History, and Mathematics will forget everything they know about those six fields.
Would you push it?
take away the game boys. take away all video games for that matter except board games that teach socialization.
put the kids back in the arts as well as the playing field so they learn to communicate different things.
press the females to to even better. don't dumb them down to make the playing field level. make the boys compete. coming in second isn't a sin and men need to learn that.
I have a 5-year-old boy who never stops talking. Most of his sentences start with "Actually, . . ." He talks more than anyone else in the house. His part on stage next week is to sing the Latin noun endings (nominative, subject, genitive, possessive, dative, indirect object, accusative, direct object, ablative, object of the preposition). He learned it quickly from an audio CD. Right now he is thundering around the house being a superhero.
He has two older sisters who have homeschooled for three years. He never lacks for hearing yack, yack, yack. He also loves books on CD in the car. We don't buy cable TV, but we do watch a plethora of videos and play online games. But we don't watch "regular" TV.
He doesn't get along as well with other boys who aren't homeschooled. The boys in the homeschool group invent elaborate Star Wars games with a plot and play for hours. The older boys who go to regular school knock him down and egg him on for physical confrontation. Just an observation.
I think boys have indeed fallen behind in the "Race to the Moon" of success in our educational system. Why? Because we have discovered another group that is more compliant; in fact, which takes to compliance like ducks to water: girls.
This is of course in general. And note that I say success vis a vis the system rather than success. We have to stop marginalizing boys because they're different than girls.
take away the game boys. take away all video games for that matter except board games that teach socialization
You mess with me and my computer gaming at your own risk!!!
You think Monopoly teaches socialization? You've never played with me and my brother. Cut throat to the max.
@ Steven
Oh yes. Press the button.
But also hope that it doesn't wipe out the memories of those who majored in home economics studies. Someone needs to know how to make that Coconut Creme Pie.
take away the game boys. take away all video games for that matter except board games that teach socialization.
Since when is socialization the best skill to have?
As for gameboys and video games, my three youngest do socialize through their gameboys and games to a degree that would surprise you. They have also enhanced their creativity, not suppressed it. One of my sons wants to be a game designer--even if that doesn't work out, learning design and logic and how to verify designs is a very valuable skill.
My oldest son and I not only connected through World of Warcraft, but I've watched the kid organize and lead groups in tasks. I've watched him develop and execute strategies and gain friends from all over the world.
To dismiss computer games is to dismiss a very rich, rewarding environment for learning.
"But also hope that it doesn't wipe out the memories of those who majored in home economics studies. Someone needs to know how to make that Coconut Creme Pie."
I was one of the first groups of boys required to take Home Economics in middle school. I learned nothing in the class except that I liked Maypo and that I didn't like glass-topped stoves from the early seventies and I could cook and sew better than most of the girls.
Everything I learned about actual cooking I learned from watching (and reading) Julia Child and from my grandmother's battered old first American translation of the Larousse Gastronomique.
I loved shop class, however, and so did a lot of the girls (who were, for the first time, required to take it that year). I especially loved offset printing and I remember sand-casting an aluminum George Washington head. The crabby old shop teacher also talked about Thomas Paine all the time and got me interested in reading history, which is something most of my history teachers failed to do.
Pall: Heck, I had 6-weeks of HomeEc in 8th grade, 1950, down in Bloomington, IL, and us guys thought the world was going to hell then. However, learned how to sew my own buttons on, came in handy later in the USA. Also, learned how to make cupcakes, the yummy kind. The "Ladies" had 6-weeks of shop that year too.
Your class was a little behind the times! Were you schooled in Southwest Podunk, Maine?
victoria said...
Hey Meade, we don't by Hustler or any of those "titty" magazines.
Okay. Is that supposed to have something to do with me?
I'm compelled to point out that almost every invention that makes modern life possible was the brainchild or discovery of a Man.
Even the Tampon, the Soap Opera and the Birth Control Pill, invented for the comfort, conveinece and entertainment of women, were invented by Men.
The reason why Boys are "falling behind" is because half the boys in America are stamped ADHD and stuffed into Special Ed by an "education" system largely run by fat, ugly, menstrual harpies who are farmore interested in teaching them the finer points of Anal Sex and why Heather Has Two Mommies than they are in teaching them mathe, chemistry and physics (subjects their teachers probably failed badly --which is why they became "Education Majors" in the first place).
The institutions of Boyhood are under constant attack: the Boy Scouts are an evil, discriminatory, prot-Fascist organization; girls must playh in Little League instead of forming Leagues of Thier Own (hey, wasn't that League founded by men, too?), Dodgeball is taken out of gym class because it's unfair and dangerous, assuming a school system even still funds Physical Education. The Safety Nazis have descended upon junior sports teams so that football is to be played by little boys adorned in hi-tech bubble wrap without any contact whatsoever, andeveryone gets a goddamned trophy just for showing up.
Boys are wired (even from a very young age) to achieve; it's why we don't live in trees anymore and scavenge our meals. When they are not challenged intellectually and physically, or have their innate curiosity indulged, they vegetate.
They are being robbed of what makes them Boys at very early age by their over-protective parents, politicized schools and modern pharmacology.
"Your class was a little behind the times! Were you schooled in Southwest Podunk, Maine?"
Consanguineous Copulation, Pennsylvania actually.
"...who are farmore interested in teaching them the finer points of Anal Sex..."
Hmm, I learned far more about that subject from private study with my classmates than I did from any fat, menopausal harpies.
If you cane boys frequently enough they can learn Latin and Greek quite thorougly - or so all of 19th C British popular fiction assures me.
I'm convinced that men's slippage is discipline related. Women conform so much more easily to our (professorial) expectations that of course they do better. Men - they have to be compelled. When compelled, they do great work.
@Cranky Professor:
I attended Catholic schools (Black-belt Dominican nuns in co-ed grammar school, Christian Brothers in an all-boy prep school) for a decade.
I was probably "caned" (not always literally)at least twice a week for a decade (boys will be boys, or at least, they used to be), and I can proudly confirm that I *do* indeed, speak, read and write fluent Latin and Greek (two years each, required credits for HS graduation).
It also taught me to sit still, shut up and pay attention in class. No Ritalin or self-interested union hacks seeking tenure required.
Althouse: Now that males have such easy access to porn, it has sapped their energy to achieve for the purpose of getting to real women. Without that motivation... why?
Real females are shaping themselves after porn to get males, so don't worry about that.
"take away the game boys. take away all video games for that matter except board games that teach socialization."
Take away the cell phones, the cable/satellite tv, the internet, movies, comics, the corner...
Boys like to distract themselves in all kinds of ways, that's why they don't study. And schools encourage this by mostly requiring busywork that really doesn't help anything except obedience.
The kids who are smart learn on their own, because school isn't near challenging or helpful. The ones who aren't learn to hate school and find other things to do, instead of learning in a way that would best work for them.
Education through high school is mostly about training a bureaucratic class of citizens, the most suited to this learning go on to fields which continue to perpetuate all of this.
The rare ones who do get in and radicalize the system in a helpful way are few and far between. But they do exist. My dad is one of those. He teaches Shakespeare, Dickens, Dumas, Hugo, and assorted other classics in a juvenile hall, working with boys who often barely can read and were told all their life they weren't worth anything. They leave the Hall quoting Hamlet and knowing the history of France.
Doing this, though, in the creative way the works, has gotten him on the bad side of his principal, who keeps trying to find reasons to get rid of him. She has very traditional notions of education that have to be enforced, no matter how they work--and they don't, it just seems orderly that way. Fortunately, some higher ups in the county and state disagree with her.
There is one, and only one explanation: It's transparently institutionalized and societally-approved sexism on a genocidal scale.
Yup. Schools, most full of female teachers, are quite hostile to boys. Boys are guilty until proven innocent, girls are innocent, period.
I've had a couple of go-rounds with the schools about this involving my sons. But, who am I to tell these highly trained experts what to do despite they hold the easiest college degrees you can get? (Never had
Those who can do, those who can't teach. Unfortunately, they usually can't teach either.
"Real females are shaping themselves after porn to get males, so don't worry about that."
Huh? The worry is that men don't develop themselves and achieve in order to win women. If women do the pursuing, the dynamic is shot. Your point goes in the opposite direction from what you seem to want to say. Where is the male achievement? That's the worry. If you say, women run after the men anyway, we are lost.
Althouse is not lost - she got Meade.
If, [as] you say, women run after the men anyway, we are lost.
Change "women" to "college-educated women" and they have little choice. With 60% of all college degrees being awarded to women, no more than 2/3 of the college-educated women of this generation will be able to marry a college-educated man. Based on the observations of my college-educated sons, modern college-educated women are quite aggressive.
modern college-educated women are quite aggressive
When a certain college rep was visiting my (boy's) high school, my English teacher announced to the class, "Watch out for those Vassar girls--they'll cut your balls off!"
He enjoyed being transgressive--we read Lady Chatterly's Lover.
I meant boys'. There were 60 in my class, not one. The bishop later forced the school to merge with the girls' school several miles away so it wouldn't fold. The same idiot Episcopal bishop of Virginia who recently lost his largest congregations over liberal issues.
@Ms. Althouse:
This comment:
"The worry is that men don't develop themselves and achieve in order to win women."
We often don't have to -- feminism has made consequence-free sex available to us with a minimum of effort. We no longer have to earn big bucks in order to get laid. That's when feminism wasn't encouraging some women to use their vagina as a weapon against men (who were smart enough to take advantage, anyways!).
And thanks to feminism again, in-part -- the culture also has much to do with this -- marriage has been devalued.
You teach on a college campus; Are you going to tell me that many of the girls there aren't practically giving it away?
Or at least holding out for a really neat T-shirt?
I'm in my 40's and know scores of young ladies who have the morals of a baboon in heat, and many of my own age who were so busy being "Career Women" that they're almost desperate to find halfway-decent men in their later years. They're not above using sex to lure you into a relationship.
The connection between sex/companionship and a college education doesn't make much sense when you view it in that light.
I know you're talking about meaningful relationships between intellectual equals who respect one another, but the colleges aren't turning out intellectuals anymore (at least not many with actual brains), and the culture doesn't do "respect".
Ann Althouse --
"Now that males have such easy access to porn, it has sapped their energy to achieve for the purpose of getting to real women. Without that motivation... why?"
How misandrist of you. It's also only opinion, regardless of being stated as fact.
Are you of the nineteenth century belief that 'vital fluids' must be retained, else a man will wilt with weakness? Please.
Sounds like you're admitting women look for men who achieve (an economic ride) and not respecting them for themselves. Unless, of course, you also hold that women should achieve to as to get a real man.
Instead, might it be that some men prefer time with virtual women because they're tired of hearing about how wrong, bad, worthless, less than successful and a plethora of other
belittling comments from 'real' women?
I think there are complementary uses of the mind, but Vicki's statement really is a self-defeating one, as has been noted. The classes which she remembers are in a primary school where students were not taught, in all likelihood, anything beyond rote memorization and calculation.
The sad thing is that this is what American education has come to - even in the colleges. Critical thinking used to be the hallmark of a full education, but not anymore. Rote memorization has become the norm and women, for better or worse, tend to excel at that. So it's not very coincidental that their numbers and success in the American educational system have increased as well.
Try to get them into a basic logic course or anything involving critical thinking and then we'll see how the numbers match up. But first we have to come back around to valuing those things in the first place.
Really, the only problem here is a social problem; the bottom third of those college-going women actually think they got educations, and thus are intellectually superior to men who didn't waste four years studying Fashionable Nonsense at Podunk State.
@Meade
Ew.
Now, inevitably, you both give me the creeps. What was a fairy tale that had been flogged one too many times now becomes a kind of stupid rote guy who believes his own publicity.
I wish ppl would keep their proclivities to themselves, but if they cannot, at the very least, be entertaining and for God's sake refrain from projecting them onto the general public so openly that I become grossed out.
Thanks so much.
Althouse: If you say, women run after the men anyway, we are lost.
Women's ideas of what achievement is will simply change. And they will shape themselves to fit male expectations, as they historically have. My point is that men aren't in any more trouble than the women who are supposedly winning out.
The problem with feminism was that it assumed there was competition between the sexes, some sort of zero-sum game, when viewing the relationship as a balanced ecosystem would have been much closer to the truth.
Joe said...
"To dismiss computer games is to dismiss a very rich, rewarding environment for learning."
absolutely disagree.
the end of the game is that track that has been routed by others. it isn't creative. it is trial and error.
kids who loose themselves in a game that is pure trial and error toward gaining the reward and have gone no where. if they talk to each other it isn't in furtherance of the goal of solving trail and error, it is just errant talk.
Face it, Kristof, the world of men has ended. You — you men — in your geekhood, transformed your world of action into a world of text, and we women sat down and started typing, typing circles around you, the way we talk circles around you from the earliest possible moment ...
Since blogging was invented during the era of female dominance, that must be why such a majority of the best know bloggers are female...?
It's all nonsense. If you look at standardized test scores, you'll see that boys are learning as much or more than girls. It's just they're being devalued and screwed over in their GPAs by an education system that is disproportionately run by females (the percentage of new K-12 teachers who are female is 85% and RISING) and that is naturally (and ideologically--'you go girl') caters to female preferences and tendencies.
That boys come out of that system at age 18 and still score higher on both verbal and math portions of the SAT is pretty surprising and impressive, actually.
the end of the game is that track that has been routed by others. it isn't creative. it is trial and error.
kids who loose themselves in a game that is pure trial and error toward gaining the reward and have gone no where. if they talk to each other it isn't in furtherance of the goal of solving trail and error, it is just errant talk.
By that logic, books are even more useless, since to lose yourself in literature is to follow someone else's trail with no problem solving, no trial and error whatsoever.
By contrast, video games (& games in general) follow the scientific idea of a "model", a simplified representation of reality. Oftentimes they can show consequences in a clearer fashion than the messy reality around us.
Never mind the fact that many of the game simulations are so complex these days that there are multiple ways to achieve the same goal within the game, and the games will react to your actions rather than statically doing the same thing over and over again.
It seems you have a very 1980's view of the capability of video games.
Everything is all social constructionism until the preferences tilt the other way. Then the differences are innate?
@jamboree As for things "ppl" might want to keep to themselves, may I suggest sex phobia?
Joe: "To dismiss computer games is to dismiss a very rich, rewarding environment for learning."
Opus: absolutely disagree.
the end of the game is that track that has been routed by others. it isn't creative. it is trial and error.
Well, I abosulutely disagree with Opus.
First of all: Science, scientific discovery and the process of intention IS trial and error. You have a hypothesis and to test it out you engage in a series of trial and error experiments.
Science is a grown up version of the kids game of (and mostly boys play this game) "what will happen if I poke this snake, stick something down this hole, pur this bleach into this other chemical...etc". Oooooh discovery!
Second: You (Opus) have obviously never played a game that requires strategy.
World of Warcraft for example: Has many levels of skills that are important in real life IRL
1. It is a social game requiring the ability to get along with others. Cooperation in a group environment and maximize the skills of each different classification of player. Judging when each class should take the lead. Taking the consequences of not cooperating /kick /ignore (ninja)
Good leadership skills can make or break a group raid. Managerial and business skills
2. Player versus Player (my favorite)creates an environment where you are competing directly against the skills of other players......and kill them, or with other players to win the engagement. Think military and war skills.
3. It is a mathematical game. To maximize your class with gear and enhancements (gems, enchants) you need to have the math skills to evaluate different sets of equipment and determine which one is best for the situation or type of game play (specialization)
4. There is an in-game economy with a dynamic auction house and a true supply and demand curve. Smart players can take advantage of the in-game economics which are very similar to those IRL he/she can become virtually wealthy.
5. The best players also use computer programming skills to write code for in-game macros and other modifications of the game. Others have made businesses out of writing code that further enhances the game.
All these skills learned from a computer game are important IRL and are NOT being taught to boys OR girls by our feminazi dominated education system.
In other words Opus.....you don't have a clue.
And you don't know how to spell lose.
Meade, no, no I didn't mean you.
Vicki from Pasadena
P.S. There is nothing wrong with the old time basics. My grandson is learning phonics, forgotten but essential basic for learning to spell correctly. Go Luke!!!
Not only is Opus wrong s/he is really, really wrong:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_gamechanger/all/1
Dust Bunny Queen said...
"In other words Opus.....you don't have a clue.
And you don't know how to spell lose."
Correct...I never do loose lose right...just a learning thing....can't help it and i've been corrected for years with no effect.
as to games...no sweetie, you don't have a clue. if you think that gamers are in it for the math or the comraderie you are, as one might suppose, a loser.
As long as tires on cars still need changing you will always need men.
How women change tires:
"First you get a man....."
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