Let’s take another quick trip over to the Men’s Rights subreddit to learn the dirty secret behind the superior performance of girls in schools these days: the machinations of unmuzzled feminists!
Funcuz, could you please show your work, as they say in school.
It’s an interesting test. But to take it you have to go through the enlistment process.
You don’t have to enlist, but it’s a long day/couple of days, as well as several sessions with a recruiter.
The trend is the same in Sweden, boys do worse than girls in schools nowadays. It might be in part because studying hard for your grades is looked down upon among boys, and in part because teachers actually tend to grade boys lower than girls for the same achievements. (Just drawing on memory here, articles about this matter I’ve read in our morning paper.) I also read some researcher whose hypothesis about the latter was actually not that all teachers are misandrist feminazis, but rather that more girls than boys are perceived as nice and well-behaved, and this influences the setting of grades even when it’s not supposed to.
And these same qualities are probably just a big drawback once the girls leave school and try to get a career started.
I know there are also studies according to which the same university paper was graded higher with a male name on it. Nowadays on Stockholm University we have lots anonymous exams, which is one way of getting around this bias. Obviously the same technique could be used when the bias is against boys. And then work on those stupid norms that tell boys studying isn’t cool.
Anyway, boys getting lower grades IS a legitimate problem, just like women earning less is a legitimate problem. And still… they can’t even discuss a real and legitimate problem without falling into incoherent nonsense.
@Hershele Ostropoler
The exam regulations now state that all timed exams must be written in the snow with no hands.
Interestingly, in Denmark it turned out that the gendered pattern is stronger for the children of immigrants than native Danes. So immigrant boys do worse than native Danish boys, and immigrant girls do better than native Danish girls. At least for this years examinations. It could be that immigrant boys are discriminated against more than immigrant girls, but that doesn’t explain why the immigrant girls do better than Danish girls.
Personally, I suspect that being raised with the attitude “You’re not that smart, you should listen instead of talking, and don’t expect to get away with saying something you can’t back up” is going to lead to better grades than “You’re amazingly brilliant and special, feel free to let out as much crap as you want to, and interrupt the female members of your family while doing it”. I saw quite a few guys screw things up for themselves because they refused to acknowledge that they might be the problem, and therefore never bettered themselves. Some of the girls in my class reeked of insecurity, to the point where it probably wasn’t healthy, but at least they tended to work hard trying to learn the things they found difficult.
Not sure about SAT/ACT/etc math being the type that you never use again. I use it a lot. Then again, I’m an engineering major, and the math used in those tests were usually the type that was later expanded on into other forms that had integration in them.
Also, weirdest and most annoying test I’ve ever had: derive the evolution of the temperature profile of a metal rod over time that has one end in a fire from first principles (i.e. no just assuming Newton’s Law of cooling for you buddy). Closed notes, no calculator.
Oh, and I too would dearly like to learn what schools I could get extra points on my stuff for drawing things on the paper. I’d finally have an excuse to keep me learning how to draw, who cares if it’d look ‘girly’ turning it in, high grades increase my likelihood of a good job, and nothing is “manlier” for a guy that a well paying and rewarding career which is dependent on a good college (a decent amount of the time), which is dependent on good grades, etc, etc.
Things would be simpler if this was seen as ‘grown-up-lier’. Not that you need a well paid career to be a grown up. So I guess that wouldn’t work after all.
@pillowinhell: The only place I’ve found the “one exam at the end of it all” format to be useful in later life was in law school. It’s because litigating is very much like cramming for the big final: you stuff endless minutiae into your head as hard as you can for two weeks, spew it all out at a designated time and place in a designated format, forget ALL of it, and move on to the next pile of endless minutiae.
Unlike moot court, exams actually DID prepare me for court. 😛
@Kim
Yeah, unfortunately there isn’t much of a better word for it, hence the quotation marks, since, well, same thing applies to women, but “feminine” doesn’t have the same sorts of connotations, mature doesn’t work either since you could be homeless and jobless yet be very mature… which makes it hard to talk about such stuff without seeming like someone all puffed up about their genitalia. That and I’ve got a bit of a hunch that telling a women that the fact she’s a CEO/successful inventor/etc is “manly” would not exactly be taken as a compliment.
When men do better at anything it’s always the fault of oppression, patriarchy and misogyny. When men fail, or women are doing better at something it’s always because men are lazy, worthless and deficient.The message is ceaselessly shouted out by our politicians, media and schools. The message is inescapable. Every comment here confirmed the same message.
I just had a conference with my daughter’s preschool teacher yesterday, which confirmed pretty much everything I already knew about my kid. She’s got fantastic motor skills, she’s good at problem solving, her spatial awareness is great (and I’m pretty darned excited by her strengths, which seems to scream “Science! Athletics! Engineering!” – all things at which I personally suck). OTOH, she’s not-so-hot with verbal skills and pre-reading. She’s also got a really kinetic learning style; the teacher suggested I do a scavenger hunt where I hid a variety of letters on cards around the house and have her search for the right ones, then search for items that begin with those letters.
So, in other words, my daughter seems to have all of those skill sets and learning styles that usually trend “male.” I’m wondering how some of the less enlightened people on that reddit thread would explain this. Is my daughter going to be discriminated against with the boys because she’s an outlier, or is she going to do just fine because the eebil feminazi teachers will give her an added XX-chromosome grading boost in her struggling subjects? I guess only time will tell.
Obviously, Fitzy, you don’t have a daughter at all. You have a son. You’re some twisted sicko, trying to raise a normal boy as a girl just because you think girls are better. You’re going to damage your son for life!
Because it’s absolutely impossible for a girl to genuinely be good at science and athletics and to have a kinetic learning style. Those are boy things. Period. No exceptions.
…
Is my sarcasm showing?
So I guess I didn’t get a full scholarship simply because I was too busy drawing superheros and reproducing illuminated manuscripts. All of which were “too manly” for me to be a properly feminine scholar.
So what do all those manjawed female lawyers do? Flash doodles of embroidery patterns at their professors to pass?
And this plays right into the “girls don’t do seriuos art, they just doodle cutesy flowers and rainbows”.
As a kid, I was fascinated with how batteries worked, and enjoyed fixing electrical things. On the other hand, I was indifferent to dolls (unless I was playing doctor and was giving them injections). This was a source of tremendous worry for my parents, who thought I would grow up to be a bitter, unloved, mannish spinster due to such gender-inappropriate interests.
Pretty much, yeah. But not actual embroidery, because that presupposes fine motor skills, pattern awareness, and attention to detail that silly ladybrainz simply don’t ha- Hey! A kitty!
@karalora – Those guys would really have an aneurysm when I showed them my already extremely verbal and empathetic son, wouldn’t they? My husband and I have truly doomed the next generation with our parenting style of “let’s just encourage it when our kids demonstrate skill/enjoy something.” Should totally have been cramming these young ‘uns into separate pink and blue boxes instead. Too late now.
I thought all you had to do was walk up the lectern and cry, and then you were automatically made an editor of Harvard Law Review?
Don’t you agree the original comment would have been much better if it had a nice drawing of a flower attached?
Actually, it would be much better if it was ONLY a drawing of a flower. Clearly reddit is feminised now too!
@Fitzy
A little girl of my acquaintance who just turned two is extremely interested in dinosaurs, pirates, and robots. Her favorite color? Pink.
WAT IS GENDER BOX
Well, of course, but that’s not the same thing as passing your exams. For that, ladies at least need to produce a couple daisies and a sun with a smiley face on it.
(I turned in a frowny-face sun for my Jurisdiction final. The professor said it really made him re-think his position on the application of Pennoyer v. Neff to the emotional states of celestial bodies. True story!)
(Warning! Warning! Mixture of six years of reading articles and book about this stuff at university and some limited anecdata.)
Being a working teacher (in Sweden, high school/USS-ages) my main observation is that a lot of boys get socialised into thinking studying is for girls. From what research on the subject I have read, one of the main reasons for this seems to be men reading less in their spare time than women. Also pre-school/primary school teachers, who are the ones teaching kids to read are mostly women, making reading (which is a basic skill for more or less every subject) something coded as feminine.
Girls also tend to be socialised into being more compliant with other peoples’ requests and wishes. This might make it easier for them to accept instructions and corrections. I have had plenty of male pupils reject my corrections and critique on their assignments, refusing to change anything and accusing me of being unfair for correcting them.
Also, I love coursework being counted more towards the final grade. Grading tests is boring as hell, and also puts shitloads of work on the teachers towards the end of the school year. (The national tests towards the end of the year in Sweden takes ages to grade and register.) Graded coursework can be spread out over the entire year, which is both easier on the teachers’ sanity and means that someone having an off day on the day of the exam will still get a chance of a fair grade.
@Karalora – 🙂 That little girl could be buddies with mine. My favorite memory of her thus far is when she dressed up in a princess costume, then took the bristles off her miniature broom so that she could effectively use it as a samurai sword (my husband’s a sucker for Kurosawa movies). There were bad guys afoot, you see.
@Dani Alexis – Ah! I’m sorry, I forgot about the need for concrete, quantifiable evidence to back up grades. I’m glad I never pursued a law degree. My ability to render a life-like kitten playing with a ball of string is sub-par at best.
I actually agree with the poster.
Schools are fairly biased in that regards.
Bias, of course, being towards “be nice and polite and quiet and listen and do what you’re told” unlike “very special little snowflake who knows EVERYTHING”.
I suppose most MRAs have meltdowns when talking to their children’s teachers.
Granted, that would require that they ever talk with their children’s teachers. Which I kind of doubt, considering how little they think they should invest of their precious time in their own kids.
@Fitzy
That reminds me of my niece (different child) when she was four. She’s into all things princessly and when I played LEGO with her she wanted to “be” the princess minifig…who then pulled the sword out of the stone and went to town on the Black Knight! In real life she’s not violent at all, but she knows what makes a good story!
You’ve never gotten “Given that the sky is blue, please find Avogadro’s number?”