Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Gendered
For the past week or so in one of my education classes, the sole topic of discussion has been gender. Gendered behavior, gendered expectations, gendered roles, and any combination of the three. Today's reading assignment discussed how gender operates in schools, and was specifically an indictment of the "boys under assault" theory perpetuated by several authors over the past few years. Now, like the article's author, I'm always willing to listen to theories that sound silly, so when I first heard about books like this, I thought, maybe they have a point. Maybe all the attention we've been giving to girls has in fact hurt boys. Maybe boys have actually been victimized by attempts at gender equality; maybe boys have unintentionally been marginlized by Title IX. Maybe, I thought to myself, they have a point.
They do not, in fact, have a point. They are, in fact, full of crap.
Behind the research (my favorite quote from the Publishers Weekly review: ". . . she bolsters her findings with extensive footnotes and data from such sources as the U.S. Department of Education." Because, you know, anyone kooky enough to claim that boys are treated unfairly in schools had better be swinging some heavy lumber in the research department), behind the alarmist rhetoric, behind all this BS about boys being victims in schools, one can see what's really going on. Conservative authors are taking the culture wars into public schools, where they perceive the Left has an advantage; specifically, this boys-as-victims hooey is a political reaction to feminism, a movement which very astutely noticed that adult women weren't the only ones affected by sexist behavior. So while feminists were the first ones to point out that a problem exists in public schools, and that the problem was rooted in sexism, the spate of authors claiming that the discourse is hurting boys are actually the ones politicizing the discussion.
I'm willing to bet these authors aren't necessarily all that concerned about how boys are treated in the classroom, unless they are directly related to said boys. I'm also willing to bet these authors are very concerned about advancing a political agenda that includes refuting feminism.
So in class we talked a little bit about this stuff and I mostly kept my yap shut. We did briefly discuss the notion that boys need good role models, at which point little bells went off in my head. Yes, boys certainly do need good role models, but male teachers aren't - and cannot and should not be - the only place those role models are found.
And that train of thought opens up a huge can of worms that I just don't feel like getting into here. ¶ 2:32 PM
They do not, in fact, have a point. They are, in fact, full of crap.
Behind the research (my favorite quote from the Publishers Weekly review: ". . . she bolsters her findings with extensive footnotes and data from such sources as the U.S. Department of Education." Because, you know, anyone kooky enough to claim that boys are treated unfairly in schools had better be swinging some heavy lumber in the research department), behind the alarmist rhetoric, behind all this BS about boys being victims in schools, one can see what's really going on. Conservative authors are taking the culture wars into public schools, where they perceive the Left has an advantage; specifically, this boys-as-victims hooey is a political reaction to feminism, a movement which very astutely noticed that adult women weren't the only ones affected by sexist behavior. So while feminists were the first ones to point out that a problem exists in public schools, and that the problem was rooted in sexism, the spate of authors claiming that the discourse is hurting boys are actually the ones politicizing the discussion.
I'm willing to bet these authors aren't necessarily all that concerned about how boys are treated in the classroom, unless they are directly related to said boys. I'm also willing to bet these authors are very concerned about advancing a political agenda that includes refuting feminism.
So in class we talked a little bit about this stuff and I mostly kept my yap shut. We did briefly discuss the notion that boys need good role models, at which point little bells went off in my head. Yes, boys certainly do need good role models, but male teachers aren't - and cannot and should not be - the only place those role models are found.
And that train of thought opens up a huge can of worms that I just don't feel like getting into here. ¶ 2:32 PM
