Boy Crisis?

Not really?:

There are statistics to back up every point in that sad litany, but I also found people eager to flay nearly every statistic. For instance: Is it bad that more boys are in special education, or should we be pleased that they are getting extra help from specially trained teachers? And haven't boys always tended to be more restless than girls under the discipline of high school and more likely to wind up in jail? A growing congregation of writers have begun to argue that the trouble with boys is mostly a myth. Sara Mead is one; she was until recently a senior policy analyst at Education Sector, a Washington think tank largely funded by the Gates Foundation. Intrigued by the wave of books and articles about failing boys, Mead crunched some numbers, focusing narrowly on the question of school performance. The former Clinton Administration official concluded that "with a few exceptions, American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have before."

In particular, Mead decided that boys from middle- and upper-income families--especially white families--are doing just fine. "The biggest issue is not a gender gap. It is these gaps for minority and disadvantaged boys," she told me recently in the think tank's conference room. Boys overall are holding their own or even improving on standardized tests, she said; they're just not improving as quickly as girls. And their total numbers in college are rising, albeit not as sharply as the numbers of girls. To Mead, a good-news story about the achievements of girls and young women has been turned into a bad-news story about laggard boys and young men.

Conveniently enough, I agree.

Comments

They teach us to be weary of all of this in teacher school. While working on my Master's, we read a book entitled Failing at Fairness: How Schools Cheat Girls. Essentially, the research for that book showed that boys get more attention (more outspoken and act out more often) and that in the meantime, girls fall to the wayside (tend to be quieter, perhaps socialized to not ask so many questions).

In my own classroom, though, I don't notice the gender trends so much as the trends among socioeconomic status, which is what Mead is arguing in the last paragraph.

Failing at Fairness was published in 1995. And we're still focusing on the negative today (not to mention the inherent sexism), as the time article notes. Crazy.

Posted by rdturpin | July 29, 2007 9:21 PM

Re: In particular, Mead decided that boys from middle- and upper-income families--especially white families--are doing just fine.

With this much I also cautiously agree. But that said, there's huge issue left unmentioned here: boys (and men) from lower income and minority groups. Guess what-- they aren't doing "just fine". And that's a big, big part of the so-called culture of poverty. Because these men/boys are treated as disposable humans, their communities have a severe dearth of marriageable men. That in turn creates lots of single parent families. There is indeed a "crisis of boys" among low income people, including white people too. And that really does need to be addressed even if a bunch of mostly white gender feminists with six digit incomes don't give a damn.

Posted by JonF | July 29, 2007 9:22 PM

JonF, why did you stop reading the post after the first quoted paragraph?

Posted by nolaboyd | July 29, 2007 9:43 PM

Walk around any major college campus. A quick glance will tell you that women are in the majority. Then look up the statistics: M/F ratios are in the range of 40/60 to 35/65. In other words, almost double the number of women.

And what magic pixie dust is being used to explain this all away? "The minority of boys are whiter and wealthier than the majority of girls, so there's no problem."

Huh?

Of course boys are being left behind.

Posted by lampwick | July 29, 2007 10:02 PM

35/65? That's stupid and wrong.

As Mead shows, there is a problem, on average, for boys, but saying that "boys are left behind" obfuscates the actual problem. The actual problem is that race and class inequities are visited more viciously on boys than on girls. So, what's really at issue is inequality, and its intersection with gender.

When people say that "boys are left behind", they're usually referring not to poor black kids, but to the stereotype of the tow-headed youngster on ritalin with overbearing middle-class parents. On average - though I'm generally skeptical of the psychopharmacological movement - that kid is doing fine.

Posted by DivGuy | July 29, 2007 10:44 PM

Lampwick,
Boys are not being left behind. It's just a fact that girls are outperforming them. Teaching and educational methods have not changed much over the centuries. They have not become "feminized". Being outspoken and restless in class has always been viewed negatively, way before girls were widely allowed to attend school. Discipline has always been prized over these other characteristics. And the boys and men who learned this way for centuries seemed to do okay don't you think?

And I agree with DivGuy. We should be worrying about the differences based on class and how they intersect with race.

Posted by Jennifer | July 29, 2007 10:48 PM

As the father of teenaged boys in a middle class, mixed-race school, it's my experience that in almost every way my sons' female colleagues are better students. They study harder, get better grades, perform better on standardized tests. They are more engaged with their work, care more, and enjoy school more. They write better, are more articulate, and are more sophisticated about the adult world. And they're better in math and science, not just in the humanities.

Posted by Bloix | July 29, 2007 10:58 PM

Matthew,

When you say you agree, I take it that what you are saying is that you have reviewed the studies, reviewed the data, and spoken or read to experts pro and con and have come to the conclusion that your girl friend is right.

Is that right?

Or are you just bloviating like a Broder about studies you don't know anything about but your gut tells you are truthy?

It sounds as though Sara Mead has taken the talking points exactly as Caryl Rivers laid them out.

Have either of you spoken to people that disagree?

Is it possible that Matthew and Sara and Caryl have fallen into the logical fallacy of the excluded middle? (Except that Caryl didn't fall, she jumped in the name of spin.)

Why does discussion of a boy crisis take anything away from the improvements in girls' education? Who stands to benefit from keeping boys down at the farm? Why is it they cannot both be improved?

In particular, Mead decided that boys from middle- and upper-income families--especially white families--are doing just fine. "The biggest issue is not a gender gap. It is these gaps for minority and disadvantaged boys," she told me recently in the think tank's conference room.

So there is no boy crisis? Rich kids do well and so there is no boy crisis? Did you just turn in your progressive card? Are you and Sara out shopping for Brownstones along the cocktail circuit? Has Broder been preannounced as the godfather of your children?

Have you spoken to Ezra Klein about this? He's been seeing racism all day today, and he might be interested in your ignoring the problems of minority and disadvantaged boys.

or instance: Is it bad that more boys are in special education, or should we be pleased that they are getting extra help from specially trained teachers? And haven't boys always tended to be more restless than girls under the discipline of high school and more likely to wind up in jail?

Wow, that is just downright Orwellian in interpretation. Peace through War! Ignorance is Strength! Higher Achievement through Special Education!

Matt, you may wish to check on your own young, white, male, highly educated privilege, you seem to be falling prey to the same logical fantasies as those of the corner: you did well in school and it wasn't because you were well off, so everyone should be able to do well in school, and if they can't it's their own damn fault.

But those pooooorrrrrrrr girrrrrllllllssssss!!!!! So fragile! We have to do everything we can to ensure they can make it.

Posted by jerry | July 29, 2007 11:03 PM

For instance: Is it bad that more boys are in special education, or should we be pleased that they are getting extra help from specially trained teachers?

If you get raped you should just lay back and enjoy it.

Posted by jerry | July 29, 2007 11:25 PM

Huh? Mead's comments make no sense.

"The biggest issue is not a gender gap. It is these gaps for minority and disadvantaged boys,"

This disproves that the gender gap is a real problem... how, exactly?

I mean, that the problem is focused in minority and disadvantaged groups doesn't mean that there is no problem; it means... that the problem is focused in those groups.

Yikes. These comments are more than a bit embarrassing.

Posted by Al | July 30, 2007 12:02 AM

Boys overall are holding their own or even improving on standardized tests, she said; they're just not improving as quickly as girls.

So, I could say: "The bottom 4 income quartiles are holding their own or even improving in income growth, I say; they're just not improving in income growth as quickly as top quartile." And if I told Matthew that this disproves that there is a problem with income inequality, he would reply, how?

To Mead, a good-news story about the achievements of girls and young women has been turned into a bad-news story about laggard boys and young men.

And if I said "To the left, a good-news story about the achievements of the top income quartile has been turned into a bad-news story about the bottom 4 income quartiles," Matthew would respond how?

Maybe the point has been dumbed down for Time, which, after all, is quite a dumb magazine. But still.

Posted by Al | July 30, 2007 12:10 AM

The top 10 of my graduating class in '69 were all boys. The top 10% of my sons' graduating class this past June was about 70% female.

If the current numbers were reversed, I think a lot of people would be screaming.

Here in Texas boys drop out at a prodigious rate. Statewide the senior class is missing about 40% from the freshman class, most of them boys. There are 4a high schools (about 1000-2000 students) in Austin that cannot field freshman or JV basketball teams due to a lack of eligible bodies. Their drop out rate approaches 70%. And yet the local school district is creating a special academy for middle school girls.

It has been my experience that boys who are the youngest in their class really suffer socially. Since so much of our society is stratified by grade, these kids tend to be losers at everything they try. In middle school one of my just graduated twins beat Stephen Levitt to the punch by about 5 years. He did a research paper on birth month of Little Leaguers vs. Major Leaguers, same with soccer players. Surprise! The youngest in every cohort drop out very quickly.

I think we have real problems with our boys. I found the Time article just unbelievably lame. And that quote about special ed made my skin crawl. Reverse the stats for a moment and think about it. It was that way not so long ago and it bothered people. Why doesn't it bother people now?

Posted by Nat | July 30, 2007 12:28 AM

- "Boys overall are holding their own or even improving on standardized tests, she said; they're just not improving as quickly as girls".

I am very interested to find that Matt thinks that sexism in the work place can not be a problem since women's incomes are steady or even improving, just not rising as quickly as men's. Of course I don't believe he thinks any darn fool thing, it is just very convenient for him (as he himself says) to quickly say that and hurridly move on to something else before he has to actually think about things that might uncomfortably challange some pre-held PC views. Thank goodness his blog is usually so much better than this post.

Posted by Counter | July 30, 2007 1:00 AM

"Walk around any major college campus. A quick glance will tell you that women are in the majority. Then look up the statistics: M/F ratios are in the range of 40/60 to 35/65. In other words, almost double the number of women."

Those numbers are for liberal arts colleges. Look at any engineering institution and you will see the ratios reversed. Furthermore, to get as high as 35/65 (which yes, do exist), you have to go to small liberal arts colleges, not major universities. Now, of course you may be including some of the higher profile small colleges like Williams or Reed. However, the fact remains that this high level ratios are partly a function of the nature of the college.

Posted by Walker | July 30, 2007 1:02 AM

Counter,
Please don't puppet the bullshit "PC" rightwing myth. It's so 1995. Can you believe that a lot of liberals/progressives actually believe things you deem "PC" because, well, we actually believe them, not just because we're trying to be "PC"? It's an amazing concept for you; I'm sure.

Also, I would support, as would many feminists, methods that help boys improve in school, especially lower income boys. Support for boys/men in school and women in the workforce would be great.

Posted by Jennifer | July 30, 2007 1:31 AM

I'm not sure about what Walker says. I teach at Morehead State University in Kentucky where the ratio is 57-43 in favor of females and I've seen stats on UNC-Chapel Hill that are similar.

The performance of guys is up and down in interesting ways. Year in and out, 8 out of the top 10 government majors at my university are women and there was an 8-10 year span where the performance of guys really did sink in my classes. Ambition didn't seem to be cool and most guys were refusing to do much of anything.

From what I saw there were two problems. First, masculine norms among a lot of college guys have become so narrow that they are an impediment to male success. Many guys perceive any involvement in course work as weak and effeminate. Other guys find that their abilities don't fit with their views of proper manhood and either reject their abilities or have a difficult time bringing them out.

Another problem is that education methods are not very guy friendly. Discussion-centered class techniques, essay exams, and various kinds of self-reflective exercises involve a great deal of submission to authority, a relatively high amount of commitment, and paperwork management skills that guys aren't very interested in. Neither high school teachers nor college professors have a good grasp on how much more authority is demanded now than was the case in the fifties. In my experience, guys don't respond nearly as well to these techniques as their more eager and cooperative female classmates.

Before closing this, I want to stress that things have changed over the last couple of years. Guys are more willing to work, more ambitious, and more eager to excel. From what I see as a government professor, what's happening is that the partisan struggles over the war and the Bush administration are firing up college guys to be more interested ambitious.

An unintended consequence of the war.

Posted by Ric Caric | July 30, 2007 1:47 AM

Wait a minute, Al, do you seriously think anybody is stupid enough to buy that analogy? Boys are like rich people and girls are like poor people? And what gender is the person who buttons your shirt for you in the morning?

Posted by neil | July 30, 2007 1:48 AM

Jennifer, if you think the boy crisis is a myth, why would you be in favor of spending money to help boys improve in school? That would seem to make no sense.

If you read Caryl Rivers' WAPO article about the Boy Crisis,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040702025.html

I would say that she disagrees with you about spending that money. Given that I've seen many of Matt's feminist blogroll cite Rivers and that her talking points seem identical to Mead's I would guess that many feminists would disagree with you about spending that money.

There is no boys crisis. We must not talk about a boys crisis. There is, if anything, only a lower income crisis. I blame the patriarchy! But no Boy's crisis, and no need to spend money to fix the Boy's crisis.

By the way, Matt's quote is intriguing because it seems to go against the theme and conclusion of the article which is that in fact, there is or was a boy's crisis and the fed's numbers prove it.

It is interesting Jennifer, to find there are people that still insist there is no such thing as politically correct speech or political correctness induced self-censoring.

Posted by anon | July 30, 2007 1:59 AM

Anon,
I don't believe there is a "boy crisis" broadly speaking, obviously middle class and upper class boys are doing just fine. I don't care about them. I support helping lower income boys in schools because that seems to be where the "crisis" is. I blame the patriarchy too. As I stated previously, I also support helping women with issues they usually face related to the workforce. I don't see a disconnect here. Most feminists also take the realities of classism and racism into their beliefs, so I believe they would be supportive of methods to help both girls (because they are doing better than their male peers, but not as well as middle and upper class students) and boys in the lower classes because that's where support is needed most.

Also, I think if there is any "boys crisis" to speak of it has nothing to do with how schools teach and more boys struggling with their identities. The goals of the feminist movement have yet to be fully enacted in which boys and men have a more inclusive view of what it means to be a boy/man. Girls and women have yet to be fully freed from the limited view of what it means to be a girl/woman, but thankfully previous generations of feminists have helped to broaden it far beyond the limited space boys/men are allowed to occupy currently.

Also, regarding "PC":
I was young when the whole "PC" thing was big in the 1990s, so I may not remember how "bad" it was. I believe that some people may self-censor, but I could give a shit less about them. If you could offer facts that you consider to be "non-PC" (not based on evo psych or specifically biased conservative views) and offer the "PC" versions liberals "sell", then I might take the whole "PC" thing more seriously. The throwing around of "PC" on the left reminds me of internalized misogyny.

And Ric Caric, how exactly have teaching and learning methods changed drastically over the years? Did they actually become more "feminized"? And how so? I'm honestly curious and would value your judgment considering you're a professor, most likely knowing more about this than me.

Posted by Jennifer | July 30, 2007 2:52 AM

"The goals of the feminist movement have yet to be fully enacted in which boys and men have a more inclusive view of what it means to be a boy/man."

Yikes. Ain't that the truth.

Posted by me | July 30, 2007 3:18 AM

It's not that surprising that jerry and al aren't capable of the sort of complex thinking that allows one to follow Mead's argument, and Jennifer's doing great work in trying to explain it, but I'll take a shot, too.

Let's say that, for instance, that there's been an increase in Boston's crime rate becuase in Roxbury, Dorchester, and the South End, crime has spiked over the summer. Does this mean there is a Boston-wide crisis and we need to expend equal resources on every neighborhood? No. There's a crisis in several neighborhoods, and we should focus on them. Calling in a Boston-wide crisis, even though on average, crime is up everywhere in Boston, obfuscates the issue.

This is particularly egregious in the "boys" debate because most of the arguments about the poor performance of boys talk about "feminized" teaching strategies and the like. But if that were the case, the problems in the statistics should be uniform, rather than localized in specific socioeconomic groups. As Mead shows, the vast majority - practically all - of the problems are a result of taking an aggregate number instead of localizing it. The inequities of race and class take a more vicious toll on boys than on girls. What needs to be studied, and remedied, is why poor and minority boys struggle. We need to get away from the unsupported assertions about "feminized" teaching because the numbers do not support such a claim - the statistics on boys' performance is anything but uniform.

Posted by DivGuy | July 30, 2007 7:31 AM

Also, Jennifer's exactly right on "PC".

The fact that nominal liberals throw the term around like this reminds me greatly of the way Richard Cohen types have internalized right-wing talking points about how liberals are weak on defense, distant from the American people, etc. It's saddening to me that so many Internet lefties are so tough on the mote in Cohen's eye (ok, it's a beam, too) but perfectly happy to ignore the beam in their own.

Posted by DivGuy | July 30, 2007 7:35 AM

Posted by DivGuy | July 30, 2007 7:31 AM:"This is particularly egregious in the "boys" debate because most of the arguments about the poor performance of boys talk about "feminized" teaching strategies and the like. But if that were the case, the problems in the statistics should be uniform, rather than localized in specific socioeconomic groups. As Mead shows, the vast majority - practically all - of the problems are a result of taking an aggregate number instead of localizing it."

I don't accept that at all. It does not follow that a failure in teaching will have an equal impact across socio-economic groups. Indeed the experience of Britain is that the rapid decline of the state school system has had a disproportionate impact on those who can't work the system by moving to a better catchment area, coaching their children privately, moving into private education entirely, or getting their children into the last selective schools - that is, the poor. Upper and Middle class boys have a wealth of resources to fall back on if their schools fail. Working class boys do not. That is likely to apply in America too. So what if Johnny is having a bad time at school if his Dad can get him remedial lessons and work experience at PriceCoopersWaterhouse to put on his CV? So what if all the books they do at school suck if Bobby can read his Father's own collection and Dwight cannot? Education is vastly more than what children learn in the class room. In fact my education only ever stopped when I was forced to sit in one. The fact is that good schools are disproportionately important for precisely those children who have no other role models, who have no other access to good books, and who can't pull the right strings to get a decent college to take them for non-academic reasons.

Posted by HeiGou | July 30, 2007 7:46 AM

The problems needn't be perfectly uniform, but they shouldn't be massively localized. They're massively localized.

Upper class girls have the same advantage of their parents' book collections, etc, but they're not outperforming upper class boys by any notable amount.

Posted by DivGuy | July 30, 2007 8:10 AM

The right wing has a habit of ignoring inconvenient facts, and I see the same disease on display in this thread - from the "no problem for boys" school. First, it is precisely statistical evidence of this sort that was, properly, used as evidence that girls were not getting a fair shake in schools. If the proportion of girls in college was dropping as fast as that of boys, it would be treated as a crisis by the same people who are dismissing it in this thread. In fact, this was the basis of many changes in our educational system. But now, when very similar indicators show problems for boys, there is a contingent of feminists who see no problem at all. And because it is most severe for black and brown boys, it is somehow less important?

What we're seeing is a combination of

1) zero sense/zero tolerance rules that harshly punish kids who step outside the lines: mostly boys, and mostly minority/lower income boys.

2) Rampant medication of boys, at close to the 15% level, for ill-defined ADD/ADHD symptoms that treat behavior inconvenient for authority figures. This is an astonishingly widespread practice in the USA, virtually absent anywhere else in the world, that we have adopted without any studies. One might think that this would affect self-esteem, deemed so important for girls; not a whisper. This phenomenon, by the way, crosses all income levels, and is most closely tied to high stakes testing.

3) An emphasis on teaching to the tests and rote-work that girls handle better because they mature more quickly.

I fail to see why feminism should have a problem with reforming some of these problems, or at least examining them.

Posted by Marc | July 30, 2007 8:30 AM

In the years I've been in Kentucky, teaching methods have changed dramatically. In 1990, the format was professors lecturing, students notetaking, and multiple choice tests with perhaps a ten point essay at the end of the test. That's still referred to as "traditional lecture."

Now, a lot of history and government professors have discussion dominated classes, use small group exercises, have students do small research assignments, and assign 20-25 pages worth of writing assignments.

These methods aren't "feminized." Hell, I introduced many of them myself. But, a lot of guys resist these methods because they involve more acceptance of authority and more engagement with the class than they prefer. Guys want to be able to "turn school off" when they party and the more involved methods make that more difficult.

But I was also arguing that current notions of masculinity have also made it more difficult for guys to be both engaged in classes and self-respecting males. I've fought with a lot of male students in the attempt to bring out the abilities I've seen in them. It's not just the changing teaching methods, it's also the changing students.

But there have also been counter-trends and thinhgs have looked a little better over the last couple of years.

Posted by Ric Caric | July 30, 2007 8:54 AM

Let's take two hypothetical high school students, John and Mary. Thanks to the "boy crisis" John doesn't go to college and instead goes into the construction trades. Mary goes off to college.

Fast forward five years. John is making good money as a skilled tradesman, his skills being in high demand. He just bought a nice house and a $40K truck. Mary? She's a year out of college with a totally worthless liberal arts degree, working as a "barista" at Starbucks for $9 an hour, living with Mom and Dad and wondering how the holy f*** she's ever going to pay off her gargantuan student loans.

This is not at all an uncommon scenario. So what's that about the boy crisis?

Posted by Peter | July 30, 2007 9:29 AM

Peter: you're posing a question that has an unambiguous answer: the outcome that you're describing is becoming less and less common. This can be seen in the growing income gap between those with and without college degree, in the sense that the former are treading water and the latter are dropping in an absolute sense. You can also look at the shrinking proportion of the population in traditional blue-collar/manufacturing jobs.

Posted by Marc | July 30, 2007 10:17 AM

"I'm not sure about what Walker says. I teach at Morehead State University in Kentucky where the ratio is 57-43 in favor of females and I've seen stats on UNC-Chapel Hill that are similar."

I teach at Cornell in the Engineering school. Our numbers are definitely reversed, and we don't even approach 60/40 in the liberal arts school. Early in my career I did teach at a Catholic school and that was 35/65.

My comment on small schools is that they are the only place the balance appears to shift 60/40. But this is only from anecdotal study. If someone has a more comprehensive study, I would be interested.

As for Chapel Hill, it is possible, but I would like to see how those numbers break out per school/program. As a government professor, (I assume) you are in a liberal arts program, so I would expect the heavier female ratio.

One more thing... How are discussion sessions submission to authority? I run discussion-oriented classes on mathematical proof and mine are anything but.

Posted by Walker | July 30, 2007 10:20 AM

It's not that surprising that jerry and al aren't capable of the sort of complex thinking that allows one to follow Mead's argument, and Jennifer's doing great work in trying to explain it, but I'll take a shot, too.

And just why is that not surprising DivGuy?

Posted by jerry | July 30, 2007 10:55 AM

Walker, Ric seems to be saying that classes which require constant-engagement with the material by their nature require "submission" to authority. The authority in this case being the class/material.

Even though a standard lecture format might appear to be a much more authoritarian model, students can blow off/sleep through lecture and then study for the exams and do their problem sets at their leisure. Forcing students to engage and collaborate on long term projects requires that they do and think about the work on someone else's schedule, not their own.

If someone could demonstrate to me that men are being shut out of opportunities because of their falling enrollment in college, I might have more interest in this subject. As it is, the traditional "female" middle class jobs like teaching and nursing require a college (or at least post-secondary) degree. Being an IT systems administrator or construction-worker doesn't. Meanwhile, the lower-paid pink-collar jobs, like secretary and office manager, all seem to expect their takers to be college-educated. Is there a comparable set of low-paid, predominantly male jobs that require a college degree?

Posted by Tyro | July 30, 2007 10:55 AM

I think Tyro is absolutely correct.

When I went to an engineering school in the late seventies (which regrettably for us all was 85% male) I would say the men at the school resisted the course work, we all slept through classes, we all never worked on our "clinic" projects, never collaborated on homework, and just partied 24x7 while shaking our fists at the book, the crushing authority.

Jesus Christ, I am trying to figure out who has the more bizarre gender stereotyped view of men and women, but these days it appears the feminists like Tyro are the winners.

Oh shit, I forgot, Jesus Christ is an authority figure. /Shakes fist at Jesus Christ, goes back to sleep.

Posted by anon | July 30, 2007 11:17 AM

anon, I was merely explaining Ric's reasoning to Walker. I'm not sure I agree with it (though I certainly did sleep through my share of lectures as well as pulled my own share of all-nighters when I was in engineering school and, heck, even did group projects!).

This is, actually, the difference between liberals and conservatives-- Liberals like me can read an argument and understand what the writer means, even if I disagree or am agnostic about his actual claim. Conservatives like you simply resort to temper tantrums.

Posted by Tyro | July 30, 2007 11:21 AM

I did read a lot of the "crisis" (as applied to white middle-to upper class boys) as a reflection of the idea that boys dominating the top 10% of a class was considered "the norm" and any deviation from THAT is considered bad for boys. In other words, people keep treating this situation as a zero sume game. So, let's say we started out with 30% of boys going to college and 10% of girls, if the perecentage of boys going to college remained the same, and the percentage of girls rose to 40%, it would still seem like boys were "losing ground". Anything short of a 50/50 balance at all times would set someone off, but why does this have to be viewed in such an antagonistic way?

In any case, there are 2 competing "storylines" here that are BOTH true. Girls often outperform boys at school, but women, even those just out of school who do not yet have children (thus playing on a "level field") are paid less than men and are less likely to advance to higher levels in their careers (although that is partly due to child-related factors). I see two possible explanations, although they could certainly both be operating (I tend to think they both are). One is that school is closer to a true meritocracy, while work is still an old boy's network. The second is that the criteria for "success" at school and at work are different, and "success" at school favors "female" traits (collaboration, attention to detail), while "success" at work favors "male" traits (naked ambition, willingness to take risks). Incidentally, I think a good portion of these "male" and "female" traits are culturally determined. Lots of Asian males don't have much trouble with submitting to authority, for example, but then they often aren't seen as "manly" to Western eyes. At the end of the day, though, is it more important to perform well at school or at your job? (assuming the two aren't necessarily related) I think most people would agree on job. So while let's hope that female achievement in school eventually *translates* to progress at work, it's certainly not automatic, and one can't be used as an exact proxy for the other.

Posted by JMS | July 30, 2007 11:27 AM

Tyro captured my thought well.

Posted by Ric Caric | July 30, 2007 11:31 AM

Conservatives like you simply resort to temper tantrums.

Ha Ha! That's pretty funny. A liberal vs. liberal dick fight. Who's more liberal? Dick fight!!!!Eleventyone! My guess is my liberal penis is 3" longer than your pseudo-liberal-and-limp-penis.

It's tricky of you to dance away from Ric's thoughts all the while agreeing and saying

If someone could demonstrate to me that men are being shut out of opportunities because of their falling enrollment in college, I might have more interest in this subject. As it is, the traditional "female" middle class jobs like teaching and nursing require a college (or at least post-secondary) degree. Being an IT systems administrator or construction-worker doesn't. Meanwhile, the lower-paid pink-collar jobs, like secretary and office manager, all seem to expect their takers to be college-educated. Is there a comparable set of low-paid, predominantly male jobs that require a college degree?

Why would nursing require a college degree when construction doesn't? Hmm. Can't figure that one out. (My other prediction is that between outsourcing killing of computing jobs and the larger numbers of nurses out there, you'll see more men in nursing in the coming decades.)

Also, I think you'd find the vast majority of sys admin jobs do in fact expect a college degree. And my theory is the ones that don't aren't the ones paying high salaries. Pretty much all "office" jobs do. Then there is your conflating of the work of a construction worker with the work of an office admin and saying the two jobs should somehow pay equally. (If you can't get laid with that line, you're hopeless!) Or some sort of claim that an office admin REQUIRES a college degree vs. your observation than many office admins have a college degree (perhaps because it's a choice for English Lit major to ask "would you like fries with that" vs saying "would you prefer the Southwest flight or the United flight".)

That's the difference between us liberals and you pseudo liberals. We stay reality based. We're also comfortable enough with our liberal penis size that we don't have to tell other people that their pseudo-liberal penis size is too small.

Posted by anon | July 30, 2007 12:21 PM

Tyro: I see an uncomfortable parallel here with discussions of global climate change. In that case, a lot of conservatives (and libertarians) reject the scientific conclusion because it conflicts with their worldview, and they are reluctant to accept facts that contradict it. There is a scientific consensus about climate change for good reason.

In this case I see tortured dismissals of strong statistical trends, in this case by progressives. This is deeply frustrating, because you can't have a serious discussion if everyone comes to it with their own set of facts. I would be classified as a leftist by any normal metric; I'm also a scientist and a parent of a teenage boy. There are some genuinely worrying trends for boys, and I find the tendency to shoehorn them into predictable left/right patterns to be simply deplorable. You should separate out identifying problems from identifying solutions.

Posted by Marc | July 30, 2007 12:23 PM

anon, I'm not saying that one job should pay more than the other. It simply is what it is. And as more women with college degrees end up in these office-manager/secretarial type positions, the more it is considered a "requirement."

What I was pointing out is that women have a greater economic incentive to go to college since "pink collar" jobs require a college degree while many male-dominated blue collar jobs do not. In some cases, the pink collar jobs pay less than the blue collar jobs. In other cases, the jobs simply that many women would prefer to have require a college degree, while the jobs that some men may prefer to have don't. So what do you think each group is going to do, in order to get the jobs they want? (left as an exercise to the reader) The question is, anon, why are you throwing a fit over these rather obvious observations?

Marc: well, there's a difference of approaches in this thread. One group of liberal argumenters says, "well, statistically, men ARE improving, just not as quickly as women. so there's no problem." another group says, "ok, there IS a problem, but not with men in general, just lower-class and minority men." the third (my claim) is "men are less likely to go to college because they have less economic incentive to do so, while women need to go to college just to get to the point where they underperform men (assuming they stick to traditional professional roles)."

Posted by Tyro | July 30, 2007 12:46 PM

Jennifer, you use that word misogyny a lot (here and at Drum's). I don't think it means what you think it means.

Anyway, regarding pc and not pc thoughts and facts, do tell me, what is the liberal view of domestic violence? As can be seen by laws like VAWA and funding for domestic abuse centers and the fact that very few of these domestic abuse centers are available to men, the liberal pc view of dv is that it is almost entirely male on female, and women are in fear of their lives while men are not.

Of course, the non-pc fact is that it is between 30/70 and 50/50 and many studies show that women on male dv is carried out to further extremes.

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

And of course there is Erin Pizzey, founder of the first DV center in Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey
Erin Pizzey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.ejfi.org/DV/dv-12.htm
The Emotional Terrorist by Erin Pizzey

http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0719pizzey.html
ifeminists.com > editorial > Domestic Violence Is Not A Gender Issue by Erin Pizzey

http://fathersforlife.org/fv/Dan_Lynch_on_EP.htm
Neutralizing Hostility between the Sexes

Posted by anon | July 30, 2007 2:33 PM

The question is, anon, why are you throwing a fit over these rather obvious observations?

I am not throwing a fit over them. It seems you are as you apparently think a construction job is somehow comparable to an office admin job.

As you say, it simply is what it is.

If a woman wants a non-college requiring job that pays as much as a construction worker, well, I have a suggestion for her.... Get a job as a construction worker.

http://www.womentechworld.org/bios/construction/articles/anything.htm

In addition to asking why office admin jobs seem to require a college degree, you might want to ask why we graduate too many people with english lit degrees and not enough people with science, engineering, or nursing degrees.

Posted by anon | July 30, 2007 2:46 PM

anon, you're halfway there. Next question for you to figure out: if you can observe that a liberal arts degree will get you a job as a secretary/office manager, compared to other, better-paying jobs that don't require a college degree, do you feel that there is a "boy crisis" because not enough men are getting liberal arts degrees in college and are outnumbered by women in such programs? Explain your reasoning.

Posted by Tyro | July 30, 2007 3:03 PM

I think people should feel free to take whatever the hell the want to in college. I don't think that having gotten a college degree guarantees you a salary or a guaranteed salary.

So if you want outreach to boys to get more into liberal arts degrees go for it. I don't think you're solving the boy crisis that way.

I think the boy crisis has nothing to do with construction workers getting paid more than office admins, but I think it has a great deal to do with men not attending college, not doing as well in college, and the same for high school, jr. high school, and elementary school.

You still have not answered my question: why do we graduate too many people with college lit degrees when there aren't the numbers of jobs to support that? Did people that entered college lit programs not understand their career outlook when they signed up?

Posted by anon | July 30, 2007 6:10 PM

Re: Let's take two hypothetical high school students, John and Mary.

Of course you could rewrite this story very differently: John has no idea what to do with himself drifts from one low wage job to another, has a couple kids with a couple different women neither of whom he marries, and develops a nasty booze or drug habit and ten years later he's lucky if he's not in jail and has a roof over his head. Mary meanwhile goes on to law school and ten years later is married to another high achiever and together they are pulling in 200K a year. That's at least as realistic as your scenario.

Re: the pink collar jobs pay less than the blue collar jobs.

But the world isn't static either. Pink collar jobs are still relatively plentiful and (slowly) growing. Blue collar jobs (other than the minimum wage sort) are hard to get and growing fewer, or else are being done by illegal immigrants for dirt cheap.

Posted by Jonf | July 30, 2007 9:57 PM

Basically we have a country that makes children of poverty responsible for their position in the world and we blame them when they fail to overcome the high threshold for their success that is codified in our system of government and economics. Girls in this situation have a slightly better chance due to their generally less rebellious disposition, and the fact that they can always be a mother, a station in which neither the left nor right will jump in and declare them a failure at no matter how poorly they perform.

Posted by Ricky | July 31, 2007 11:13 AM