The Other Charlotte reports below (“Too Late to Help Save Larry Summers — But It Turns out that the Two Sexes Really ARE Different!“) on two scientific studies that discern biological differences between men and women.
It put in perspective a Washington Post piece on the reading skills of boys and girls that had been causing me perplexity.
The piece made it abundantly clear that boys and girls are developmentally different.
Why was it that the experts quoted in the piece didn’t become mini-Larry Summers, pilloried for raising uncomfortable, sex-related questions?
After all, they were saying that there are differences between the sexes.
The difference was this: These experts were talking about a way in which boys supposedly are inferior to girls. That’s okay. I submit that if this article had been about how girls are reading badly when compared to boys, it might have provoked a storm of protests.
By the way, the real reason that boys are doing less well in school may be simply that the nation’s schools have become so girl-centered that they are no longer boy-friendly.
That is partly the theme of Christina Hoff Sommers’ groundbreaking book, “The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminisism is Harming Our Young Men.” They are treated differently from girls and they are often given reading material that simply doesn’t appeal to boys.
In a Boston Globe article, Hoff Sommers talked about the boy-hostile atmosphere of our schools:
“The young boys are casualties of a movement that scapegoats men and boys and seeks to protect women and girls from what Gloria Steinem calls the ’jockocracy.’ Such feminists as Patricia Ireland and Gloria Steinem believe that ours is a sexist society that wages an ‘undeclared war against women’ (Susan Faludi’s subtitle to ’Backlash’). Such feminists think most adult males are incorrigibly sexist and that boys must be retrained – the earlier the better.
“Nan Stein, a director at the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, refers to boys who chase girls in the playground and flip their skirts as ’perpetrators’ and ’sex terrorists.’ Sue Satell, a sex equity expert in Minnesota, justifies strong harassment policies for children as young as 5 because ’serial killers tell interviewers they started sexually harassing at age 10 and got away with it.’
“While the boys need reeducation, the girls need all the help they can get to survive in the ’patriarchy.’ Consider the girls-only holiday ’Take Our Daughters to Work Day,’ an annual event organized and run by the Ms. Foundation.
“Reacting to growing protests over the boys’ exclusion, the Ms. people decided to initiate ’Son’s Day,’ an annual holiday for boys. Among the suggested activities for ’Son’s Day’ are:
“Take your son to an event that focuses on … ending men’s violence against women. Call the Family Violence Prevention fund at 800 END-ABUSE for information.
“Make sure your son is involved in preparing the family for the work and school week ahead. This means: helping lay out clothes for siblings [and] making lunches…”
“In short, this punitive little holiday was contrived by women who are convinced that what our male children need most is indoctrination.”
Is it any wonder boys are having a hard time learning to read?