READINGS ON GENDER BIAS IN SCHOOLS

AAUW on the Gender Gap in Schools

Orenstein, Peggy. "Schooling Girls." Mother Jones 18.1 (Jan 1993): 56-57.

Dear President-elect Clinton: 

One of the same polling groups that helped strategize your victory has revealed a gap in our education system that can't be ignored. A nationwide study of three thousand students commissioned by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) found that girls receive less of their teachers' attention than boys. They are called on for answers less frequently and rewarded more often for compliance than for critical thinking, especially in math and science classes. When they shout out a response, girls tend to be reprimanded, while boys' unsolicited ideas are likely to be expanded on by their teachers. These patterns continue right up through graduate school. 

Classroom structures that play to the quickest response time and the loudest voice, combined with curricula that still make women an afterthought, teach students a persistent subtext. Boys learn that they are central in our culture, that they can ignore and belittle girls. Girls learn to defer, to pull back, to feel less important. By age thirteen, girls' academic achievement begins to drop relative to boys'. 

Your predecessors didn't much care. During the Reagan-Bush years, no agency searched out violators of Title IX, which was supposed to stop discrimination against girls in education. Meanwhile, funding for the Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA), the catalyst for programs that put women into curricula and sports and that provide continuing education for teen mothers, was chopped by 80 percent. In his final budget proposal to Congress, President Bush tried to eliminate the WEEA altogether. 

Mr. Clinton, we are talking about 50 percent of our students--roughly twenty-three million girls in grades K-12. If you want to make good on your promise to be the Education President, you must demand change in the way we educate girls. 

To refute the importance of reform, it's often argued that boys drop out of high school at a greater rate than girls do. True, but boys are also more likely to drop back in. Forty-three percent of urban boys who drop out return to complete their high-school education (or its equivalent), compared to about 25 percent of girls. Girls who drop out drop further than boys, too. An African- American girl, when she leaves high school early, instantly doubles her chances--from 31 to 62 percent--of living in poverty; for boys the difference is minimal. 

Girls were initially (and somewhat grudgingly) permitted in our public schools because of their critical future role as mothers to sons; our forefathers didn't want their progeny raised by illiterates. One hundred and forty years later, we should see equality in education as a just goal in itself, but it happens there's still a proven ripple effect: Studies conducted as far back as 1977 and as recently as 1991 have shown that the most direct predictor of children's educational attainment is the level of education their mother achieved. 

As governor of Arkansas, you endorsed President Bush's six Educational Goals, which hang in principals' offices throughout the country. Goal four decrees that by century's end, U.S. students will lead the world in science and math achievement. But according to the AAUW report, the number of girls who say they like math plunges 20 percent between elementary school and high school. This adds up to disaster: The only group of women to bring home the same salaries as men (or higher ones) consists of those who took two or more math classes during college. 

As a nation, we ignore at our peril the dearth of women choosing to study physics, chemistry, engineering, and computer science. When the clock strikes midnight on December 31, 1999, and our Educational Goals come due, 66 percent of the entrants to our work force will be women. Can we afford to let these girls grow up in a culture that still believes they simply don't like math? Just last fall, when Mattel broke Barbie's thirty- year silence by introducing a microchip- driven Talking Barbie, one of her long- awaited messages was "Gee, math class is tough." Luckily, this was the much-ballyhooed year of the woman; under pressure from the AAUW, Mattel agreed to withdraw the quip from future models. 

Shortly after your arrival in Washington, Congress will take up the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which affects schools nationwide. It includes provisions for teacher training that should mandate instruction in gender-fair teaching and explore better classroom models for girls. It funds the National Center for Education Statistics, which has been financially unable to amass data on the interplay of gender, race, and class in education. It provides another round of funding for the WEEA and for grants for innovative math and science programs. It also funds programs to help students stay in school; more of that money must be allocated to understanding the unique reasons, besides pregnancy, that girls drop out. 

During your campaign, you promised to improve our economy and education system, support equal rights, and reduce the number of families living in poverty. You want smart weapons in those battles? You've got twenty-three million right here. 

 At the time of publication, Peggy Orenstein was working on a book about teenage girls' attitudes toward themselves, their education, and their future. 

Ravitch, Diane. "The Gender Bias Myth." Forbes 157.10 (20 May , 1996): 168.

THE American Association of University Women was once known as a distinguished organization that fought for the equality of women in higher education. How the world has changed. In recent years AAUW has sought to convince parents and teachers that American girls are the victims of gender bias in the schools. 

AAUW claims that America's schools "shortchange girls" because teachers are gender-biased. In its current national advertising campaign, AAUW charges that "in school, girls are discouraged from taking the science and math courses they will need for America to compete in the future. Girls hear that math is too tough for them." Because of blatant bias of teachers, the AAUW says, girls suffer from low self-esteem. 

These claims are untrue, but AAUW has repeated them so often that they have been accepted by the media. In the wake of the AAUW's well-publicized 1991 report, "How Schools Shortchange Girls," every major newspaper, newsmagazine and television news program produced stories about gender bias in the classroom, never questioning whether it existed at all. This line has since metamorphosed into conventional wisdom. 

Here is what AAUW never admits: 

Girls take more academic courses than boys; are more likely to finish high school than boys; and are more likely to go to college than their male classmates. For 15 years more women than men have been enrolling in college. Women are now a majority of all college students. Women receive a majority of undergraduate degrees and a majority of master's degrees. 

A generation ago women made up fewer than 10% of the students enrolled in law and medical schools. Today nearly half of the students enrolled in these highly competitive graduate schools are women. 

What about gender bias in the traditionally male-dominated fields of math and science According to the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education, more girls than boys study advanced algebra and geometry; about equal numbers of boys and girls study trigonometry and calculus. More girls than boys take biology and chemistry. Only in physics are there decisively more boys than girls. The AAUW's charge that girls are "discouraged" from taking math and science courses by teachers or counselors is flatly contradicted by the facts. 

Boys get higher scores on national tests in math and science, but girls get higher scores than boys in reading and writing. In reading, the most important skill learned in school, girls have far higher scores than boys at every grade level. 

Contrary to the AAUW's mythology, boys are not given preferential treatment in school. Boys are likelier to fall behind in school and to require "special education." In the eighth grade, boys are 50% likelier than girls to be held back a grade. In high school, two-thirds of the special education population of handicapped and learning- disabled youths are boys. 

If there is a crisis of self-esteem, it is not among young women. At every age surveyed (eighth grade, twelfth grade, college freshmen), females have higher educational aspirations than males. Meanwhile, the suicide rate for young men has increased dramatically in the past three decades. According to federal data, the suicide rate for young men aged 15 to 24 was almost six times higher than for young women in the same age group. Is there any more profound indicator of low self-esteem than the decision by a young person to end his or her life. 

There may well be gender bias in the workplace and in other parts of society, but not in the schools. Teachers do not subtly discourage girls from pursuing their goals. Girls are doing very well indeed. Boys, in the meantime, are killing themselves and each other at alarming rates. If either sex is in trouble in our society, it is the males. The AAUW should Stop scaring parents and stop blaming teachers for a nonexistent crisis. 

Sommers, Christina Hoff. "The 'Fragile American Girl' Myth." American Enterprise 8.3 (May 1997) :73.

Did you know that the United States Congress now categorizes American girls as "a historical under-served population"? In a recent education statute, girls are classified with African Americans, native Americans, the physically handicapped, and other disadvantaged minorities as a group in need of special redress. Programs to help girls who have allegedly been silenced and demoralized in the nation's sexist classrooms are now receiving millions of federal dollars. At the United Nations women's conference in Beijing, the alleged silencing and shortchanging of American schoolgirls was treated as a pressing human rights issue. 

Several popular books have appeared in recent years to build up the notion that ours is a "girl-poisoning culture." That phrase is Dr. Mary Piper's and her book, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, has been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. According to Piper, "Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence. Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves. They crash and burn." 

Where did she get this idea? Where did the United States Congress get the idea that girls are a victim group? How did the "silencing" of American schoolgirls become an international human rights issue? 

To answer that, consider some highlights of what might be called the myth of the incredible shrinking girl. The story epitomizes what is wrong with the contemporary women's movement. First, a few facts. 

The U.S. Department of Education keeps records of male and female school achievement. They reveal that girls get better grades than boys. Boys are held back more often than girls. Significantly fewer boys than girls go on to college today. Girls are a few points behind in national tests of math and science, but that gap is closing. Meanwhile, boys are dramatically behind in reading and writing. We never hear about that gap, which is not shrinking. 

Many more boys than girls suffer from learning disabilities. In 1990, three times as many boys as girls were enrolled in special education programs. Of the 1.3 million American children taking Ritalin, the drug for hyperactivity, three-quarters are boys. More boys than girls are involved in crime, alcohol, drugs. 

Mary Piper talks about the "selves" of girls going down in flames. One effect of a crashing self is suicide. Six times as many boys as girls commit suicide. In 1992, fully 4,044 young males (ages 15 to 24) killed themselves. Among same-age females there were 649 suicides. To the extent that there is a gender gap among youth, it is boys who turn out to be on the fragile side. 

This is not to deny that some girls are in serious trouble, or that we can't do better by girls, educationally and otherwise. What I am saying is, you cannot find any responsible research that shows that girls, as a group, are worse off than boys, or that girls are an underprivileged class. So, where did that idea come from? Therein lies a tale. 

The reality is, the contemporary women's movement is obsessed with proving that our system is rigged against women. No matter what record of success you show them, they can always come up with some example of oppression. Never is good news taken as real evidence that things have changed. The women's movement is still fixated on victimology. Where they can't prove discrimination, they invent it. 

I, for one, do not believe American women are oppressed. It is simply irresponsible to argue that American women, as a gender, are worse off than American men. 

More women than men now go to college. Women's life expectancy is seven years longer than men's. Many women now find they can choose between working fulltime, part-time, flex-time, or staying home for a few years to raise their children. Men's choices are far more constricted. They can work full-time. They can work full-time. Or they can work full-time. 

The reason we hear nothing about men being victims of society, or boys suffering unduly from educational and psychological deficits, is because the feminist establishment has the power to shape national discussion and determine national policy on gender issues. 

Feminist research is advocacy research. When the American Association of University Women released a (badly distorted) survey in 1991 claiming that American girls suffer from a tragic lack of self-esteem, a New York Times reporter got AAUW President Sharon Shuster to admit that the organization commissioned the poll in order to get data into circulation that would support its officers' belief that schoolgirls were being short-changed. Usually, of course, belief comes after, not before, data-gathering. But advocacy research doesn't work that way. With advocacy research, first you believe, and then you gather figures you can use to convince people you are right. 

The myth of the short-changed schoolgirl is a perfect example of everything that's gone wrong with contemporary feminism. It's all there: the mendacious advocacy research, the mean-spiritedness to men that extends even to little boys, the irresponsible victimology, the outcry against being "oppressed," coupled with massive lobbying for government action. 

The truth is, American women are the freest in the world. Anyone who doesn't see this simply lacks common sense. 

Christina Hoff Sommers is the author of Who Stole Feminism? This is adapted from her remarks at a December 1996 AEI conference. 

Kathleen Parker. "For Better Boys, Try a Little Tenderness." The Orlando Sentinel 25 Aug 1999.

Parents of boys have known that the cards have been stacked against their sons the past two decades. Even semiconscious bystanders may have noticed that boys are in trouble -- socially, emotionally, academically and -- given the high rate of medicinal dosing -- physically.

Lower grades, higher dropout rates, reduced enrollments in colleges and graduate schools, highersuicide rates.

And, of course, the growing number of tragically infamous gun-toters are boys, not girls. Only now that boys have started "crying bullets," as one psychologist put it, have we bothered to wonder what's wrong.

Last week, experts in child behavior and boy development met to pool their research, looking for clues to the puzzle of lost boys. They concluded that boys have fallen victim to "emotional miseducation," which is a nice way of saying we've abandoned boys to the jungle -- without affectionate parental guidance or societal support.

If girls once were considered second-class citizens, boys today are Third World street urchins. Mostly absent parents still enforce the "boys are tough" message. Schools continue to insist that boys conform to girl-behavior (sit still and be quiet).

Most young boys are incapable of sitting still for long periods, yet they're expected to and punished (or drugged) when they can't. Most boys lag behind girls in reading and writing, yet these are the first skills students are expected to master.

Quickly boys learn that they're inferior to girls, a message steadily reinforced throughout their school days, beginning with their first lesson in opposite-sex privilege: Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

Meanwhile, the hypermasculine media message to boys is: Terminate, Die Hard, Payback.

I recently watched a televised prison interview with one of the young boys who last year opened fire on his Arkansas classmates, killing four students and a teacher. Now 12, the boy said he was sad because he lost his friends -- the ones he killed. He was mystified by the events leading up to the shootings and detached from his own involvement. At the end of the bloody day, he was still a child.

His mother also was mystified. Her son was normal in every way, she said. But normalcy must be redefined if we're to raise better boys and stop the insanity of male violence.

Left to the constant input of violent imagery -- and absent the counterbalancing of physical and emotional affection from attentive parents -- boys aren't likely to develop into the sympathetic, empathetic creatures we wish our daughters to wed someday. Top that with a daily dose of social and academic failure, and a monster is in the making. 

Bad boys aren't born. Meanness isn't a male trait. Emotional detachment isn't genetic. As the mother of a son, I know this about boys: They're sensitive, fragile, kind, caring, loving, affectionate, loyal, cooperative and dependable. They also cry, hurt, long and endure, often in silence, fearful of being considered weak, unmanly or worst of all, "a baby." Who gave them that idea?

The psychologists made specific recommendations for raising better boys: Encourage schools to be boy-friendly by accommodating their demanding needs for physical expression; encourage parents and  teachers to drop the boys-are-tough ruse and be physically comforting; treat them as the sensitive, fragile, affectionate people they really are.

To their list, I'd like to add a thought: Treat them the way we treat girls.