BOY GIRL FIGHT
Jan. 23rd, 2006 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thezETA: Okay, one minute I can read it just fine, and the next it's demanding registration (which I don't have). I have no idea what that's about. Terribly sorry. Just content yourself with the fact that you will not have to expose yourself to the full, unfiltered stupidity.
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demonlet posted this article in her journal. I was going to comment, but when my comment started turning into an essay, I thought I ought to give it an entry of its own.
Basically, the premise of the article is that boys are failing in life because girls are succeeding. Women should be offended by this statement. MEN should CERTAINLY be offended by this statement. I know a plethora of bright, intelligent men, and if one were to suggest to them that they were naturally set up to fail because they're expected to use their brains and string words together instead of smashing things with rocks, they'd... well, they'd probably punch whoever suggested it. (What? Can't a guy or girl be intelligent and still throw a mean right cross?)
At any rate, the article is so ridiculous that I had to pick out some points and go at them with verbal spears right here.
"We've done a good job getting girls prepared for life, at the expense of boys."
This is where it starts. Boys are having trouble in school. This is because, apparently, America's schools can only accommodate one gender at a time. Right. If THAT is the case, I suspect the trouble with our education system goes much, MUCH deeper than "gender issues".
The inferior performance of boys is so common, girls in elementary schools have a saying to describe it: "Girls rule, boys drool."
I honestly don't know whether this is a joke or not. That saying dates back to long before *I* ever entered the school system, and guess what? IT IS REVERSIBLE DEPENDING ON THE GENDER OF THE SPEAKER.
"Girls also have a saying to describe the aimless nature of modern boys: 'Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Girls go to Mars to get more candy bars.' The rhyme indicates that they are aware of their own innate advantage."
In case you couldn't tell, I made up that last paragraph myself.
Boys don't get those grades because they're not as bright as girls. Educators and anthropologists say boys just aren't made to succeed in school.
Okay, so for all those centuries when only boys went to school, THEN boys were evolutionarily built to succeed in school. Now that girls go to school WITH them, their ability to succeed in school has suddenly fallen out of their genetic makeup? That is fascinating.
They're more aggressive and single-minded, programmed to play violent video games like "Grand Theft Auto" rather than sit patiently in an English class.
Then maybe, MAYBE their parents should stop programming them that way...? Just a thought. You know, supposing that the parents have anything at all to do with this.
"The sit-still, read-your-book, raise-your-hand-quietly, don't-learn-by-doing, but-by-taking-notes-in-the-classroom is a worse fit for more boys that it is for most girls."
How many teachers still actually teach this way? Even in my shit-hole high school, the instructors were far more dynamic than that. That "too much structure" argument is not going to fly for anything outside... I don't know, a Catholic school. (Then again, I've never been to a Catholic school. They may have very dynamic teachers as well.)
Math teachers who once gave credit for just the right answer now made kids show the process to that answer.
Oh, did they start doing that to sabotage boys? I thought it was just to make sure the little brats weren't copying the answer from somewhere else. SILLY ME.
That helped girls who were more verbal and less aggressive than boys.
Showing your work = non-aggressive? Just giving the answer = aggressive? Glad to know that. Remind me not to shout math solutions at the baboons the next time I'm at the zoo. I wouldn't want one of them to charge me.
"We were told 'You're a girl, don't take calculus,'" says Patty Ogden, 50, of Pine Bush, a dental hygienist. "Now we tell our kids you can do anything."
Here's something I learned in English (because the teacher psychically embedded this information into my brain via the girls-only mind wave): this bit is junk. It does not belong in the article. The fact that girls are encouraged to SUCCEED shouldn't have ANY BEARING WHATSOEVER on whether boys succeed or fail. If someone decided that a woman's success is what's hurting a man, then it is that person that is causing the problem, NOT the school system.
Think of it this way: Centuries ago, a man went out with a rock to slay a buffalo.
This man died and did not pass on his genes, because he starved to death, BECAUSE HE TRIED TO SLAY A FUCKING BUFFALO WITH A ROCK.
Meanwhile, a woman stayed home with her baby.
Actually, in many societies, the women ALSO went out to hunt, while the children stayed home with that snazzy new development in human evolution called "grandparents". Neat, huh?
And a woman's tools are now needed to thrive in school and the world - a world that has changed so much, so quickly, that it relies less on physical strength and aggressiveness and more on processing information and cooperation.
That's right, boys, it's not your world anymore. Newton? Einstein? Pavlov? Nietzsche? Hawking? You guys can go home now. We want BRAINS, not brawn!
Others suggest creating same-sex classrooms because girls and boys learn so differently.
Mmm. It's got that delicious "separate but equal" bite to it!
Well, I think that about covers the primary points of idiocy. WHOO BOY I feel better now.
demonlet posted this article in her journal. I was going to comment, but when my comment started turning into an essay, I thought I ought to give it an entry of its own.Basically, the premise of the article is that boys are failing in life because girls are succeeding. Women should be offended by this statement. MEN should CERTAINLY be offended by this statement. I know a plethora of bright, intelligent men, and if one were to suggest to them that they were naturally set up to fail because they're expected to use their brains and string words together instead of smashing things with rocks, they'd... well, they'd probably punch whoever suggested it. (What? Can't a guy or girl be intelligent and still throw a mean right cross?)
At any rate, the article is so ridiculous that I had to pick out some points and go at them with verbal spears right here.
"We've done a good job getting girls prepared for life, at the expense of boys."
This is where it starts. Boys are having trouble in school. This is because, apparently, America's schools can only accommodate one gender at a time. Right. If THAT is the case, I suspect the trouble with our education system goes much, MUCH deeper than "gender issues".
The inferior performance of boys is so common, girls in elementary schools have a saying to describe it: "Girls rule, boys drool."
I honestly don't know whether this is a joke or not. That saying dates back to long before *I* ever entered the school system, and guess what? IT IS REVERSIBLE DEPENDING ON THE GENDER OF THE SPEAKER.
"Girls also have a saying to describe the aimless nature of modern boys: 'Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Girls go to Mars to get more candy bars.' The rhyme indicates that they are aware of their own innate advantage."
In case you couldn't tell, I made up that last paragraph myself.
Boys don't get those grades because they're not as bright as girls. Educators and anthropologists say boys just aren't made to succeed in school.
Okay, so for all those centuries when only boys went to school, THEN boys were evolutionarily built to succeed in school. Now that girls go to school WITH them, their ability to succeed in school has suddenly fallen out of their genetic makeup? That is fascinating.
They're more aggressive and single-minded, programmed to play violent video games like "Grand Theft Auto" rather than sit patiently in an English class.
Then maybe, MAYBE their parents should stop programming them that way...? Just a thought. You know, supposing that the parents have anything at all to do with this.
"The sit-still, read-your-book, raise-your-hand-quietly, don't-learn-by-doing, but-by-taking-notes-in-the-classroom is a worse fit for more boys that it is for most girls."
How many teachers still actually teach this way? Even in my shit-hole high school, the instructors were far more dynamic than that. That "too much structure" argument is not going to fly for anything outside... I don't know, a Catholic school. (Then again, I've never been to a Catholic school. They may have very dynamic teachers as well.)
Math teachers who once gave credit for just the right answer now made kids show the process to that answer.
Oh, did they start doing that to sabotage boys? I thought it was just to make sure the little brats weren't copying the answer from somewhere else. SILLY ME.
That helped girls who were more verbal and less aggressive than boys.
Showing your work = non-aggressive? Just giving the answer = aggressive? Glad to know that. Remind me not to shout math solutions at the baboons the next time I'm at the zoo. I wouldn't want one of them to charge me.
"We were told 'You're a girl, don't take calculus,'" says Patty Ogden, 50, of Pine Bush, a dental hygienist. "Now we tell our kids you can do anything."
Here's something I learned in English (because the teacher psychically embedded this information into my brain via the girls-only mind wave): this bit is junk. It does not belong in the article. The fact that girls are encouraged to SUCCEED shouldn't have ANY BEARING WHATSOEVER on whether boys succeed or fail. If someone decided that a woman's success is what's hurting a man, then it is that person that is causing the problem, NOT the school system.
Think of it this way: Centuries ago, a man went out with a rock to slay a buffalo.
This man died and did not pass on his genes, because he starved to death, BECAUSE HE TRIED TO SLAY A FUCKING BUFFALO WITH A ROCK.
Meanwhile, a woman stayed home with her baby.
Actually, in many societies, the women ALSO went out to hunt, while the children stayed home with that snazzy new development in human evolution called "grandparents". Neat, huh?
And a woman's tools are now needed to thrive in school and the world - a world that has changed so much, so quickly, that it relies less on physical strength and aggressiveness and more on processing information and cooperation.
That's right, boys, it's not your world anymore. Newton? Einstein? Pavlov? Nietzsche? Hawking? You guys can go home now. We want BRAINS, not brawn!
Others suggest creating same-sex classrooms because girls and boys learn so differently.
Mmm. It's got that delicious "separate but equal" bite to it!
Well, I think that about covers the primary points of idiocy. WHOO BOY I feel better now.
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I think I has the solution
Date: 2006-01-24 12:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 01:45 pm (UTC)i'm not going to read that article b/c, dude, i'm just not masochistic enough to submit myself to that amount of STUPID!! seriously.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 02:36 pm (UTC)INSTEAD OF PATIENTLY VACUUMING OR DOING MY OTHER CHORES
DON'T LOOK AT ME BLAME THE CODERS BEEP BOOP
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 02:47 pm (UTC)I just seriously cannot understand how the author of that article can say, with an 'oh well, what can you do, boys will be boys' attitude that boys would just rather play video games than do homework, and it is surely not the fault of those boys. They are just naturally aggressive, poor boos. Like the girls are racing home with a twinkle in their eye all, "YAY NOW I GET TO DO HOMEWORK! I GET TO STUDY! I CAN'T WAIT TO SIT QUIETLY WITH MY BOOK STUDYING! PERHAPS LATER I WILL BE ALLOWED TO SIT QUIETLY AND STITCH ON A SAMPLER! JOY!"
Sadly, I saw this with my very own parents. I made a C and was grounded for the entire next six weeks' grading period. The sexy JL made three Cs before my parents were moved to do anything about it. The actual excuse was, indeed, "Oh, well, it's harder for JL to get good grades than it is for you, HIS school is really hard."
My Conclusion
Date: 2006-01-24 05:39 pm (UTC)Anthropologists said this shit? I think that ANY CREDITED anthropologist would be appalled at this piece. Yes the male gender has been associated with being more aggressive due to horomones and structure but when has that ever impeded success? And the educators? Why I would personally want to find out who said this and get them fired due to biased based opinions who hurt the students' abilities to succeed.
In short: I play VERY violent video games, listen to equally dark music groups, read macabre dark tales dealing with vampires. Does this mean I'm going to fail in life just because I exhibit violent behavioral patterns? No. Because its people like those fucktards who allow it and make it acceptable for kids to fail. Because they deem it to be the standards, boys are allowed to be stupid little shits and girls are going to TAKE AWAY any opportunity these stupid little bastards get. Well... If male children are too stupid to take opportunities, why can't the girls take these lost opportunities?
Conclusion: The Author is a supreme retard with some bias issues about his/her own personal life. Its people like this who deserve to be beaten around like some bitch-ho in Grand Theft Auto.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 06:03 pm (UTC)The main problem with education isn't that boys are stupid or girls have "advantages", it's the "don't blame me" attitude.
Don't blame me, teachers are underpaid!
Don't blame me, my teacher hates me!
Don't blame me, the standardized tests are biased against my gender/ethnicity/sexual orientation!
Don't blame me, it's all NCLB's fault!
Whatever happened to personal accountability? Are teachers underpaid? For the hours they put in, yes. But when you CHOSE that line of work, you knew what you were getting into.
Does your teacher hate you? Possibly. Stop being a little shit.
Are the standardized tests biased? Almost certainly. Still, you could overcome that problem by f***ing studying. Just read the goddamn chapter for a start!
Of course, No Child Left Behind *is* pretty stupid...at least fund the friggin' thing.
You know me: I flatly refuse to believe that there is any fundamental difference between boys and girls. I don't believe that girls "mature faster" (society just trains you to act differently, in a more mature manner). I don't believe that boys are always better than girls in certain subjects or tasks (hey, I'm multi-talented, but there's still stuff that I come to you about...and you're a girl! *gasp!*).
Hard work is what separates the wheat from the chaff, but our First World societies are apparently against teaching a work ethic to today's youth. (And that's assuming that our generation learned it in the first place!)
Lost in Transition
Date: 2006-01-24 08:26 pm (UTC)One other, very specific, thing:
"Meanwhile, schools are cutting out or shortening recess, which traditionally has been a time for boys to release their pent-up aggression. With the divorce rate soaring and more mothers raising sons alone, boys will have fewer role models in a world where one of the most famous men on TV is Homer Simpson."
That's a pretty crazy jump from recess to divorce. Apparently Mr. Israel's genetic coding caused him to forget how to transition. I'm not even sure there's an implicit connection between recess, aggression and divorce. Do boys need recess because of anger caused by missing father figures?
I'm having a hard time taking this guy and his copy editors seriously. If I didn't already find the argument stupid, this would have done it. I'm taking my recess now.
Nea
Date: 2006-01-25 02:33 pm (UTC)Good jabs, Stace. The article deserved even more than that.