Cherry - did you read the plaintext online version that you linked, or did you read it in the magazine form? The text of the article really doesn’t imply anything like what you and Bitch Magazine are saying it does... But I could see where some menacing fonts, some disturbing illustrations, etc. could change the entire tone of the piece.
It's not at all saying that women excelling are bad, it's saying that men failing is bad. The last paragraph sums it up nicely: "A new world has opened up for girls, but unless a symmetrical effort is made to help boys find their footing, it may turn out that it's a lonely place to be. After all, it takes more than one gender to have a gender revolution." I do believe she's saying there needs to be an equal effort made to help boys succeed... or at least not completely fuck up and become a gender of bums and criminals. And yes, Michelle Conlin seems to be a women (another article by her). The tone of the article sounds very pleased with the success of women... "
BW doesn't "predicts big trouble if girls are allowed to flourish," she suggests benefits of keeping men educated: "Better-educated men are also, on average, a much happier lot. They are more likely to marry, stick by their children, and pay more in taxes." She doesn't say, or imply, educating men means *not* educating women, or that educated women pose a threat, or anything of that nature. Just that overlooking boys in schools leads them to do poorly in school, and that we should expect negative consequences from that.
If there's a bone to be picked with this article, it's the idea that schools really do put a significantly higher emphasis on girls than on boys. I just graduated college, but I went to an alternative school, so it's really hard to say if what went on there is representative of colleges in general (for the record, I don't think there was a significant amount of gender bias in education in general... the only potential issue is the existence of scholarships available exclusively to women, which may be redundant now that more women than men are attending college). I don't remember grade school, but my mother (a feminist) was pissed by the emphasis my third grade teacher placed on girls. Of course, that's purely anecdotal. High school I remember more, but I went to a very conservative high school in Wyoming. I believe it was actually pretty balanced. Maybe it tilted more towards boys but I didn't notice because I was male. Or maybe it tilted more towards women and I didn't notice because I was somewhat effeminate.
Regarding gender identity for boys/men: there was a time when the man's role was clear: he was the bread-earner, the decision maker, it was up to him to run things. That's going away. Some say very quickly, some say very slowly. It's probably a good thing, but it's causing confusion. Which may not be a bad thing. But it's happening. Ideally, we'll stop thinking about what it means to be a man, or what it means to be a women, or a homosexual, or a transsexual, and think about what it means to be human.
As was pointed out in the thread, and the article, the media and society is still feeding us a pretty clear message: that we need to be "tough." (see the work of Jackson Katz). Where does this come from? Is it created by the media to sell things? Is it a capitalist conspiracy to encourage competitiveness? Does it have to with mate selection by females? Is it that (most) men (and some women) are just inherently violent and media and society simply reflect this?
Anyway, it's not "tough" to care about school. If you can do well in school without caring, then maybe you're tough. I think Conlin is right that schools need to find ways to redirect boys. And there needs to be a massive reconsideration of the use of drugs to treat behavioral problems.
But there's also the burden on us, the intelligentsia, as Nematode points out, to weed out the larger social issues that cause inequality and violence. |
