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Here's 100 Years of Proof That Girls Are Better Students Than Boys. In all subjects, even math and science.
In 2006, Newsweek magazine declared it, loud, on their cover: America's boys were in crisis. Boys were falling behind their female counterparts in school. They were getting worse grades, lagging on standardized tests, and not attending college in the same numbers as girls. "By almost every benchmark," Peg Tyre, the author of the cover story, wrote, "boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind." And so it began-the end of men, but also an ongoing conversation on how to better boys' performance in the classroom. From the article:
This "boy crisis," however, was based on an assumption: that males had previously been on top. Granted, there was evidence to support that idea. For one, educational institutions for most of modern history have been openly sexist, favoring boys. And traditionally, males had outperformed girls in standardized tests and in math and science. But "by the mid-1990s, girls had reduced the gap in math, and more girls than boys were taking high-school-level biology and chemistry," Tyre wrote.
The assumption that boys had been the better students didn't seem right to (married) researchers Daniel and Susan Voyer of the University of New Brunswick in Canada. "I've been collecting grade data for a long time," Daniel Voyer says in a phone interview. "Typically if you find gender differences, they are in favor of girls - it doesn't matter what it is. So it started to kind of puzzle me." And so the pair set out to test, collecting every study they could find on grades and gender since 1914 and crunching the numbers in a mega-meta analysis, the first of its kind.
While the girls' advantage is largest in reading and language studies, it exists for all subjects, even math and science. And though they tested data from across the world, the Voyers found the gender gap was largest in the United States.
What's most striking is that the gender gap held across the decades. If the boy crisis existed, they would have seen boys' performance peak and fall over time. That wasn't the case. "Boys have been lagging for a long time and ... this is a fairly stable phenomenon," the paper concluded.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday May 02 2014, @12:30PM
Since no one else has yet, I'll state the obvious. The foundations are laid in early education, ages 5-12 or so. In this age group, on average, young girls find it easier to sit still. Young boys are, on average, more physically active.
At least when I was in school (ya know, back in the Stone Age), teachers let us out for recess in a big dirt lot. We were allowed to let off steam however we wanted: run around, play soldier, play tag, whatever - get rid of excess physical energy.
Today that is apparently too dangerous, at least in the US, and increasingly in other countries as well. Playgrounds are covered with rubber mats, no contact games, no competition - heck, some schools even apparently try to outlaw running. When the boys turn out fidgety in class, diagnose them with ADHD and drug 'em. Make them behave like good little girls, because that's what the almost entirely female staff really understands.
Is it any wonder that boys have trouble in education?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by velex on Friday May 02 2014, @01:47PM
Not only that, but elementary schools are openly, institutionally sexist against boys. They routinely implement policies that favor girls, such as allowing girls to use the gym and wander the halls during indoor recess. This is justified by the supposed male privilege that boys will enjoy later in life and also as a punishment for future rape and future sexism that the boys will invariably engage in. Girls are routinely given more interesting projects, and boys are given bland projects with studies like this used as justification, for example, for allowing girls to use proper tools like hot glue guns while restricting boys to paste.
Later in schooling, the institutional sexism shows itself in other forms than outright policy. I remember once in "English" class, an assignment was to analyze a short story and identify how the house in the story itself was pregnant. The teacher made it a point to tell the class that none of the [assigned males] would be able to complete the assignment because males are unable to become pregnant and thus are incomplete beings.
I don't think I even need to get into an incident where I started a computer club and was then set up by the [cis] female network administrator to be accused of hacking. Years later, a girl founded another computer club and the school district triumphantly trumped in the local newspaper that their first computer club was founded by a girl. Feh, if only I could have known back then what I was up against.
In all seriousness, this study, if anything, shows that when you openly discriminate against a group based on body parts other than the one between the ears, that group tends to do more poorly vs. the privileged group.
There is no more disgusting form of sexism than sexism justified by presumed sexism.
I'll say it again. Fuck feminism. It's the beta of gender equality. And I'll add, if only I had a red creeper card for every. single. damned. time. I was reduced to the body part between my legs and openly discriminated against. And I wish I had a red creeper card for every. single. damned. time. I've had to listen to some [cis] woman go on about wild sex.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @05:16PM
And now those girls have grown up they won't even fuck you! Damn girls!
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by velex on Friday May 02 2014, @05:59PM
I know, right! Because everybody is attracted to girls! hurr durr
Because anybody who would dare criticize cis women must be butthurt about not getting laid.
God, what a fucking stupid comment. I shouldn't even reply to you, but I am that fucking sick of this kind of bullshit.
Although come to think of it I haven't had a good cock in me in about 6 months, though.
(Score: 2, Funny) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @06:21PM
I see there's been no lasting psychological damage...
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @01:55PM
Thanks for having the BALLS to say that out loud.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @05:13PM
And the girls were doing group activities too. Skipping and other games.
Well whatever they did do at your school seems to have turned you into a whiner with little respect for the facts.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday May 03 2014, @10:46AM
I just entered "elementary school playground rules", and clicked on the first link [srvusd.net]. Here are some of the rules:
So, what facts did I get wrong? What kind of "playground" doesn't allow tag, balls, jump ropes, or running?
By the way, I never said that girls weren't doing activities as well. However, it's a pretty basic and well-known fact that young boys have more trouble sitting still in a classroom than girls.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday May 03 2014, @03:32PM
The ban on balls and running only applies to "the playground apparatus area" which appears to be a small area with swings, slides and climbing frames. It makes a lot of sense to not allow ball ga,es and running there as they are likely to cause accidents. There is no such ban on the main playground. In fact if you'd read further down the page you'd have found handy instructions for how to play certain ball games.
The only one you mentioned that applies to the whole playground is games of tag. And it doesn't appear to apply to the playing field, as one of the games described involves being on the playing field and tagging.
So basically you got all of it wrong. Even after having found the page yourself. Typically right wing distortion with no respect for the facts.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!