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Zing. I remember reading/watching studies of classroom settings a few years ago where teachers were unconsciously giving boys a better learning experience. It w

by alayne 16y ago

Zing. I remember reading/watching studies of classroom settings a few years ago where teachers were unconsciously giving boys a better learning experience. It was eye opening. I thought there was a fairly established result in gender bias studies of education -- boys get more opportunities, more teacher interaction, and the system encourages them more. Maybe this is more fair?

jerf 16y ago
When was that, exactly? Things have changed, from top to bottom. Everything seems to be totally restructured for girls. The much-better-examined question is why females are getting more bachelor's degrees then males in college, by a percentage that if it were any other group would be prima facie proof of widespread discrimination. http://iserp.columbia.edu/news/articles/female-advantage-college http://iserp.columbia.edu/news/articles/female-advantage-col... says 2004 saw 58% female graduation, and the disparity's trend is up, not down. We need to wipe out the idea that education is somehow biased towards males now, and fast. The playing field has gone from balanced to stacked in favor of females and it's still being tipped yet further in that direction. ("Why does it matter?" It is, as the article says, fairly well established that variance in male intelligence is larger than female intelligence. It is also fairly well established that progress is made in society in a very unbalanced manner, where most progress is made by the outliers in skill. Throwing away the males because the education system labels the usual male child learning styles pathological because they can't be properly corralled is not the path to a society able to compete on the global stage.)
- kenjackson 16y ago
  As a male, and father of males, I can honestly say that if any male feels like they are being systematically being discriminated against in school, they need to "man up". Even if there is some gender bias in schools, everything else in society is so male-centric that the scale still way tips toward male.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    Everything else? How about child-rearing / anything to do with children? Males are pretty often feared as being pedophiles if they work with kids.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      Fair. There are some places where men have a tougher time. Daycare provider is one. Figure skating and porn star are probably some others. But all up, it's still not even close.
      - Groxx 16y ago
        http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/jobpat-eeo1/2008/us/national.html http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/jobpat-eeo1/2... With a couple significant outliers (most in men's favor, but not all), it's actually pretty close. Though I'm not sure what "professionals" relates to.
        kenjackson 16y ago
        It's really not very close. The "outliers" are things like "execute" where men dominate more than 2:1. The only places where women have more of are clerical and sales positions. And really the real question, if you're interested in workforce data is money. There's a huge gap between men and women: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgrows.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgr... Now of course the standard reply is "they work different jobs". And that's true. Jobs men work tend to pay more. Why is that? Who knows. And if you look at the historic pay of fields like psychology, once dominated by men, it used to pay very well. As women began to play a large role in the field, pay dropped. Did men leave because pay drop or did pay drop because men left? No one knows. But I still believe my fundamental point. If you're a man and you're not doing as well as you like and it's because you think women have done you in, I just personally have a low opinion of you. Not that you'd care about my opinion, but that's just my take. And I'll raise my kids, to the best of my ability, to not believe that they can't get a fair shot in life because women run the show.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  I'm still hung up on exactly how this gender bias (in either direction) actually manifests itself in the classroom. The derivative with respect to x of x^2 is 2x regardless of what gender you are. The Americans won the Revolutionary war regardless of what gender you are.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    The example in the article is that one gives tests which measure a combination of intelligence and the ability to sit still for long periods. Since young girls have a greater ability to sit still than young boys, they score higher.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  None of the things you say that are well established are actually so. Even things like intelligence are still widely debated (the actual definition, much less distribution of it). And societal progress has everything to do with moving the center mass -- not with outliers. But I don't claim that this to be well established.

by alayne 16y ago

jerf 16y ago

When was that, exactly? Things have changed, from top to bottom. Everything seems to be totally restructured for girls. The much-better-examined question is why females are getting more bachelor's degrees then males in college, by a percentage that if it were any other group would be prima facie proof of widespread discrimination. http://iserp.columbia.edu/news/articles/female-advantage-college http://iserp.columbia.edu/news/articles/female-advantage-col... says 2004 saw 58% female graduation, and the disparity's trend is up, not down. We need to wipe out the idea that education is somehow biased towards males now, and fast. The playing field has gone from balanced to stacked in favor of females and it's still being tipped yet further in that direction. ("Why does it matter?" It is, as the article says, fairly well established that variance in male intelligence is larger than female intelligence. It is also fairly well established that progress is made in society in a very unbalanced manner, where most progress is made by the outliers in skill. Throwing away the males because the education system labels the usual male child learning styles pathological because they can't be properly corralled is not the path to a society able to compete on the global stage.)

kenjackson 16y ago
As a male, and father of males, I can honestly say that if any male feels like they are being systematically being discriminated against in school, they need to "man up". Even if there is some gender bias in schools, everything else in society is so male-centric that the scale still way tips toward male.
- Groxx 16y ago
  Everything else? How about child-rearing / anything to do with children? Males are pretty often feared as being pedophiles if they work with kids.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Fair. There are some places where men have a tougher time. Daycare provider is one. Figure skating and porn star are probably some others. But all up, it's still not even close.
    - Groxx 16y ago
      http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/jobpat-eeo1/2008/us/national.html http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/jobpat-eeo1/2... With a couple significant outliers (most in men's favor, but not all), it's actually pretty close. Though I'm not sure what "professionals" relates to.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        It's really not very close. The "outliers" are things like "execute" where men dominate more than 2:1. The only places where women have more of are clerical and sales positions. And really the real question, if you're interested in workforce data is money. There's a huge gap between men and women: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgrows.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgr... Now of course the standard reply is "they work different jobs". And that's true. Jobs men work tend to pay more. Why is that? Who knows. And if you look at the historic pay of fields like psychology, once dominated by men, it used to pay very well. As women began to play a large role in the field, pay dropped. Did men leave because pay drop or did pay drop because men left? No one knows. But I still believe my fundamental point. If you're a man and you're not doing as well as you like and it's because you think women have done you in, I just personally have a low opinion of you. Not that you'd care about my opinion, but that's just my take. And I'll raise my kids, to the best of my ability, to not believe that they can't get a fair shot in life because women run the show.
tkahn6 16y ago
I'm still hung up on exactly how this gender bias (in either direction) actually manifests itself in the classroom. The derivative with respect to x of x^2 is 2x regardless of what gender you are. The Americans won the Revolutionary war regardless of what gender you are.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  The example in the article is that one gives tests which measure a combination of intelligence and the ability to sit still for long periods. Since young girls have a greater ability to sit still than young boys, they score higher.
kenjackson 16y ago
None of the things you say that are well established are actually so. Even things like intelligence are still widely debated (the actual definition, much less distribution of it). And societal progress has everything to do with moving the center mass -- not with outliers. But I don't claim that this to be well established.