> When uttered by a teacher, it can easily be taken to have an implied "therefore I'll make less of an effort teaching them, or to encourage their career". > I

> When uttered by a teacher, it can easily be taken to have an implied "therefore I'll make less of an effort teaching them, or to encourage their career". > If somebody had said 40 years ago that "men play more soccer than women", this would have been correct as an empirical statement. However, it was also invariably taken as a normative statement, and subsequently less resources and encouragement were expended on women. And when the genders were later put on more equitable footing, the empirical fact turned out to be quite malleable. It is not "invariably taken" as a normative statement, especially not when its normative interpretation is literally and explicitly disclaimed by the author.