They're only falling behind if this is a zero-sum game, asshole.

[trinityvixen]

From earthrise: OMG WHO NEEDS ROLE MODELS FOR GURLZ AND COLOURED PEOPLE WHEN THE WHITE BOYS AREN'T BEATING THEM ANY MORE!?!? SAVE WHITEY!

You just know it's a fucking joke when this author can point to the United State Supreme Court's one female member and think that that's plenty. Yes, 1 woman versus eight men, that's clearly a sign of the end of days for white boys. Fuck off, you cunt.

The education panic over boys is the same old nonsense. Boys are falling behind because our education system, somehow, was built to cater to girls. Right. This is the system that has remained virtually the same for decades, in both style and substance and (thanks to tenure) character. What is really going on here? Eroding white male privilege has defenders of it in a tizzy. Good.

Comments

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I think in many ways the education system caters for kids that do not exists in this reality. You can get pockets of good, but lots and lots of bad.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The most common argument that I've heard for why this system "rewards" girls and "punishes" boys is based on specious assertions that boys simply cannot focus on learning until much later (the old "girls mature faster than boys" being applied to all things, in other words). As opposed to examining the effects of child-rearing stereotypes where girls are forced to be prim and proper while "boys will be boys" reigns elsewhere.

No, the school system isn't remotely the best. We're too interested in promoting the unworthy (lest we crush their spirits and, you know, actually educate them). Another drawback of a litigious society, I suppose--the fear that not passing a poor student on will come back to bite you in the ass (whereas poorly educated kids who go on tend to blame their parents for their failures, kids who are held back have parents to blame the teachers). It's all so stupid.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

We're too interested in promoting the unworthy (lest we crush their spirits and, you know, actually educate them).

I would call that more of a symptom than a cause. Really we created artificial social construct that everyone has keep a certain pace with everyone else and that everyone is all the same. In that environment you are less of a person if you don't keep up. That generates kids who learn for the test more than to better themselves. That right there is broken. Really one strategy that would work (but would be hard to implement in the current system) would be to develop a individual lesson plan for each student per subject per term. From that you group together kids with similar needs to classes tailored to best suit there learning style. That way you maximize learning effort to the students you have rather than to the mythic "average kid".

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Our education system rewards girls because they are more heavily socialized to follow the rules and not make waves, and generally be responsible.

As for what's wrong with the school system, I basically think that the underlying cause is that no one in power in America has any interest in actually making public education work. Testing is a useful distraction from this fact -- everybody gets all involved in the test scores, since people like everything measurements imply, and in the absence of relevant numbers, irrelevant ones will do -- but education is always the first priority to go when it's tax-cut time, and big business just assumes (likely correctly) it'll be able to import/outsource all of its labor from/to countries that have lower wages but better education systems (India and China). Why should a corporation invest in American youth when somebody else is investing more in Chinese youth, and they're cheaper anyway?

Incidentally, the Bush administration's education department is on record as saying that "In the future, we won't need people to [make decisions or think]; we'll just need people to follow instructions." Them's the priorities that've been guiding our public schools for the last 8 years...

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Well, the author pointed at the Speaker of the House, the 1 Supreme Court Justice, and the handful of other government members who are female. The article, to me, seems to be less about the education system and more about "White women are still white, so Obama should be more appreciated in this race than Hilary."

It's not even about "Save whitey!" It's about someone preferring a black male role model to a white female role model.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It is and it isn't. The fact that she thinks any progress towards representative government (meaning, the government reflects the percentages of the populace) is reason enough to quit yer bitchin' and be grateful. Because black Americans haven't matched the few gains hard-won by feminist road-pavers, we should throw them over to be sure the black candidate wins? That's insulting to everyone all around.

And it's a total distraction from the fact that in-fighting will leave the rich white guys still in control. Not to mention, it kinda negates black women as even existing. Apparently, you can represent one or the other, not both, when it comes to race and gender.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Oh, totally not defending the author, here. It's a bullshit article. The tone is reminiscent of the old arguments about how the women should not fight for voting and civil rights along with the black folk because they'd detract from their cause. (Because even then, people would rather throw black men a bone than women.)

Yes, the in-fighting is probably exactly what the rich white guys depend on TO keep them in control. Thus why it is encouraged and fanned by guys like Chris Matthews, Rush, etc. Just like in this article that I saw on Yahoo yesterday. It's pretty telling about the attitudes toward racism and sexism in the media. Clinton's camp "perceived" sexism, while Obama's camp "complained." In the article's defense, it does at least include a perspective from a black woman, and it does comment that the issue is a lot more complex than it would seem. And it does point out, correctly (IMO), that racist remarks tend to be more coded, while the misogyny just flows. People are a LOT more vocal about criticizing Hilary on gender grounds than I have seen them be about Obama on race grounds. (Sorry, derailed comment. I should have posted this in my LJ yesterday when I found the article. :p)

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, the article is clearly written by a left-winger; it's more a case of "live by identity politics, die by identity politics." The whole idea that we should elect a president by which identity group needs a role model the most is ludicrous, but since the author decided to adopt that ludicrous premise, she looked at and concluded (correctly, I think) that young black males in America are faring worse than young white females, and therefore need a role model more. Of course, based on this model, the author should be running a draft Condi Rice movement, but that's not going to happen.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

As I commented above, this kind of article almost denies the existence of black women. Clearly, you can only support one or the other, never both! Black women? Who ever heard of such a thing?

[earthrise.livejournal.com]

This the whole raison d'etre for voting blocs. It's not even a male/female, black/white division -- in my immigrant experience sociology class years ago, I researched the division with the "black" voting bloc between African Americans and West Indian immigrants.

This is exactly the point: the formation of blocs helps force politicians to pay attention to the specific needs of different groups of people with different ideologies. However, it also helps divide and conquer on an individual level.

One of my best friends in college, when asked, said she identified first as black and second as a woman. She is forced to choose. I'm not sure what the correct road to stable pluralism is, but it ain't what we got now, that's for sure.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that she identifies with color over gender. I would think, given the immediacy of your body as a womyn, you'd be more sympathetic to its needs and assaults upon its character. It is a sad thing indeed that she is made to feel the color of her skin first instead of the more emotionally, physically impactful fact of her gender.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

I like Lorrie Moore (a lot) and I was surprised by this article. The thing is, I re-read it, and there isn't anything in there that isn't true. It's all correct. I just disagree with her conclusions. She has a valid point--the feminism movement of the 60s and 70s was a middle-upper class white women's movement. White, middle- and upper-class women DID substantially increase their representation in major cultural areas and reap basically all of the benefits of that movement.

Class and Race were and are much slower going. Does that mean ANYTHING about Hillary or Barack? Honestly, I don't think so.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I object to the pearl-clutching over how boys are falling behind in school. It's implying that the gains women made are responsible by placing those gains alongside the loss the boys have suffered. Like I said, it's NOT a zero-sum game. We can educate boys and girls with the same curriculum. It actually would require less tinkering with the education system and more with our gender bias in rearing children (as wellgull points out, boys are allowed and even indulged in acting out while girls are drilled from day one not to make waves).

I wish it were just the education system. It would be a helluva a lot easier to fix.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

I've said before: the media became so entrenched with "Will we have our first Black President or our first Woman President?" that they completely lost sight of "who would make the best president?"

I don't recall the Constitution establishing a role of Role-Model-in-Chief. Unfortunately it's a natural outgrowth of a media that refuses to do any kind of policy analysis and has forsworn the goal of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Is it any wonder that America treats candidates like cheering for your favorite team, when the campaign is reported like it was some kind of horse race?

In short: the article was crap. Valid criticisms of Hillary, but none of it manages to suggest that Obama is any better, except he's the Only Other Possible Option, right? Right?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Given how defensive she is about poor boys falling behind those dark-horse feminists, I'm surprised she left out Edwards.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Who's Edwards?