To be honest I hate being the
one who cried 'sexism', but this really got to me. Today, I found this video on
the Internet.
My opinion
of course won’t hold as much critical value compared to professors and
researchers, but I noticed some key factors that disturbed me and made me
believe this shouldn’t be taken as seriously as it wants to be.
1. The whole research is based on stereotypes, right down to the pictures
and coloring scheme. It’s
all about ‘boys act this way, girls act that way’. They don’t directly say it,
but it has an undertone of ALL the boys are disorganized, love sports, don’t
like poetry… All of the stereotypical traits we were fighting so hard to combat
all these years. The thing is, this is not biological or something that you’re
born with. You are raised to be this way, either directly by your parents
pushing you into sports or arts, or passively over social norms that are in
their nature arbitrary.
2. It mixes issues.
The extreme cases listed, like the example with the pirate drawing or
the cookie gun, are not schools being against boys. It’s an issue with
violence, or more clearly, gun control. America, as far as I know from the
media, is extremely reluctant to enforce even the slightest bit of gun control.
That’s why terrified schools, wanting to avoid mass shootings, enforce the ‘zero
tolerance’ policies. The theory is that if they punish kids for bringing up
gun-related images, they won’t develop the desire to do so. This theory has
more holes than Swiss cheese, but that’s a topic for a whole other discussion.
The point is that this then affects the boys more than it does the girls because
guns were seen as traditionally boy toys, so it naturally there will be more incidences
with boys than with girls. You’d get the exact same result if schools decided
to ban extra skinny dolls from school in fear of spreading negative self-image.
You’d expect more girls to be affected by this than boys.
3. It never addresses what actually happens
after they graduate.
Maybe this is a bit unfair as it is not directly relevant to the topic,
but I really think it should be covered. They say that boys do much worse in
school than girls, but it never says that regardless of that, they will still
get higher pay and higher-ranking jobs as women. It never mentions that most
departments are run by men.
4. General flaws masked as specifically
male-targeting
What this video does raise are some good critics on the overall
education system. Children are not given enough free time, enough moving space,
there isn’t enough diversity or choice within the system, etc. however, they
present them as specifically anti-male, even though they have largely remained
unchanged for centuries. Teaching and focusing on fictional literature and
poetry is not a new thing. People studied it for centuries and there was just
no one to call it out on it. There was no one in the 19th century
going: “I don’t think poetry is suitable for men and thus we should write about
swordfights!” I’m not saying we shouldn’t include more action-oriented literature
in our school program, but it’s not a recent thing designed to make life harder
for boys.
Lastly, I would like to offer my modest, unprofessional opinion on why
the current school system is becoming ‘anti-boys’. You see, the motto of the
school system is for the most part ‘obey’.
Even after all the reforms, it’s still designed for younger, less
educated individuals to obey the authority-figure of the teacher. This is
basically the environment for the old female archetype- obey the author of your
husband, parents, social construct… While it was typical for men to be thought
to BE the authority. Meaning there is a natural clash. In the past, the
upbringing and education system was stricter, able to break the authoritarian
needs. Now, the screws are loosened for the sake of a friendlier environment,
but this allowing the children to also misbehave. What would also be an
interesting study is to survey if children misbehave more if taught by a male
or a female teacher, or if gender matters at all.
This, as I said, is completely a wild guess and probably just as based
on old stereotypes as the before mentioned video, but it hopefully gives some
food for thoughts and maybe opens a discussion.
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