The elephant in the room here is the massive verbal aptitude gap between boys and girls and our collective reaction to it. It's understandable that this may have been initially greeted as good news by advocates for women's progress; I felt that way at first, too.
But we forget what happened when we once thought boys were so much better than girls at math and science. We looked into it and found that if we changed the way we taught girls we could improve their performance and narrow the gap. Yet we are barely even beginning to think about doing this with boys because we progressives can't get past our smug assertions of male privilege to see that we're failing our boys.
Not so long ago, when Larry Summers suggested the mere *possibly* of men being better at certain fields like math and engineering, to explain the overwhelming male bias in those areas, he was assailed with accusations of sexism. Yet now that the gap in verbal aptitude so clearly favors girls, suddenly we see the limitations of projecting principles of equality onto matters of empirical reality.
But we've also seen how our principles can motivate us to understand the limitations of our own understanding of empirical reality and our ability to draw conclusions about what we learn and act appropriately on them. In this way we've overcome years of writing off women and girls on the basis of seemingly objective and rational observations. We owe our boys the same.
"Not so long ago, when Larry Summers suggested the mere *possibly* of men being better at certain fields like math and engineering"
Wrong. Larry Summers never suggested any such thing (or even the possibility). His remarks are readily available online. He suggested that men are more variable (in talent) than women. That's a difference in standard deviations, not means. The technical term is the GMVH. He may have been right.
There's another aspect to this as well. I started listening to a pod cast with Jordan Peterson and Warren Farrell about the state of boys and young men and the connections to the rise in mass shootings. I think this is a perspective that really needs to be explored in addition to any actions taken on the gun control front. While restricting firearms may have an impact, it still does not eliminate the proclivity to violence itself from increasingly isolated or disaffected young men.
It is simple. School sucks for males. Always has... because it is based on a 150 year old lecture model that rewards compliant clones of discipline and not those with a drive to create, invent and explore.
But what used to happen is that males would finally escape from the confines of school and go out into the working world to make their way. First it was industry that was exported to cheaper labor countries. They told the boys and men that they would find new work in the high-tech manufacturing fields. Then those jobs were outsourced too... and the few remaining were given to robots. The trades were flooded with new immigrants and wages crashed.
And instead of reforming the school system to help make up the deficits for the boys... they did the opposite and Title-nined it to better fit the girls. Combined with the changes in the economy we might as well just handed opioids and bullets to all these boys and men... giving them the message that their toxic masculinity was unneeded and they should just slip away.
So, how do we fix things?
Bring back industry and manufacturing, stop the flood of trade wage-killing illegal immigration, reform the education system and knock the man-hating feminists out of political power.
Considering the fact that almost 2/3-3/4 of the country (depending on the poll) believes the country is headed in the wrong direction, says to me that the shift to the right may be more universal if this continues. I for one, don't see anything compelling me to vote Democrat anytime soon.
C'mon man. How about the fact that Republicans tried to steal a Presidential election and are now running on what are effectively promises to attempt to steal the next one, or any election that doesn't go their way? Or that Republicans have no real platform or set of policy prescriptions to offer the American people, other than empty generic talking points to buttress a core agenda of lib-owning political stunts and abject, slavish devotion to a disgraced and likely indictment-bound ex-president.
The Republicans had actually planned to sit back and just let the expected mid-term wave wash over them - it was only when states started legislating a forced-bith dystopia that they actually deigned to suggest a reason for electing them other than that old kitchen-table standby of investigating Hunter Biden. And anyone who thinks this is bound to change once the Republicans have securely locked the Democrats out of power through "voter security" initiatives hasn't been listening to the NatCons explicitly talk about their aims to use state power to enforce their cultural agenda.
No issue of policy will ultimately matter if our democracy continues to be undermined by a party ultimately only interested in maintaining power without majority support. The last time Republicans had control they showed us just how inept they were at enacting policy other than tax cuts.
Their pathetic attempt at a healthcare bill failed because it was ultimately just a reaction to what Democrats had done by a party accustomed to doing nothing. If you want certain things accomplished, you're better off trying to influence Democrats, because they're the only party that actually makes an effort to serve the American public, even if you don't like what they're currently offering.
Until the Republicans expunge Trump and his toxic influence, you can expect little from them but lots of phony populist posturing and blatant dishonesty, along with a Democratic party with little incentive to address your concerns because Trump makes things easy on them. Support the party that wants to make it easier to vote if you'd like the public to start rewarding politicians for doing things right instead of just showing up every couple of years to kick the other guys out. Because right now that's exactly what's fueling our politics, which is why this country is stuck in neutral with its problems.
Bottom line - there is one reasonably healthy political party in this country. Even if you don't agree with it, support it anyway, because it's the only way to heal the other one's terminal affliction and keep it from killing our democracy.
C'mon man. Dems keep talking about the dangerous threat to democracy, yet they sink millions into Trump backed candidates? I get the idea behind it, but they are making themselves look bad. At the same time, Biden and the Dems are alienating half the country with their rhetoric. And by the way, if Trump is indicted and jailed as many people are saying will happen, he will be pretty much out of the picture.
If by chance the Dems can turn the economy around in the next 2 years, and they can turn away from "wokeism", they might gain some traction. At this point, I think even some Dems are getting fed up with their party.
Also, are Biden and Harris really the best the Dems have to offer?
The issue is whether our educational system discriminates against boys and men because they learn differently than girls and women. I think that the answer has always been "yes", but that it was not obvious until the barriers preventing girls and woman from reaching their educational potential were removed and male-dominated, good-paying, challenging, blue collar jobs disappeared.
No discussion of affirmative action programs that favor girls over boys -- in school, in university, in entry-level jobs, and all the way to Boards of Directors.
Thank you for the information. Clearly, I haven't read the book. But it seems to me that help for boys is quite recent. I have yet to see any sign of it in the schools, universities, and especially workplaces with which I am familiar.
I'll just weigh in here and say that only PRIVATE colleges can tip the scales in favor on men, because they are exempt from Title IX sex discrimination law on undergraduate admissions. The publics, where of course most students go, can't do so. Thanks for the engagement!
This article is just more liberal political blather....
Women make more than men in all high paying jobs. A college educated woman makes significantly more than a high school educated male. Are women complaining? No! Men make more in high risk jobs because women don’t want to do that type of work. What a shock...
What the author is worried about is how to buy the votes of males.... and that is the problem we all face. The Government’s job is not to give people free stuff -- it’s to fight fires, fight crime and fight wars. Anything more is government over reach...
A huge part of the problem here is the way ppl talk about these issues. Most (not all) people on the left really do care about stopping many of these harms men are facing (at least as individuals) but when they use the socially acceptable phrasing on left about particular burdens by marginalized groups etc etc it *feels* to many like they are saying your problems aren't as big a deal as a few mean words some highly educated, rich, and connected woman or minority heard.
Part of that is just the tendency on the left to lose sight of the individuals for the groups. And that's important.
But I think the linguistic barriers are just as important. If the men who aren't doing well thought of themselves as underprivileged individuals based on their lack of education, poor background, their mental disabilities of depression, drug use etc then the left would be much more verbally supportive (tho face the stupid nasty fight over who belongs to most underprivileged group).
But that's never going to work. For blacis and Hispanics and gay ppl etc members of those groups naturally identify as members. Outside of a very weird pocket of educated leftists most ppl don't want to identify (even tho they know it's true) as undereducated, suffering from drug addiction, depression etc etc... The structure the left offers of: just give us an identity for ppl who have it bad like you and them claim your concern/help by proclaiming that membership just isn't going to work.
Having said that I also think it's not the best strategy to phrase it as a problem for men. Sure it may be true but it feels like repeating the overly identitarian focus of some bad things on the left and just isn't necessary. Just subdivide the group more so it feels less like a broadside against the feminist tribe (terminology signals intent).
This is so sad and so true. The Damore memo provides just one data point. Literally, no one made the rather obvious point “here is a realm where young men are thriving and that should be celebrated, not condemned”.
The elephant in the room here is the massive verbal aptitude gap between boys and girls and our collective reaction to it. It's understandable that this may have been initially greeted as good news by advocates for women's progress; I felt that way at first, too.
But we forget what happened when we once thought boys were so much better than girls at math and science. We looked into it and found that if we changed the way we taught girls we could improve their performance and narrow the gap. Yet we are barely even beginning to think about doing this with boys because we progressives can't get past our smug assertions of male privilege to see that we're failing our boys.
Not so long ago, when Larry Summers suggested the mere *possibly* of men being better at certain fields like math and engineering, to explain the overwhelming male bias in those areas, he was assailed with accusations of sexism. Yet now that the gap in verbal aptitude so clearly favors girls, suddenly we see the limitations of projecting principles of equality onto matters of empirical reality.
But we've also seen how our principles can motivate us to understand the limitations of our own understanding of empirical reality and our ability to draw conclusions about what we learn and act appropriately on them. In this way we've overcome years of writing off women and girls on the basis of seemingly objective and rational observations. We owe our boys the same.
"Not so long ago, when Larry Summers suggested the mere *possibly* of men being better at certain fields like math and engineering"
Wrong. Larry Summers never suggested any such thing (or even the possibility). His remarks are readily available online. He suggested that men are more variable (in talent) than women. That's a difference in standard deviations, not means. The technical term is the GMVH. He may have been right.
"The elephant in the room here is the massive verbal aptitude gap between boys and girls"
The gap is real, but I would not call it massive. The PISA 2015 tests show that girls are verbally better than boys everywhere.
"But we forget what happened when we once thought boys were so much better than girls at math and science"
Actually, boys are somewhat better than girls in math (not 'so much better') everywhere... Either in relative or absolute terms.
There's another aspect to this as well. I started listening to a pod cast with Jordan Peterson and Warren Farrell about the state of boys and young men and the connections to the rise in mass shootings. I think this is a perspective that really needs to be explored in addition to any actions taken on the gun control front. While restricting firearms may have an impact, it still does not eliminate the proclivity to violence itself from increasingly isolated or disaffected young men.
It is simple. School sucks for males. Always has... because it is based on a 150 year old lecture model that rewards compliant clones of discipline and not those with a drive to create, invent and explore.
But what used to happen is that males would finally escape from the confines of school and go out into the working world to make their way. First it was industry that was exported to cheaper labor countries. They told the boys and men that they would find new work in the high-tech manufacturing fields. Then those jobs were outsourced too... and the few remaining were given to robots. The trades were flooded with new immigrants and wages crashed.
And instead of reforming the school system to help make up the deficits for the boys... they did the opposite and Title-nined it to better fit the girls. Combined with the changes in the economy we might as well just handed opioids and bullets to all these boys and men... giving them the message that their toxic masculinity was unneeded and they should just slip away.
So, how do we fix things?
Bring back industry and manufacturing, stop the flood of trade wage-killing illegal immigration, reform the education system and knock the man-hating feminists out of political power.
Considering the fact that almost 2/3-3/4 of the country (depending on the poll) believes the country is headed in the wrong direction, says to me that the shift to the right may be more universal if this continues. I for one, don't see anything compelling me to vote Democrat anytime soon.
C'mon man. How about the fact that Republicans tried to steal a Presidential election and are now running on what are effectively promises to attempt to steal the next one, or any election that doesn't go their way? Or that Republicans have no real platform or set of policy prescriptions to offer the American people, other than empty generic talking points to buttress a core agenda of lib-owning political stunts and abject, slavish devotion to a disgraced and likely indictment-bound ex-president.
The Republicans had actually planned to sit back and just let the expected mid-term wave wash over them - it was only when states started legislating a forced-bith dystopia that they actually deigned to suggest a reason for electing them other than that old kitchen-table standby of investigating Hunter Biden. And anyone who thinks this is bound to change once the Republicans have securely locked the Democrats out of power through "voter security" initiatives hasn't been listening to the NatCons explicitly talk about their aims to use state power to enforce their cultural agenda.
No issue of policy will ultimately matter if our democracy continues to be undermined by a party ultimately only interested in maintaining power without majority support. The last time Republicans had control they showed us just how inept they were at enacting policy other than tax cuts.
Their pathetic attempt at a healthcare bill failed because it was ultimately just a reaction to what Democrats had done by a party accustomed to doing nothing. If you want certain things accomplished, you're better off trying to influence Democrats, because they're the only party that actually makes an effort to serve the American public, even if you don't like what they're currently offering.
Until the Republicans expunge Trump and his toxic influence, you can expect little from them but lots of phony populist posturing and blatant dishonesty, along with a Democratic party with little incentive to address your concerns because Trump makes things easy on them. Support the party that wants to make it easier to vote if you'd like the public to start rewarding politicians for doing things right instead of just showing up every couple of years to kick the other guys out. Because right now that's exactly what's fueling our politics, which is why this country is stuck in neutral with its problems.
Bottom line - there is one reasonably healthy political party in this country. Even if you don't agree with it, support it anyway, because it's the only way to heal the other one's terminal affliction and keep it from killing our democracy.
C'mon man. Dems keep talking about the dangerous threat to democracy, yet they sink millions into Trump backed candidates? I get the idea behind it, but they are making themselves look bad. At the same time, Biden and the Dems are alienating half the country with their rhetoric. And by the way, if Trump is indicted and jailed as many people are saying will happen, he will be pretty much out of the picture.
If by chance the Dems can turn the economy around in the next 2 years, and they can turn away from "wokeism", they might gain some traction. At this point, I think even some Dems are getting fed up with their party.
Also, are Biden and Harris really the best the Dems have to offer?
"So what you're saying is that men and boys of the upper middle classes - who are doing very well in education"
Well, no... they really are not. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/
The issue is whether our educational system discriminates against boys and men because they learn differently than girls and women. I think that the answer has always been "yes", but that it was not obvious until the barriers preventing girls and woman from reaching their educational potential were removed and male-dominated, good-paying, challenging, blue collar jobs disappeared.
"Women are moving left, men are moving right. This leaves the men vulnerable to skilled populists like Donald Trump."
By this reasoning, doesn't this leave women vulnerable to skilled populists like Elizabeth Waren and AOC?
No discussion of affirmative action programs that favor girls over boys -- in school, in university, in entry-level jobs, and all the way to Boards of Directors.
Thank you for the information. Clearly, I haven't read the book. But it seems to me that help for boys is quite recent. I have yet to see any sign of it in the schools, universities, and especially workplaces with which I am familiar.
I'll just weigh in here and say that only PRIVATE colleges can tip the scales in favor on men, because they are exempt from Title IX sex discrimination law on undergraduate admissions. The publics, where of course most students go, can't do so. Thanks for the engagement!
This article is just more liberal political blather....
Women make more than men in all high paying jobs. A college educated woman makes significantly more than a high school educated male. Are women complaining? No! Men make more in high risk jobs because women don’t want to do that type of work. What a shock...
What the author is worried about is how to buy the votes of males.... and that is the problem we all face. The Government’s job is not to give people free stuff -- it’s to fight fires, fight crime and fight wars. Anything more is government over reach...
A huge part of the problem here is the way ppl talk about these issues. Most (not all) people on the left really do care about stopping many of these harms men are facing (at least as individuals) but when they use the socially acceptable phrasing on left about particular burdens by marginalized groups etc etc it *feels* to many like they are saying your problems aren't as big a deal as a few mean words some highly educated, rich, and connected woman or minority heard.
Part of that is just the tendency on the left to lose sight of the individuals for the groups. And that's important.
But I think the linguistic barriers are just as important. If the men who aren't doing well thought of themselves as underprivileged individuals based on their lack of education, poor background, their mental disabilities of depression, drug use etc then the left would be much more verbally supportive (tho face the stupid nasty fight over who belongs to most underprivileged group).
But that's never going to work. For blacis and Hispanics and gay ppl etc members of those groups naturally identify as members. Outside of a very weird pocket of educated leftists most ppl don't want to identify (even tho they know it's true) as undereducated, suffering from drug addiction, depression etc etc... The structure the left offers of: just give us an identity for ppl who have it bad like you and them claim your concern/help by proclaiming that membership just isn't going to work.
Having said that I also think it's not the best strategy to phrase it as a problem for men. Sure it may be true but it feels like repeating the overly identitarian focus of some bad things on the left and just isn't necessary. Just subdivide the group more so it feels less like a broadside against the feminist tribe (terminology signals intent).
This is so sad and so true. The Damore memo provides just one data point. Literally, no one made the rather obvious point “here is a realm where young men are thriving and that should be celebrated, not condemned”.
Another solution could be basic income guarantee