[EDEQUITY] Sommers study

From: Jan Mokros (jan_mokros@terc.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 21 2000 - 16:46:19 EDT

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    I have been struggling with how to explain/respond to Sommers' work, and
    recently found a great one page argument written by Michael Kimmel in the
    spring/summer 2000 edition of the Research Report from the Wellesley
    Centers for Women (p. 7). Kimmel says,
     "What's wrong with the 'what about the boys' debate? First it creates a
    false opposition between girls and boys, pretending that the educational
    reforms undertaken to enable girls to perform better actually hindered
    boys' educational development. . . I believe that it is *masculinity* that
    is missing in the discussion. Introducing masculinities into the
    discussion alleviates several of the problems with the "what about the
    boys?' debate. . . If we really want to rescue boys, protect boys, promote
    boyhood, then our task must be to find ways to reveal and challenge this
    ideology of masculinity, to disrupt the facile 'boys will be boys' model,
    and to erode boys' sense of entitlement. Because the reality is that this
    ideology of masculinity is the problem for both girls and boys."
    Kimmel is a prof os sociology at SUNY Stony Brook and his most recent
    book is The Gendered Society (Oxford Press, 2000).
    "Jan Mokros" <jan_mokros@terc.edu>



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