Education of Boys

Robert Weverka (weverka@optivision.com)
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 17:03:58 +0000


Did you catch the last part of the Washington Post series on gender?

It is about boys and education.
http://washingtonpost.com:80/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-03/26/267l-032698-idx.html

The entire article is perfect for this list, and some of the material will
shake up some of the views about boys promoted here.

The case begins with numbers. Boy babies die in greater numbers
in infancy, and are more fragile as babies than girls. Boys are
far more likely than girls to be told they have learning
disabilities, to be sent to the principal's office, to be
given medication for hyperactivity ...

To this I would add that boys are more likely to be murdered in every age
group, including as infants.

"An enormous crisis of men and boys is happening before our eyes
without our seeing it. ...

On male suicide:
Said Pollack: "If girls were killing themselves in these numbers
we'd recognize this as a public health issue in our society."

On the sex who most strongly applies Homophobic pressure:
The boy got his pink bike. But he was teased so much by other
children, who called this 5-year-old gay, that he put a sign on
his bicycle basket. It read:
I like pink.
I am still a boy.
I have a penis.
Now he is 8, and doesn't let anyone know he likes pink. It was the
girls who hassled him about it most mercilessly. Girls who wear
blue all the time.

On suppression of efforts to help boys:
Researchers into boys' behavior fear they will be tagged as anti-
female, and they tread cautiously into the politically and
emotionally loaded field of gender study.

This last comment I find particularly apropos. Attempts to raise gender
equity issues for boys on this list have been met with hostility and ridicule.

Robert

<weverka@optivision.com>


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