Piling on

The Justice Department is reportedly readying a report on alleged discrimination against girls in college admissions, to determine if boys are benefiting from “favoritism” in violation of Title IX. How can this be, you ask? Girls constitute an increasing majority of college students—as much as a 60-40 split—so why is the Justice Department wasting its time on an apparently frivolous and self-serving accusation? Good question. Until the report is released, we won’t know what colleges and what persons were involved in bringing forth these allegations, although it won't be a surprise if it is feminist activists from the American Association for University Women—responsible for the shockingly distorted and utterly devoid of fact 1992 report “How Schools Shortchanged Girls,” which led to a variety of changes that merely led to more overt challenges to boys’ already eroding ability to find a place in an academic environment geared to over-state girls’ “strengths.” The AAUW was, of course, also shamelessly responsible for the now discredited and completely disreputable “study” which claimed that one-in-three college women are raped.

The subject being investigated, of course, should have been “Are boys being discriminated against in college admissions?” But the wider question is “Are boys being discriminated against in general in the education system?” Yes, boys are dropping out of high school at higher rates and less likely to be admitted to college, so there may be a problem worth investigating, states a Seattle Times editorial; but we shouldn’t do anything that will “hurt girls,” and this has been the general refrain from those who deign to perceive a problem but don’t really want to do anything about it—doubtless either fearful of a gender politics backlash, or outspokenly desiring such an outcome. While nit-picking anti-affirmative action statutes opposed to under-represented racial minority admissions have been passed in allegedly blue states like Washington and California, the country seems loath to take-on the loud and sometimes frenzied gender activists, even merely to address the disparity issue. As I noted in an earlier post, some gender activists applaud the disparity, since it “proves” that women are “superior.” Yet, as I noted, there doesn’t seem to be any Einsteins, Beethovens, Newtons or even Bill Gateses coming out of this new crop of “superior” beings. Even Linda Buck’s Nobel Prize for her cancer research is now being questioned after two of her research papers were withdrawn for being based on fraudulent data.

Although Christina Hoff Sommers’ Atlantic Monthly article “The War Against Boys” was published in 2000, the situation seems even worse now for boys than it did then. How did we get to this point? Sommers’ placed the ongoing propaganda of victimology at the feet of Carol Gilligan, a Harvard professor in gender studies, which more appropriately should be referred to as “women as victims studies” since Gilligan and her ilk have never shown any understanding (or desire to understand) the problems confronting males in this society. In a “ground-breaking” 1982 book entitled “A Different Voice,” Gilligan claimed that "As the river of a girl's life flows into the sea of Western culture, she is in danger of drowning or disappearing”—and schools were the principle culprit. Gilligan was merely expressing her own opinion as one of the “oppressed,” so the need for actual data to back-up her claim was completely unnecessary. It was a given “fact.” Thus “girls in crisis” became a “national emergency” once the media got a hold of the story—emphasis on “story.” Media types like Anna Quindlen—for whom I feel a great deal of contempt—ignored the reality of their own success and made female victimology all the rage; in an op-ed, Quindlen even implied that she felt a degree of dismay over even the possibility that her own sons might be more successful than her daughter, blaming it on a “patriarchal” society dismissive of women.

Gilligan was followed by other feminist writers who made increasingly horrific claims without offering any empirical data that could be peer-reviewed. For example, repeated efforts to obtain the data upon which Gilligan claimed to base her findings in "Voice" on have not only not materialized, if it does in fact exist it would likely stand-up to close inspection as well as a twig in a bonfire. The aforementioned AAUW study was not at the time questioned, but since then its research methods have been criticized and discredited as “politics dressed up as science.” Other, less politicized and biased reports, concluded that the exact opposite of what the academic feminists were claiming was occurring: That boys were increasingly falling behind in almost every area of the educational environment, and that school was a much more demoralizing experience for them than for girls.

But the damage had been done. And continues to be done. The effect of the AAUW “studies” persuaded government agencies to pour money into programs to reverse the non-existent “gap” in academic achievement and “nurturing” environment between girls and boys, and merely extended the one that did exist, as yet unrecognized in the cloud of female victimology. What to do? Gilligan would claim that boys needed to get closer to their mothers and discover their “feminine” side, which was contrary to studies with harder evidence that concluded that boys in fatherless households were more susceptible to failure (the one exception being households where single mothers were able to provide a stable environment). Increasing evidence that flatly contradicted and criticized the AAUW’s findings was greeted by the then president of the Association with the accusation that “reducing the problems of our children to this petty 'who is worse off, boys or girls?’ gets us nowhere.” In this scenario, only boys are going “nowhere,” but this is just fine with the gender activists; as the Seattle Times stated, no “solution” that “hurts” girls should be countenanced. But those that hurt boys do, apparently, have a “legitimate” purpose. Take for instance the fact that while girls have higher GPAs, boys have slightly higher SAT scores. GPAs are thus given greater weight in college admissions (which also often includes the requirement of an “essay” in which girls and their verbal skills are more likely to “excel” in), but this isn’t the only problem. While girls’ higher GPAs are cited as “evidence” that they are “smarter” than boys, higher SAT scores by boys are cited as just more “evidence” that girls are “discriminated” against. The hypocrisy boggles the mind.

Much of the effort to legitimize diminishing boys in favor of girls involve “demasculinizing” boys, and failing that, punishing them for exhibiting “masculine” traits that allegedly “inhibit” girls. 90 percent of elementary school teachers are female, and so not surprisingly the process starts at an early age. Girls at an early age have a higher aptitude for reading and writing than boys; but like in dumbed-down math, teaching language ignores the fact that young boys are more restless than girls. Boys early reading skills were improved when teaching language phonetically, where one learns by breaking down the sounds that letters or groups of letters make to form words; but this system was apparently regarded as “unfair” to girls, and most schools no longer use it. A 2006 complaint to the Office of Civil Rights by a male high school student claimed that teachers in his school showed outward favoritism toward girls; boys are too “unruly” and do not sit quietly and behave like zombies. Girls who decorate their homework with feathers and sprinkles are given “extra credit.” Boys are far more frequently punished for the same transgressions that girls are guilty of, like showing up late for class. Why wouldn’t this lead to a decrease in motivation to learn if for boys, school is a “hostile” environment?

While college seems less susceptible to the negative effects of gender politicking, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur in the classroom. When I thought I wanted to go to graduate school (because I couldn’t find a decent job) I enrolled in what is now Sacramento State University. I was in a media class taught by a proudly (and loudly) feminist professor; she liked to talk about Madonna and how she was the greatest cultural force since Shakespeare. One day she was talking about sexist images in the media or something, and I observed out of the blue that I couldn’t help but observe that there were an awful lot of white female instructors in this school and an awful few minority instructors, and all this talk about sexism/victimization was relative. After class, one of the students threatened me with physical violence because I had the temerity to disturb the instructor’s reverie in her cloud of victimology.

All this contributes to an environment where boys are at a disadvantage—and contrary to the claims of gender activists, this does have far-reaching negative implications for the nation as a whole. As I noted in an earlier blog, 60 percent of students receiving bachelor’s and Master’s degrees are women, but as the number of females in colleges and universities has increased dramatically, there is an equally dramatic shift away from “hard” sciences like engineering, the physical sciences and mathematics toward “soft” sciences like behavioral and biological sciences. While the “soft” sciences may be more in tune with an economy that is increasingly devolving into customer service and marketing instead of manufacturing, it bespeaks of the loss of competitiveness in actually creating things the U.S. has sustained in the past several decades. It is better to “speak well” and look pretty rather than speaking in incomprehensible technical terms required for jobs that now only exist in another language. Almost all high-ticket consumer goods (with the bare exception of automobiles) and electronics are manufactured overseas, and it is only naturally that innovations and advancements in this area are almost exclusively occurring overseas as well. Only feminists like Hanna Rosin (“The End of Men”) can have the stupidity of believing that this is “progress.”

Education is not the only arena where female victimology has gone to illogical extremes in this country. There is yet another report out bemoaning that that women earn only 81 percent of what men do. This latest “crisis” naturally does not take into account factors that not only mitigate but suggest a reversal in trends. For example, white women hold the plurality of jobs in this country, (and women a majority of the jobs in general); their unemployment rate is the lowest of any demographic. In fact, the unemployment rate of black males is four times higher than white women’s, and this is probably on the low side: the incarceration rate of black males (who presumably did not have jobs in any case) and those who have simply “disappeared” indicates a disparity of closer to 10 times. Given the changing nature of the workplace, with more low-pay jobs that require communication and physically-aesthetic “skills” replacing higher-paying manufacturing jobs, the fact that women are more likely to be hired for these types of jobs at least initially would send the wage percentage to the lower-end.

The fact that more women have college degrees accounts for a recent study that suggests that in 147 of the 150 largest cities in the country, young women earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts, and in some locations the disparity is as much as 20 percent. What this means is that older males making large amounts of money may skew the numbers now, but in time they will be replaced by women who are favored in the current economic dynamic, and who make more money. There is no “crisis”—or if there is one, it isn’t the one feminists and gender activists claim is occurring. In many jobs, women are put in higher-paying “supervisory” positions for entirely arbitrary reasons; for example, one vendor for the airline I work for deploys women as “supervisors”—presumably because they cannot be discomfited with being out in the weather doing “hard” work running transfer bags.

Outright and blatant discrimination in favor of (white) women cannot be discounted as “sexist” talk, either. I experienced this myself about twenty years ago when I was living in Sacramento. I was working through a temp agency, and one day I was sent to a small business that engaged in advertisement piece work, simple stuff. At the end of the day, the supervisor called us all together, and started counting heads, beginning with the white women; when he finished counting all of them, he informed the rest of us that he didn’t require our services. I mused to myself that he had just picked-out his “harem.” While the rest of us–a dozen minorities and two older white men–were waiting for the supervisor to sign our time cards, I mulled over what had just transpired, and after I was done mulling I blurted out “You know, we need the work, too.” The reaction to this was a mix of fear, horror and amusement–the latter mostly on my part. The supervisor’s expression suggested that he had just witnessed an ape talk, while the other temps, mouths agape, seemed bizarrely perturbed that anyone should be permitted the temerity to have an opinion about an ethically-challenged employer whose discriminatory actions effected them materially.

On another occasion, I was twice sent to a workplace where when I arrived I was told at the receptionist’s desk that I was no longer needed. The agency expressed surprise at this, because the same supervisor kept calling them requesting a worker, and were told I was coming. The next time the agency was called to fill the position, I was told to just go meet the supervisor unannounced. The supervisor, who was a white female, was extremely hesitant to tell me that the position was still open, but being a minority person she apparently did not want to be accused of being racist. But sexist maybe. I often hear on the news stories about sexual harassment and hostile work environments for women; what I encountered was a shop filled exclusively by women (examining photographic negatives of motherboards for errors). Not only was the supervisor practicing gender discrimination, but did so because it allowed an atmosphere of where women could safely enunciate their unflattering views about men. Could I have complained? Should I have? Or better yet, who would have listened? Four months of it was enough for me.

Justification for apparent discrimination comes in the way of a claim I just heard on the radio made by some women’s symposium in Washington D.C.; the Campbell Soup company has seen a 15 percent rise in sales over the past few years, and it is directly contributable to the rise in female managers at the company. A company spokesperson said that for Campbell, hiring more female manager has been “mm-mm good.” But the website Investopedia.com last month had this to say: “Campbell Soups prospects look cold.” Its stock report observes that Campbell—which controls 80 percent of the soup market—has only seen an average of 1 percent sales increase per year over the past decade, and over the past year and half an effective decline in sales. Profit margins were maintained only through mass lay-offs and tax cuts. It seems likely that hiring more female managers had little impact on actual sales, but that didn’t stop a self-promoting group from stretching the truth to further their agenda.

Female victimology also affects men in other, more insidious ways. The month of October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The NFL forces players to wear pink ribbons, visors, armbands or cleats to observe the occasion. I’m sure players will say that it is not a big deal even though they know it is a cynical PR stunt, and it is clear that the NFL is only doing this to mend its tarnished image after unfortunate incidents perpetrated by a few players. But it is not uncommon for football players to end their careers permanently physically disabled, often with brain damage that doesn’t manifest itself for years; many wind-up in homeless shelters or on city streets. Do the same women who make breast cancer a political event give one solitary damn about these former players? Highly unlikely, knowing the self-obsessed nature of gender activism.

Some statistics: One in eight women will develop invasive breast cancer in their lifetimes, and it is responsible for 2.9 percent of all causes of mortality among women. A 2007 study revealed that $25,000 per death was spent on breast cancer research in 2006, while less than $2,000 per death was spent on lung cancer, the biggest killer among cancers. Since breast cancer has a 95 percent cure rate if caught early, at least we can say it is money well spent—and a clue to what can be done to combat other cancers if a similar level of research funding was available. Lung cancer, although it infects fewer women than breast or skin cancer, kills almost twice as many women as breast cancer each year. Colon cancer (depending on its location), by way of comparison has a 59 to 66 percent survival rate five years after detection, which suggests a much higher mortality rate per victim. While I’m sure that many men are just as concerned about breast health as women (but for different reasons, one may reason), the anecdotes that the media provides—of the young, attractive female—are contrary to the reality that the vast majority of breast cancer victims are women over 65 years of age.

On the other hand, I was listening to Coast-to-Coast where a guest was deriding the “overblown” concern about prostate cancer, since it “only” accounted for 3.6 percent of deaths among men; not that I was surprised by this claim, since C-to-C has a tendency to have guests who see conspiracies everywhere. Nevertheless it is somewhat ironic, since this death rate is higher than that of women who will die of breast cancer as a percent of all causes. Obviously, the fact that breast cancer is probably the most politicized illness in history has shielded it from such complaints. It is also, it seems to me, somewhat disturbing “advice” given that men in general seem less concerned with their health than women are to begin with; Bill Clinton, the very picture of health and vitality in his mid-fifties, succumbed to a heart attack, aided by his supposed addiction to McDonald’s burgers and fries. I’m sure many people remember how ghastly weak and shriveled he appeared after his surgery; many men are not even as “lucky” as he was to survive it.

There are other issues along these lines I could discuss—the media’s knee-jerk support of any claim of female victimization (the “war against women” shouts CNN’s hysterical shouter Jane Velez-Mitchell), Judge Sluggo squashing Mr. Bill like a bug in divorce and child custody courts everywhere while cleaning out his bank account, and the University of Washington’s call for male “volunteers” to help them deal with domestic violence. Is UW acknowledging the fact that unbiased studies suggest that fifty percent of domestic violence incidents are initiated by women? What planet do you think you are on? Pluto? Might as well be; Pluto isn’t even a planet anymore. No, UW wants to experiment on men with new anger management techniques to “help” them deal with their personal issues—and continue the pattern of only addressing half the problem, thus insuring that domestic violence (over-blown or not) continues to be a problem. Or I could discuss what it felt like being the only male in the audience listening to a visiting lecturer named Catherine MacKinnon, who I had never heard of; an instructor told me that I would learn something useful, which I have to admit I did. Like all heterosexual sex is rape.

I will end this conversation on this note: I once saw a YMCA television ad promoting a “self-esteem” camp—for girls. Isn’t that what the YWCA is for? Whatever happened to the place where a young man down on his luck could go? It is a pointless question, because nobody wants to answer a question they don’t want asked in the first place.