Stop Sexist Remarks

A friend recently told me about the book Boys Adrift, whose thesis is that boys today are faring substantially worse than girls in school. Its author, Leonard Sax (a psychologist and family physician) claims that several barriers are keeping boys from achieving their potential and that as a result, boys are faring substantially worse in school. Sax calls for a complete overhaul of the educational system to accommodate the needs of boys, including giving parents the option of sending their children to single-gender public schools.

The book has received a lot of attention since its release in 2007. Sax is presenting his ideas at medical schools, giving speeches at education conferences for public school teachers, and doing workshops for parents. In March, he appeared on the Today show. 

While I was interested in my friend’s enthusiasm for the book, I confess to being uneasy about the general alarm being sounded about the welfare of boys. I want children and young people of both genders to succeed. But while I am encouraged by the long-overdue gains that women have made in the last 20 years, the remaining disparities make the attempt to rearrange the world for boys feel like part of the backlash against feminism that has been going on since the seventies. 

So I hope that Dr. Sax and those who support efforts to reform school systems on behalf of boys are equally troubled by (and willing to help address) the obstacles that girls have long faced in school. These include sexist comments about their abilities in math, science, and computers and  teachers’ stereotypes about girls’ ability in math and science, which affect their test performance. 

Because students of both genders deserve to have adults advocate for the removal of barriers to their success, where those exist. I suspect we all want both the boys and girls we know to get what they need to achieve their academic potential. So if you know people involved in efforts to help boys in school, suggest that they also consider taking action on behalf of girls by promoting an environment that is free of sexist remarks and that offers equal opportunity and encouragement in the range of areas that can broaden their life choices.

Steve

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.