I have a beef with a guest speaker who’s presenting here later today if her press release is accurate.
Faced with a spirited 11-year-old daughter, a concern about what therapists have called a ‘poisonous’ youth culture — especially for girls — and a conviction that parents need powerful tools to help their daughters realize their potential, educator-activist Diana Meehan decided with two other mothers to create a new school based on social science and brain research about how girls learn best.
Last time I checked, girls were already outperforming boys. And how can a poisonous youth culture be avoided by separate schooling, considering the pervasive influence of the media?
How is the youth culture especially poisonous for girls, either? Boys are members of the gender who commit 89 percent of all juvenile violent crime. Sure, girls’ crime rates are increasing somewhat, but it’d be hard to argue that youth culture is more poisonous to girls than to boys.
I tend to be fascinated by gender politics, at least when I’m not disgusted.
There were one or two comments on a previous blog on gender politics to the effect that the United States’ society increasingly favors the feminine. I have to agree, at least in public education.
How many false sexual harassment cases are there in education? Even a false claim irrevocably damages a teacher’s career. Our litigious society favors women in most of these cases, if not in trial then at least in the courts of public opinion.
Women’s rights are well and fine, but I think the distinction makes men’s rights fall by the wayside in some areas. Whatever happened to equal rights, without any side more equal?
I probably blew the press release out of proportion, but it seems based on a false premise, however good the intentions of the all-girls school. Gender politics and accusations of sexism really get on my nerves, sometimes.
*****
In other news: take his wife, please; he̢۪d never get elected in the U.S., but only for his stubble; and $100 laptops cost twice that much.
Juliette • Oct 2, 2007 at 10:10 am
I totally agree with Ben. It seems men’s rights (Yes! They DO have them and deserve them!) are pushed to the wayside by so -called “women’s rights.” Women’s rights are so outdated and often petty as evidenced by the above article. There are more women attending college and more women in the work force…hell, Men are starting to sell AVON products (aka cosmetics). A role reversal of sorts?
There is also glaring double standard when it comes to acceptable social behavior between in male and female interactions.
Example: I work in an office of all women, and in what started as a joke, they put up a “man wall,” a wall, essentially, filled with the “attractive” men from those popular TV shows. Handsome, toned, sweaty guys with seductive expressions. I mean, really, if men had put up a “women wall” filled with beautiful, toned, sweaty women with seductive expressions they’d be in hot water and moving to law-suit city in a week if someone complained!
Maybe I’m simply a misogynist, but sometimes, and more often than naught, I am ashamed of my own sex’s male bashing.
We need to be equal, not superior. Society is definitely female dominated now, with men getting the same disrespect women received years ago…the treatment they fought to change. Yet, if men try to fight for their deserved rights, they’re sued and labeled as “a typical man” who is narrow minded and chauvinistic.
Sure, young women have a lots to combat when it comes to negative social icons (models, celebrities, etc.), but men also have unattainable ideals society has placed on them they cannot measure up to, either. You know what they are.
Things are so uneven, these days.
Ben, you by no means blew that press release out of proportion. You just gave voice to what a lot of people are thinking, too.
Juliette • Oct 2, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I totally agree with Ben. It seems men’s rights (Yes! They DO have them and deserve them!) are pushed to the wayside by so -called “women’s rights.” Women’s rights are so outdated and often petty as evidenced by the above article. There are more women attending college and more women in the work force…hell, Men are starting to sell AVON products (aka cosmetics). A role reversal of sorts?
There is also glaring double standard when it comes to acceptable social behavior between in male and female interactions.
Example: I work in an office of all women, and in what started as a joke, they put up a “man wall,” a wall, essentially, filled with the “attractive” men from those popular TV shows. Handsome, toned, sweaty guys with seductive expressions. I mean, really, if men had put up a “women wall” filled with beautiful, toned, sweaty women with seductive expressions they’d be in hot water and moving to law-suit city in a week if someone complained!
Maybe I’m simply a misogynist, but sometimes, and more often than naught, I am ashamed of my own sex’s male bashing.
We need to be equal, not superior. Society is definitely female dominated now, with men getting the same disrespect women received years ago…the treatment they fought to change. Yet, if men try to fight for their deserved rights, they’re sued and labeled as “a typical man” who is narrow minded and chauvinistic.
Sure, young women have a lots to combat when it comes to negative social icons (models, celebrities, etc.), but men also have unattainable ideals society has placed on them they cannot measure up to, either. You know what they are.
Things are so uneven, these days.
Ben, you by no means blew that press release out of proportion. You just gave voice to what a lot of people are thinking, too.
Whatever • Oct 1, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Earning what you are given went out the window before feudal times.
Now the wealthy just practice pretending that they earned everything and “no one gave me anything!”
Whatever • Oct 1, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Earning what you are given went out the window before feudal times.
Now the wealthy just practice pretending that they earned everything and “no one gave me anything!”
Heather Billings • Oct 1, 2007 at 4:20 pm
My question is this: Why should either gender get a helping hand? Whatever happened to earning what you are given?
Heather Billings • Oct 1, 2007 at 11:20 pm
My question is this: Why should either gender get a helping hand? Whatever happened to earning what you are given?
Kevin McAllister • Sep 26, 2007 at 10:50 am
Make me 1001.
Kevin McAllister • Sep 26, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Make me 1001.
Benjamin Baxter • Sep 26, 2007 at 10:14 am
What is even the basis for her claim that the youth culture is especially poisonous for girls? That’s my real question.
On a side note, this is the 1,000th comment since The Collegian Online’s redesign.
Benjamin Baxter • Sep 26, 2007 at 5:14 pm
What is even the basis for her claim that the youth culture is especially poisonous for girls? That’s my real question.
On a side note, this is the 1,000th comment since The Collegian Online’s redesign.
Lance Ito • Sep 26, 2007 at 9:40 am
I fully agree with Ben. It’s not the girls who need the helping hand. Boys drop out at a higher rate and attend universities at a much lower rate.
Segregating schools by gender does nothing to advance the public education system. Not in Diane Meehan’s example, not with Oprah’s public girls school in New York.
The workforce is multicultural and bigender. Thinking that your child is being advantaged by studying only with fellow female students is not the way to address the reality of the 21st century. Yes, students learn in different ways. Many male students are shy and introverted, many female students are outgoing and ask questions—some don’t shut their yap holes.
Lance Ito • Sep 26, 2007 at 4:40 pm
I fully agree with Ben. It’s not the girls who need the helping hand. Boys drop out at a higher rate and attend universities at a much lower rate.
Segregating schools by gender does nothing to advance the public education system. Not in Diane Meehan’s example, not with Oprah’s public girls school in New York.
The workforce is multicultural and bigender. Thinking that your child is being advantaged by studying only with fellow female students is not the way to address the reality of the 21st century. Yes, students learn in different ways. Many male students are shy and introverted, many female students are outgoing and ask questions—some don’t shut their yap holes.