<p>I don't see the big deal that less men are choosing to go to college than women. When well-respected figures are saying that women can't succeed in the sciences, women are naturally less intelligent than men, a woman's place is in the home taking care of the husband and children, etc., I'm not about to agree with and encourage those same authorities who are in an uproar when they discover that women are actually ahead of men in several important fields, especially academics. Women are finally achieving the success that their merits deserve. Unlike men, women aren't born in a world that caters to them.</p>
<p>As a female who was terribly rambunctious and never sat in the front row quietly raising her hand, I disagree marite. Schools don't have a different approach for rambunctious girls. I was out in the hall with the boys, cleaning the room for detention with the boys, held up by the back of my neck by the principal, slapped by a nun, barred from upper level Maths course and so on and so on. In fact, my leadership skills were such that my primary school principal devised a 'job' to get me off the playgournd in the morning. I was in charge of ringing the school bell. Thus, the school was able to control the group of several hundred children.</p>
<p>We had a daft teacher who liked to take us for nature walks. I convinced the girls to run away. We did. We all ran off and the school coudlnt' find us. Great fun. Big trouble. A month of grounding. Still, can you imagine the panic today? "Hello, Mrs Perfect? We took the class for a wlk today and now we can't find your lovely little angel. Sooo sorry!"</p>
<p>I agree with Catherine. Forget the rambunctious boys. Those authority pleasing girls get a real come-uppance stomping in the business/construction world. </p>
<p>When girls ask me if they should go to architecture school, I discourage the authority-pleasing super students and look for the feisty battler witha sense of humour. That's the one who will do well in a super-competitive, male dominated field. </p>
<p>I know from a couple of decades of experience.</p>
<p>btw...how many CC mums were feisty battlers in primary and secondary school? Just curious....</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>I think you misunderstand me. I do not say that schools have a different approach for rambunctious girls. They truly don't. Statistically, there are probably fewer rambunctious girls, though I do know plenty of them in my S's school. What I am trying to say is that over the last few decades, some of the reforms have sought to accommodate behavior that is usually associated with boys rather than girls. For example, the hands-on projects, the group projects which involve not sitting still at one's desks, these are reforms which, though supposedly gender-neutral address the supposed learning style of boys better.
The stress on literacy is supposed to favor girls; there may be something to that. However, the push toward more math and science is favoring boys.<br>
I agree that authority-pleasing individuals have a hard time in college and beyond. Which is why so many stellar high school students do not do so well in college.
I was argumentative as a child (can't you guess?) but never rambunctious. I was always too indolent for that. I reserved my contrarian ideas for essays. My S seems to share this streak. He likes taking minority positions.</p>
<p>Frankly, the pace of primary and secondary school just about killed me. I was bored out of my skull--and I see a bit of that in my boys in secondary school. (Their primary school was heaven on earth).</p>
<p>Not that I wasn't studious--I read well over a thousand pages a week in the wee hours. I liked the group projects and hands on stuff becuase it alleviated the boredom.</p>
<p>My girlfriends seemed to put up with the boredom at bit better.</p>
<p>**And you still have a feisty pen, marite....;)</p>
<p>Is there a difference between "authority-pleasing" and those who respect the rights and feelings of others and their property? Is either trait sex-linked? My daughters are often frustrated by the level of noise and disrespect in their classrooms not because they are "authority pleasing" but because they see others being hurt.</p>
<p>True, my3girls, the girls at my school which is a single-sex school, are not what I would consider "authority-pleasing." It's simply that we would rather be in an environment conducive to learning and not some roudy survival-of-the-fittest playground. We know when to have fun, but we also know when to attend to business. </p>
<p>Also, are you sure that boredom and not immaturity is the reason that boys don't want to get with it in high school. When they make fart(sp?) pranks in class and engage in other rude(but amusing) behavior that disturbs everyone else, including themselves, from learning, I argue immaturity is the cause. From reading this thread, it's as if some people want to say this is a male-thing that boys act like this and that and attempt to give frivolous reasons to excuse their behavior that would otherwise be unacceptable or absurd in other situations and for other groups of people, such as women.</p>
<p>
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**And you still have a feisty pen, marite....
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</p>
<p>Yes, don't I? "The pen is mightier than the sword." Especially true for someone who could never wield a sword...</p>
<p>Marite - you mentioned above the push toward math and science as favoring boys. This is an area of contention since girls are supposed to be as good in math and science as boys, and in fact do just as well in high school. For whatever reason, they choose not to go into math/science firleds as often as males do.
I think there has been a push in math/science since the technology boom coupled with the big money being made on Wall Street means that there are many great careers open to those with math/science backgrounds. If you "opt out" of those subjects in high school you are really limiting your career chouices later (yes you can make it up, but it's less likely that someone will really do that).</p>
<p>Sorry for all those typos in my last message! I will re-read them from now on!</p>
<p>AS a girl who attended a private all-female secondary school, I'd say there is a difference between authority-pleasing girls and girls who prefer a polite, ordered environment.</p>
<p>However, the difference is irrelevant outside of school. There are few polite, ordered environments in adult life. Department stores? When they are empty?</p>
<p>From my perspecitve, skewed as it is, American society made significant changes to the standard of 'boy' behavior. Boys are now expected to act more like girls. Some of that is a step in the right direction, some of it has gone too far. </p>
<p>Boys aren't girls. Thank goodness. Vive la difference!</p>
<p>Gilrs have been encouraged to act more like boys too. Still, I'd argue that authority figures still promote and reward girl's authority-pleasing behavior--to the girls' detriment. Girls who prefer polite ordered environments can become hothouse flowers who only bloom when all the cricumstances are exactly right. </p>
<p>I have a couple of sister-in-laws who are hothouse flowers. Life, being a messy, insufferable state, is very very tough on them. My brothers are on duty 24/7 trying to create the perfect polite world for their wives--a sisyphusian task and a waste of my brothers' lives (if you ask me).</p>
<p>Of course, the whole campaign to lift the assertiveness of girls is undermined by the current hyper-sexualization of teen and pre-teen culture. Who can learn to speak up and be assertive when the world is staring at your pubic bone and you're worried if your pubic hairs are showing at the top of your jeans? </p>
<p>Girls are caught in an insidious Catch 22.</p>
<p>Catherine:</p>
<p>I don't know why, in middle school, girls start dropping out of math & science. Is it subtle hints from their parents? from teachers? from peers? The fact of the matter is that AP-Calc and AP-Physics have a majority of boys. </p>
<p>During the furore over Larry Summers' remarks over supposedly innate gender differences, some commentators posted statistics about the gap between the number of women who had received Ph.D.s in math and the number who had gotten tenure (which normally happens after 8 years). That gap was striking. I can't believe it's all due to female math Ph.D.s taking time off to raise babies. Summers' own Harvard has not got one tenured female math prof. That probably sends signals of its own to undergraduates.</p>
<p>Marite,
I would agree that there is definitely some sexism involved, although at our high school there are more girls than boys in AP Calc. and AP Physics (my daughter is one of them). However, many of these girls are taking the courses because they think they should for college (I'm sure some boys are too). But when you get to college you see more men in these majors, just as in engineering. I don't know why - I think some of it may be that parents and society don't really put the same pressure on women to go into fields where they will make a lot of money. My son assumes his lifestyle will be based on what he makes and he is leaning toward business (and he's only in hs and we don't say these things to him). My daughter somehow assumes the money will be "there" - it's not her job to provide for a family (even though half of all families end in divorce.)
I think that is one reason you see fewer men in the arts and education - these are not big money fields, except for a very few at the top.<br>
I also think society rewards men for being rich and women for being beautiful. This is a very unsubtle message sent to all our kids.</p>
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My daughter somehow assumes the money will be "there" - it's not her job to provide for a family (even though half of all families end in divorce.)
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<p>I have seen so many women who went to college to get an Mrs. as they used to say (my roommate was frank about this) and who got divorced in middle age and whose income dropped precipitously; it's a wonder that there still are young women who think they will be taken care of financially by their husbands. The big scandal when I was in grad school involved men whose wives put them through med school or law school and then divorced the wives as soon as they were able to put up a shingle.</p>
<p>Different schools seem to have diffrent climates. Altthough my S's school is very progressive, boys are in the majority in math and science APs (except for biology, I think). There was so much alarm, in fact, that a Science Club for Girls was started first in S's k-8 school, then in other schools. It now has spread to some other districts.</p>
<p>Marite, my daughter isn't going to college to get an Mrs (I don't mean you were saying that). I'm just saying I think for some reason - I don't know what it is - young women are less practical when choosing careers. Having a boy and a girl both in high school, I rarely hear my daughter and her girlfriends talk about the need to make money, perhaps apply to Wharton, etc. If they enjoy dance, then great. But I do hear my son and his friends talk very practically about professions. If a boy enjoys dance he'll do it on the side but doesn't see it as a viable career unless he knows he's a super-star at a young age.
Maybe the girls will be happier - choosing what they want to do instead of what will make money - but the investment clubs in our high school are mostly boys, whereas the French club is mostly girls. Joining clubs is totally optional and open to everyone.</p>
<p>Marite-- Your pencil incident sure brought back memories. My son must be more advanced than yours--he was suspended for "pencil-stabbing" in 4th grade.</p>
<p>Nwestmom:
My S was just slow. We used to have to sign a weapons policy every year, but I don't think it covered the wrongful use of pencils :)</p>
<p>Hmmm, I know a world-class young woman in science who was sent to the principal's office in first grade for pencil-stabbing and inciting a subsequent riot in the classroom. The principal made her spend the entire afternoon in his office, presumably so she could contemplate her misdeeds (and also to give her poor teacher--in her first year of teaching!--a break.) Her parents were mortified. Who knew back then that pencil-stabbing predicted greatness in math-science?</p>
<p>Wisteria:
LOL!</p>
<p>what school is lac? sry i never heard of that</p>
<p>LAC: Liberal arts college as opposed to large or mid-sized university.</p>