Or why those uppity girls should stop getting exam results at the expense of their poor, threatened male colleagues.
My title was a real headline in the Daily Express yesterday. I think it speaks for itself, really. And anyone who refers to people with nouns that should be used as adjectives ("gays" "blacks" "females") is a red flag for prejudice, in my opinion. It's a horrible paper, but somehow less awful than the Daily Mail, perhaps because like a mad old relative, no one takes it that seriously. Many have commented on the connection between senility and the Daily Express; I'm not sure whether it's the constant adverts for Stannah stairlifts, the frequent references to WW2 or the constant use of NOW in headlines to show just how much things have degenerated since the glorious 1950s.
NOW GAY BLACKS GET BENEFITS OF £1 TRILLION A WEEK
NOW IMMIGRANTS STEAL SWANS FROM THE QUEEN
NOW 75% OF SINGLE MOTHERS ARE ETHNIC MINORITY
And so on and so forth.
One article that really pissed me off yesterday was by Virginia Blackburn. I can't remember the title but the first sentence was, quote, "Why does our society have against men?" Now it's fair to say that any article starting that way is going to have to work a teensy bit harder than usual to gain my sympathy, but the whole thing was just one fail after another. The writer was highlighting the gap in educational achievement between boys and girls, coming to the conclusion that schools are "failing" boys because they punish "traditionally male behaviour" and fail to take into account the most effective ways to teach boys.
Now I have no qualms with the premise that the gap in achievement needs to be addressed, and that in an ideal world the only difference in educational achievement between the sexes would be as a result of those intrinsic gender-based intellectual differences that remain annoyingly unproven. But whatever. I'm sure a lot of children would benefit from more interactive and lively teaching, and the way that boys and girls are socialised, it's no stretch of the imagination to realise that it would probably be boys who would benefit in the majority. That should be addressed. It would also be great if we had more male primary and secondary school teachers. The reason this article pissed me off so much was the way the issue was framed.
Imagine, for a moment, that the situation were reversed. Girls were falling behind boys at GCSE level, at A-Level, and graduating at lower rates, and with lower grades than men in most subjects. I wonder if the problem would be with the institutions themselves? No, it would be with the girls; imagine a spate of headlines "What is the problem with girls?" "Why girls can't concentrate" "Why women fall behind". Theories would abound as to why girls suffer from such low self-esteem, why they don't speak up in class because it threatens their male colleagues, why they are too busy with trivial pursuits like their own appearances to bother with studying, why reading magazines lowers their attention span, blah blah blah. I am certain there would be a pretty recurrent subtext of the idea that women are just naturally less clever. When its boys, it's a problem with the institutions themselves. Boys and men have been outperforming women in education for millenia, within institutions that require diligence, self-discipline and the ability to sit still and study. That is what is required for academic success. However, it's only when women and girls start to outperform their male counterparts that the institutions themselves need to be changed.
The other ways in which I thought she mis-framed the issue was:
"Poor things. They’re made to feel inferior right from the word go. Is it any wonder that young men are suffering from unprecedented levels of depression these days given that they’ve been penalised for behaving like any normal little boy?"
Oh, come on! It seems obvious to me that the reason men have such higher rates of depression that women is because women are much better at creating supportive social networks. We aren't socialized to feel that expressing emotions (other than anger) is somehow antithical to our gender roles, and it's one of the things I'm grateful for.
I've thankfully never had experience of depression, but friends of mine have. It helps to have someone to talk to and it helps not feeling that your illness is an example of your weakness. Furthermore, having someone else knowing about what you're going through might be the one who gives you the nudge to see a doctor, or try therapy, or whatever it is that helps you. As well as all this, social isolation is a key factor in feeling depressed, and depressives often avoid company, leading to a vicious circle. So, all in all, the traditionally male traits of not admitting weakness, not feeling comfortable processing emotions and thus being bad at best coping with them are extremely unhelpful when dealing with depression. The masculine stereotype is one that is antithetical to doing the kind of things that not only prevent, but also help cure, depression. So to say that male depression is the fault of (of course) women teachers not allowing boys to sufficiently embody a male stereotype is not only false, but counterfactual, in my opinion.
And for the last sentence which made me want to hurl something through a window (even though it's the journalistic equivalent of a mad old aunt telling you that there's no point girls getting qualifications)
"And as educational establishments have become dominated by women, so teaching, like all female-friendly work, has become a low-status profession (the same thing happened to medicine and the law in communist Russia when women were encouraged to enter those fields.) That’s a depressing indictment of the way society treats women but it’s a fact and it’s playing havoc with our little boys."
What the fuck? What in the name of christing Fuck? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS WOMAN? The fact that society devalues professions progressively when women enter them is relevant only insofar as it affects little boys who lack male teachers????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What about the little girls noticing that the actions, professions and achievement of women are routinely devalued simply because they are done by women?? Would that have any negative effect on their self-esteem? Well, of course it fucking does. That is a HUGE problem. That goes on to explain why despite their worse exam results, men continue to dominate all the higher echelons of public life - a greater belief in their right to inhabit those places.
Gah.
There are no more words to sum up my contempt and disdain. Beyond swear words, and I feel I've typed enough of them.
To sum up - removing privilege is not the same as being oppressed, yo. Men and boys having their male privilege progressively revoked is not the same as the oppression suffered by women and equating the two is poisonous. I can't work out if Ms Blackburn is, as The Daily Show described it, on Team Stupid or Team Evil, because I don't know how anyone could be thick enough not to see the manifest contradictions in that piece, nor self-hating enough (as a woman) to publish it once having noticed them.
In case anyone cared to read that article: http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/196972/Boys-suffer-when-male-teachers-are-absent
My title was a real headline in the Daily Express yesterday. I think it speaks for itself, really. And anyone who refers to people with nouns that should be used as adjectives ("gays" "blacks" "females") is a red flag for prejudice, in my opinion. It's a horrible paper, but somehow less awful than the Daily Mail, perhaps because like a mad old relative, no one takes it that seriously. Many have commented on the connection between senility and the Daily Express; I'm not sure whether it's the constant adverts for Stannah stairlifts, the frequent references to WW2 or the constant use of NOW in headlines to show just how much things have degenerated since the glorious 1950s.
NOW GAY BLACKS GET BENEFITS OF £1 TRILLION A WEEK
NOW IMMIGRANTS STEAL SWANS FROM THE QUEEN
NOW 75% OF SINGLE MOTHERS ARE ETHNIC MINORITY
And so on and so forth.
One article that really pissed me off yesterday was by Virginia Blackburn. I can't remember the title but the first sentence was, quote, "Why does our society have against men?" Now it's fair to say that any article starting that way is going to have to work a teensy bit harder than usual to gain my sympathy, but the whole thing was just one fail after another. The writer was highlighting the gap in educational achievement between boys and girls, coming to the conclusion that schools are "failing" boys because they punish "traditionally male behaviour" and fail to take into account the most effective ways to teach boys.
Now I have no qualms with the premise that the gap in achievement needs to be addressed, and that in an ideal world the only difference in educational achievement between the sexes would be as a result of those intrinsic gender-based intellectual differences that remain annoyingly unproven. But whatever. I'm sure a lot of children would benefit from more interactive and lively teaching, and the way that boys and girls are socialised, it's no stretch of the imagination to realise that it would probably be boys who would benefit in the majority. That should be addressed. It would also be great if we had more male primary and secondary school teachers. The reason this article pissed me off so much was the way the issue was framed.
Imagine, for a moment, that the situation were reversed. Girls were falling behind boys at GCSE level, at A-Level, and graduating at lower rates, and with lower grades than men in most subjects. I wonder if the problem would be with the institutions themselves? No, it would be with the girls; imagine a spate of headlines "What is the problem with girls?" "Why girls can't concentrate" "Why women fall behind". Theories would abound as to why girls suffer from such low self-esteem, why they don't speak up in class because it threatens their male colleagues, why they are too busy with trivial pursuits like their own appearances to bother with studying, why reading magazines lowers their attention span, blah blah blah. I am certain there would be a pretty recurrent subtext of the idea that women are just naturally less clever. When its boys, it's a problem with the institutions themselves. Boys and men have been outperforming women in education for millenia, within institutions that require diligence, self-discipline and the ability to sit still and study. That is what is required for academic success. However, it's only when women and girls start to outperform their male counterparts that the institutions themselves need to be changed.
The other ways in which I thought she mis-framed the issue was:
"Poor things. They’re made to feel inferior right from the word go. Is it any wonder that young men are suffering from unprecedented levels of depression these days given that they’ve been penalised for behaving like any normal little boy?"
Oh, come on! It seems obvious to me that the reason men have such higher rates of depression that women is because women are much better at creating supportive social networks. We aren't socialized to feel that expressing emotions (other than anger) is somehow antithical to our gender roles, and it's one of the things I'm grateful for.
I've thankfully never had experience of depression, but friends of mine have. It helps to have someone to talk to and it helps not feeling that your illness is an example of your weakness. Furthermore, having someone else knowing about what you're going through might be the one who gives you the nudge to see a doctor, or try therapy, or whatever it is that helps you. As well as all this, social isolation is a key factor in feeling depressed, and depressives often avoid company, leading to a vicious circle. So, all in all, the traditionally male traits of not admitting weakness, not feeling comfortable processing emotions and thus being bad at best coping with them are extremely unhelpful when dealing with depression. The masculine stereotype is one that is antithetical to doing the kind of things that not only prevent, but also help cure, depression. So to say that male depression is the fault of (of course) women teachers not allowing boys to sufficiently embody a male stereotype is not only false, but counterfactual, in my opinion.
And for the last sentence which made me want to hurl something through a window (even though it's the journalistic equivalent of a mad old aunt telling you that there's no point girls getting qualifications)
"And as educational establishments have become dominated by women, so teaching, like all female-friendly work, has become a low-status profession (the same thing happened to medicine and the law in communist Russia when women were encouraged to enter those fields.) That’s a depressing indictment of the way society treats women but it’s a fact and it’s playing havoc with our little boys."
What the fuck? What in the name of christing Fuck? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS WOMAN? The fact that society devalues professions progressively when women enter them is relevant only insofar as it affects little boys who lack male teachers????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What about the little girls noticing that the actions, professions and achievement of women are routinely devalued simply because they are done by women?? Would that have any negative effect on their self-esteem? Well, of course it fucking does. That is a HUGE problem. That goes on to explain why despite their worse exam results, men continue to dominate all the higher echelons of public life - a greater belief in their right to inhabit those places.
Gah.
There are no more words to sum up my contempt and disdain. Beyond swear words, and I feel I've typed enough of them.
To sum up - removing privilege is not the same as being oppressed, yo. Men and boys having their male privilege progressively revoked is not the same as the oppression suffered by women and equating the two is poisonous. I can't work out if Ms Blackburn is, as The Daily Show described it, on Team Stupid or Team Evil, because I don't know how anyone could be thick enough not to see the manifest contradictions in that piece, nor self-hating enough (as a woman) to publish it once having noticed them.
In case anyone cared to read that article: http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/196972/Boys-suffer-when-male-teachers-are-absent
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