I read a great book by Christina Hoff Sommers called "The War on Boys". There's a lot in it but the main argument is that boys are no longer treated as normal people. Especially in school, but also in society to an extent.
Well that is an interesting argument, but I reckon most people aren't treated like normal people, especially at school.
Let's think about boys, school, and masculinity. Boys demonstrate specific traits that are more or less discouraged or even shunned in the traditional classroom setting.
Surely this is true, but there are also many ways in which 'the traditional classroom' harms girls, you go on to argue as though there is some agenda, in American public education, to push femininity onto children, but this is circular and simplistic line of argument because although it is true that many forms of masculine expression may be regulated in a traditional classroom, by arguing that the source of this disavowal is in a feminist agenda, you are simultaneously able to ignore the ways girls' expressions are regulated in that context, and that ignorance sets in place a cognitive dissonance which is resolved by blaming some supposed agenda to push femininity onto children, thus, the object overlooked in your analysis becomes the target of the blame.
For example, boys learn best when they are able to do more "hands-on" type learning, while girls learn best in the traditional setting.
source? First the claim: "Girls learn best in the 'traditional classroom model'" For reference this 'traditional model' did not even include girls until as late as the 1970's in some cases, and that non-co-ed educational opportunities continue to exist. So according to you, the 'traditional classroom' setting, that didn't even involve women until the last 150 years, is pushing femininity on boys. LOL?
Last I checked, such as in the sources you linked, there are plenty of ways in which the 'traditional classroom' setting also critically fails girls. This claim utterly fails to be born out in your sources:
From your second source:
- Help your daughter talk through her feelings about schoolwork and school problems. Because girls may focus on communication, relationships and attention for approval, they can easily get caught up in an intense emotional experience. Often a girl will subvert her own feelings, including needs, to get the approval of others and this causes self-esteem issues.
- Be careful to not label children, especially with labels such as ADD and ADHD, unless they are diagnosed by a health care professional. Many boys and some girls are just on the outer edge of active and are being mislabeled
- Make sure teachers understand the different learning styles of boys and girls so that they are able to create a learning environment that meets the needs of both, by teaching different modalities that capture girls’ needs for spatial learning practice, including geometry, and boys’ needs for enrichment projects.
so far, no evidence indicating that girls are being promoted
at the expense of boys. lets try another:
"
Something is awry in the way our culture handles the education needs of boys and girls. A smart 11-year-old boy gets low grades in school, fidgets and drifts off in class, and doesn't do his homework. A girl in middle school only uses the computer to instant-message her friends; when it comes to mastering more essential computer skills, she defers to the boys in the class.
Is contemporary education maliciously set against either males or females? We don't think so. But structurally and functionally, our schools fail to recognize and fulfill gender-specific needs."
This directly contradicts the claims you are making based on their article, that women are privileged at the expense of men in schooling.
Children, of any gender, will not perform well in a school when they are told to sit down, shut up, and focus. None of your sources are about how these commands 'work great' for girls. Although there may be facets in which the model of learning enshrined in the traditional classroom favors girls over boys, but this is far from a demonstration that the current educational model is set-up to favor women because of political correctness and feminist conspiracy.
And what do we do to boys who act on their biological instinct? Who want to go outside and learn or to pick up something instead of reading about it?
We diagnose them with a mental illness and give them drugs.
We give children too many drugs, I agree, but how do you make a connection between this and 'pushing femininity' where is 'femininity' being pushed? and by who? and on to whom?
You have this idea that just because 'the traditional classroom' has features that favor girls over boys that there is some specific trend going against boys on behalf of girls, but such an assertion is only a demonstration of your ignorance of the contemporary politics, and history, of education in the united states, and here you go off wildly:
This wasn't an issue before. When we lived in a pre-modern world where you HAD to use your hands in your job, we didn't have a problem with this.
Right, 'the pre-modern world', before I assume that you know what this means I want you to clarify: do you mean the period before the renaissance?
Yeah women didn't go to school back then, almost no one went to school and only a special class of serf or slave, the scribe, or else the (male) priests (and wealthy elite males in some places) were concerned with methods of teaching that would go on to resemble and establish 'traditional classrooms'.
But remember, there was, in fact, a class of people, men and sometimes women, that did not have to use their hands in their job because they had no job but to own other people or their labor: nobility, aristocrats, etc. Nowadays these have become landlords and investment class capitalists.
Now for your wild jump (even more wild than references to a supposed pre-modern post where men were men, and girls certainly weren't allowed in school, and no one had drugs because medicine hadn't yet gotten around to incorporating chemistry), where you go into the 'service based economy', lack of tolerance for bullying, and 'pushing femininity' (which I'm just gonna assume is some type of gamer-gate level pseudonym for 'feminism') for reasons why men feel alienated. But what do these even have to do with 'the traditional classroom' and how, overall, girls and boys have differences in brain chemistry that affect learning outcomes in such a system?
But now we live in a service-based economy where males do not have a good place to, well, be males.
except uh, you know the
whitehouse?? seems like america is all for letting boys be boys.
On top of that you have political movements such as political correctness, zero tolerance, pushing femininity, and others that intentionally or not target these masculine traits. In short, males have less and less of an opportunity to be themselves in a healthy and safe ways.
So just so you know: I can't find a single place in your sources where they mention the service economy, but this is an interesting connection, here is how I would state it:
Under late-stage american capitalism, America has transitioned away from a manufacturing economy and a political-economy based on full-employment (industrial capitalism/fordism) to a service economy and a political-economy based on corporatism (supply side economics/neoconservatism/neoliberalism).
What consequences might this have for binary gendered contexts, such as the male psyche? Whatever they are, I don't see how it is connected to 'pushing femininity' or a service based economy schemed up to benefit women. Men still make more money than women for doing the same (which is expected to be more for the woman, since a woman doing the same work as a man in her job would usually experience negative evaluations or discrimination because of it since she is expected to work harder) work. If you think that the service based economy favors women (which it doesn't) what does that have to do with 'traditional classrooms' (the subject of all your sources) that pre-existed that transition?
I would rather say that the transition to a political economy based on supply-side economics makes workers expendable and leads to higher turn-over (low job satisfaction), lower wages, and high unemployment, all of which are a threat to the traditional equation of masculinity with capacity to produce an abundance of wealth.
But yet again, I don't see anyone pushing femininity on anyone.
and so finally,
Source?
none of political correctness, zero tolerance, or 'pushing femininity' are mentioned by your sources, wonder why?
In the same way you ignored the content of your 'sources' you also ignored the content of my post:
If your statement is true, and masculinity is the reason behind this increase in mass shootings, may I ask why this hasn't been a problem before?
I never made such a reductive statement.
Haha, what wasn't a problem before? Masculinity? It surely was an issue... Masculine supremacy created a traditional classroom setting where women were not allowed until the late 1800's, but sure, please tell me more about how masculinity has never been a problem, jesus christ
.
The way I see it, the more we try to combat masculinity, the worse this problem becomes. When we tell men they aren't allowed to express their biological instinct in a safe healthy way, then we're opening up the door for things like mental illness and the "loners" you talked about. I feel as if it'd be hard to argue that masculinity is MORE accepted now than it was say 50 years ago. That being said, how would fighting it more help the problem?
Right, and so you're back to 'trying to solve the problem makes it worse', which as when I responded to
Old_Gregg, I think is more of an expression of the impotency you feel to change the situation for men in America, than a useful or true conclusion based in evidence.
I do not that that nothing can be done on behalf of men or that any attempt will inevitably exacerbate men, I believe men have demonstrated amazing capacity and potential, but the way our society socializes males is harmful to all of us and that our society can socialize men in ways that are better for them without stifling them, in fact, they will have actual opportunities to demonstrate positive masculinity that they were denied before.
Talking to men about how to be better fathers for example, my suggestion how does that harm boys?
You seem to think that any attempt to help society grapple with masculinity ultimately alienates men, but how does that actually happen?
I have no concept of what
'biological instinct' you think males have or how it relates to your arguments. Your sources don't mention much more than them preferring certain toys, and that their brains are better suited to object manipulation and spatial reasoning. How are men prevented from 'acting on their biological instinct'? What is this instinct and why is it even relevant to our conversation, let alone desirable in a final analysis?
after reviewing my post, any justification for your reductive interpretation of my argument/assertion ("masculinity is the reason behind this increase in mass shootings") escapes me. There is nothing about 'fighting masculinity', 'targeting it', etc, in my post, but
you seem to suggest that the typical male ego is too fragile to handle criticism or questioning without having a potentially destructive emotional reaction, so maybe youre the one who thinks the problem is masculinity, even as you misrepresent 'sources' to make it seem like masculinity is being persecuted in American education.
Here is what I actually wrote, I've deleted anything that was a quote from an article, but I will come to those after):
talking about how the media celebrates these figures is at the minimum a deflection, I would argue that social factors better explain why mass shootings/murders are so common. Isn't it too convenient, and simplistic, to focus on 'the media' covering these events as celebrating (celebratizing??) the perpetrator? "It's the liberal media's fault".
That being said, I agree that it is worth pointing out that school shooters are celebrated on certain dark places on the web where mentally ill (white) boys congregate unsupervised. And the commonly reiterated 'liberal university brainwashing conspiracy', that 'the media' loves so much, paints schools as an existential threat to American society (glossed as a bastion of western values under attack from immigrants and non-white people, see user TIK's beliefs as an example of a former mod on these forums who has expressed such beliefs, and deck knight for a current one).
First, I want to reiterate what the valkyries said because when I talk about 'expanding mental health access' as a measure to prevent mass shootings, it might sound like the problem is that people with diagnosed mental illnesses are getting their hands on weapons and are predisposed to violence. In fact, the opposite is the case, a mentally ill person is many times more likely to be a victim of violence. Mental illness is also, without further elaboration, not sufficient to explain why men are nearly always the perpetrators of these mass shootings.
So when I mention expanding mental health access I am particularly talking about access to programs for men that can teach them to cope with the psychic toxicity of hetero-masculine socialization in our society that leaves them raging against a society that left them without any meaningful community to teach him how to express his masculinity non-violently.
Nowhere have I argued that the only factor in mass shootings is toxic masculinity, nor have my sources made this argument, although this argument is explicitly rejected in one of my sources and I cped that part of the article into my post lol.
I think we can both agree that it is not easy to 'be a man' in our current society, but you attribute the state of affairs for men to consequences of 'pushing femininity' or what I think you are trying to say, which I can partially agree with: that labor is being feminized. But this has little to do with 'pushing femininity' or lack of tolerance or space for male behaviors in traditional classrooms, the problem is remains within the feminization of labor that is contradictory to the more fulfilling elements of masculinity, while promoting male expression through violent channels. As such, I suggested broader programatic outreach to men, about how to be better men, and to change what society projects onto men (because these expectations are harmful).
This is the next article I posted, the one where it complicates and decides against masculinity being the cause of mass shootings lol:
https://itself.blog/2017/10/02/the-apocalypse-is-happening-once-a-week-or-so/
"The apocalypse is happening once a week or so
When people open fire on crowds of strangers to let off steam, that’s a sign that you don’t have a society anymore. Crime is bad enough, but it at least follows a certain rationality — the motives are anti-social and dangerous, but legible. Terrorism is a step beyond normal crime, but again, there is some ostensible goal that the terrorist group is pursuing, albeit with tragically misguided ends. But something like a mass shooting isn’t
even terrorism. It is sheer nihilism.
It is violence as an end in itself, as the pure expression of a rejection of one’s fellow human being."
So I think there is a logic to these events as part of a broader pattern in American 'society':
"At this point, it is part of the ritual of a mass shooting for the shooter to be declared “troubled” or “mentally ill,” and then the liberals all point out that this happens every time and is a reductive explanation, etc.
Yet there is a moment of truth in the individualistic explanation, because the systemic cause of the systemic problem of mass shootings is precisely a toxic individualism that, when thwarted, can find its way to a destructive annihilation of the other — any other will do.
We can also call it toxic masculinity, insofar as it takes the least desirable traits stereotypically associated with manhood — isolation, lack of empathy, rage — while completely discarding the more desirable traits like loyalty or duty. Surely it is no accident that only men — and almost always white men — participate in this nihilistic anti-ritual,
but there is a false universalism in pinning the problem on masculinity. This is not always or even often how men behave. In fact, it is only in contemporary America that they have come to behave in this way at an epidemic level.
Call it toxic Americanism, then. That will allow us to include the ritualized non-response within the broader phenomenon. Systemic effects have systemic causes, and one of those effects is the utter refusal to take any steps to remedy the problem.Our political leaders are so enamored of the romance of gun ownership that they are willing to sacrifice dozens of us per year on the idol of the Second Amendment."
^This is where you can clearly see that I'm not reducing the problem to a universalized set of male features. How did you conclude that my argument is that masculinity is the reason behind these mass shootings?? That argument does not attend to factors behind why white men do 3x the number of mass shootings as the article points out, nor does it explain why men in other countries and at other time don't act this way.
I am not going to reply to further posts about this because it's clear you prefer to read reductively and react with what you think you already know, and I am not interested in a discussion that privileges the projection of your ego over the content of my post, or even the content of your own sources.
Your misrepresentation of sources is a joke:
1. here is the conclusion of the study in the first link:
"Smaller digit ratios in early infancy predicted higher activity levels in girls. ►
Activity counts were comparable during play with female-typical or male-typical toys. ►
Higher activity counts and stronger male-typical toy preferences were unrelated."
LOL this study concluded that there was no notable trend difference between activity with female or male typical toys, that goes against the idea of differences between girl and boy children in activity or learning.
Please read your sources. This is the second time I've seen one of these studies misrepresented by users on these forums.
2. This one was interesting, but I don't see how it supports what you've said:
"When little boys don’t want to make eye contact and they fidget in their seats, and little girls are caught talking and sending notes, a savvy teacher can organize her classroom in which she takes into consideration that little boys need to move around, and little girls need to express themselves verbally, and interprets this as part of their biology rather than misbehavior. A savvy parent can be sure that there are playtime opportunities during the day for both boys and girls to unwind and express themselves in a creative way.
Further, allowing children to start school especially little boys a little later, perhaps even by a year, gives them an edge. A more mature child can handle school material in a much better way."
Seems like the 'traditional classroom's' expectations are hazardous to children regardless of sex. Your conclusions are wildly out of proportion with the evidence presented, your arguments are about blaming perceived women's advances and movements for men's problems, but you have no evidence anywhere of this.
3. This one is def the weirdest one, with the paper offering a suggestion that male aggression needs to be given a healthy outlet. But it also mentions piles of ways in which the traditional ways of teaching can be improved for both boys and girls, the focus of this paper is not on how women are favored in a traditional classroom, but how boys and girls learn differently and how education can be modified to accommodate relevant differences.
"Research into gender and education reveals a mismatch between many of our boys' and girls' learning brains and the institutions empowered to teach our children."
So again, problems in school are not confined to boys.
4.
http://www.centerforpubliceducation...hool/Syscom.GM.Web.Content.axd?d=2vS6Gh2BGkk1
This was my favorite source you link, because it so clearly demonstrates the distorted paranoia of your post:
look at the chart, you can see that minutes in all categories have been cut: arts (supposedly a feminine thing or smthg?), pe/recess (a male thing according to you?). The ones that have been given more time are math (boys brains are supposed to better at this remember?) and english (girls brains supposed to better right), so how the fuck do you conclude that there is some one pushing 'femininity' in the classroom based on this one.
If you actually knew about educational politics in america, you would know that the changes in alloted teaching times to subjects is due to focus on standardized testing which only includes math and english. Which schools' funding is based on since that white MALE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES George W Bush passed No Child Left Behind,
It's not some conspiracy against boys on behalf parents that are afraid their children are being bullied, it's a conspiracy against education, much more broadly, to make all of our children less capable and well-rounded. like it says in the 3rd article you sourced:
"However, there is very little gap between what girls and boys can learn, and herein lies the rub. In fact, the differences are most pronounced in young children, and as children grow older, their home environment, their interests and their peers have the greatest influence over their behavior. By the time children are in the 12th grade, the differences between boys and girls are very subtle. Understanding these subtle differences can help educators guide their students in a positive way, meeting them and their needs where they are."
we done?? can we agree that the problem is broader than education and be done blaming abstractions about 'traditional classrooms' failing boys, when our whole society fails them? Can we talk about how what we can do as a society to facilitate better 'home environments, interests, and peers for men'??
Can we talk about differences in male and female socialization as it relates to gun violence instead of as it relates to alleged toy preference??
tldr- this discussion is quite off topic for the thread, and i did a thorough and soul searching examination of your post's content and its 'sources' and found little relation between them, especially in reference to your mentions of supposed consequences of a service economy, zero tolerance for bullying, and 'pushing femininity' on boys in a traditional classroom setting. Further, there is no reason to believe that, because women succeed at a moderately higher rate then men in education, that education systems are privileging women over men. There is no necessary connection nor have you provided evidence that indicates a substantive connection. Nor is it clear to me why any attempt to help men, as men, is just going to exacerbate them, and I think that such an assertion is mainly a way of resolving a cognitive dissonance that results from conceiving that there is seemingly very little any one of us can do, as individuals, to end the epidemic of violence in America.