From Paul Graham: I think that this is much more of the case than actively discouraging boys from being smart. The thing that really puzzles me is the mentality of girls. I knew a lot of girls in high school who busted their asses to get good grades. They did so in order to get into a good college... and then majored in philosophy, communications, or English. Maybe it's just my own utilitarian bias, but I can't imagine busting my ass to get into Cornell or Brown and not majoring in something that could become a career in and of itself. The really cynical part of me thinks that they get into good colleges to meet and marry the guys who are going to said good colleges. This is sexist, but I'm wondering how much of it is actually true.
It does, but mainly in poor towns/cities where academic achievement isn't something that's praised. If parents and the people around them didn't get anywhere because of their education level, they are less likely to stress it on their kids. Obviously this is stupid, but hey, they're poor for a reason. But in my (and I'm sure many on this board) bubble world no one was mocked for doing well in school, in fact our prom king was a straight A student and not a good athlete, just smart and very likable.
This. Where I went to school, the Asian kids all did pretty well, but it was the dumbass, dirt poor, Pacific Islanders that ruined it for everybody. They were much more interested in smoking pot and being annoying in class than anything. The fact that I wasn't illiterate made me "brainiac" this or "nerd" that.
Honestly, I think girls are more prone to the combination of parental pressures + perfectionism that leads to studying for 8 hours every day. Boys in high school just give less of a shit. Partly because high school is oftentimes not super valuable in and of itself - for a lot of people, it's just a thing you have to put up with to get to the interesting stuff in college. I think girls probably have an easier time with that future perspective than guys, who slack off more on boring shit across the board. (Yeah, full into the generalizations here.)
I wouldn't say that academic achievement is mocked, per se, but I DO believe it is generally accepted in peoples' minds that girls on the whole will outperform boys. Allow me to provide anecdotal evidence to prove my argument. My cousins wrote a book when they were twelve. No, seriously. They are identical twins and they wrote a goodly chunk of a large, LOTR-esque epic for a school project. The teacher failed them, with a note saying, "If you are going to have your parents submit writing and claim it as your own, then you will continue to fail." Needless to say, this triggered many parent/teacher meetings and the teacher wound up eating crow. As the years progressed the twins kept the story alive, re-wrote it and (one is an artist) drew pictures for it. To date, as 19-year-olds, they have published two books and the third is coming out soon. They completed a world book tour for the first book and they were overwhelmingly welcomed everywhere. Everywhere the story was the same: everyone, from the principle of whatever school on down, was astounded that the twins are boys. Boys having such an interest in literacy and writing novels at a young age, in the public, private or separate school systems (they've attended all) are virtually unheard of. Literacy, particularly amongst young boys, has become a passion for them and they do tours when the university is on break to promote it amongst local elementary schools. So while I don't think the stereotype that boys are mocked for learning is terribly prevalent, I do think expectations for them are much lower academically.
I know you're just a young Aussie guy who continues to rail against feminism (among other things). But your comments are pretty tired, and the only thing that makes me come out of the woodwork here. For the number of people who can generally blame structural factors (economic failures due to poor regulations, etc.) there's an increasing number of people in the generation behind me who are just all too happy to blame ism's. Grow your own worldview, preferably one that isn't a series of "anti-other people's beliefs." It'll make you more happy than you come across as in EVERY SINGLE POST. Focus: I think that there are a number of societal factors including the declining belief in education that are allowing previously undermined groups to get a leg up. Which I also think they deserve. I think of (generally white) men like I think of Microsoft: when you've established a hegemony in a situation, the only direction to go is down.
In my experience, status in high school came from likeability, looks, and physical size for men; looks for women. Nothing else seemed to really matter. Intelligence (not necessarily performance) seemed only to help but just a little in both cases. I never saw anyone getting picked on for being smart past like the 7th grade. Just anecdotal evidence, though. I definitely do think there is something to the idea that the structure of your typical school is more conducive to typically female preferred styles of learning. Haven't really read enough/given it enough about thought to give an opinion that is worth reading.
She can be as competitive, successful, and productive as she wants... so long as my laundry is done in a timely manner.
I feel like I've been reading about this a lot recently, not just the thread on this site but I think a lot of people are seeing this as a trend and trying to figure out why. I'm part of this apathetic, early twenties, group. For the most part my friends are content with their lives working for enough money to get by. They're more interested in MMA, video games, picking up girls, heavy drinking, or some other non-productive thing. Though there are the exceptions: one friend is 24 and making 6 figures, another is becoming an amazing chef, and I'm in medical school. But the the rest just don't care that much. It revolves around what they deem to be important. The article quotes something about how married men make more money and work harder, and that makes perfect sense to me, because until then they don't have a cause. There is no point for them to work their hands to the bone at this point, but all of them that I've talked to about this do plan on having a family and plan on shaping up then. Maybe girls are just more interested in working for themselves. Also, girls are sometimes better at some of the really important work/life skills like working together, pooling resources, and not letting their egos get in the way.
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2046284/Ashton-Kutcher-news-late-So-todays-soppy-men-act-like-toddlers-need-mollycoddled.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... ddled.html</a> This may be one of the worst things ever written in the English language. There may be worse things written in other languages, but I only understand English so I cannot verify. If Shakespeare knew that he was developing the English language so that this piece may one day be written, I dare say he would have committed suicide and called it noble, or at the very least retired to sheep farming and never spoke the language again.
I think that the difference is rooted in what satisfies each gender. The world has become a playground where every surface level desire can be met pretty quickly. However, this affects the genders differently. Don't get me wrong, I think both genders are looking for social acceptance, companionship, etc, but we all settle for distractions and indulgences along the way. Men tends to be achievement (that has been distilled to an easily reproducible gamified encouragement system, like XP/Leveling in videogames, or belt levels in MMA, etc) and/or sex (which can be substituted with things like pornography). Women's goals tend to be more social in nature, so while there is some substitute for it (Zynga, makers of FarmVille and other social games, has a majority female demographic), there is less of a draw to receding in a single circle of friends and spending disposable income on faux-fulfillment. Does porn equal love? Nah, but it'll do if your plans to go out with the bros fell apart. Does getting another prestige level in Call of Duty equal that big career advancement? Nope, but it's more fun than staying at work til 10pm every night. I think as our world turns into Brave New World, we're finding that men as a whole are both more willing and more content to wade in a pool of hedonism and easy selfish living than women.