Fun Friday - Men Expect Success, Women Work for Success
On the talk show circuit, if there isn't a "us versus them" crisis, they'll invent one. After all, ratings matter, and the best ratings are gotten from the "battle of the sexes", never mind the reality.
The latest fad, seized upon by fervent talk show hosts, academics of questionable credentials, and ideological rantists is that of the "academic gender gap" where girls are supposedly pulling ahead of boys. Crisis indeed! It must be the girl's fault, or the school's fault. It must be favoritism. It must be bias. Or is it?
It may be less than glamorous to put the responsibility for working hard towards a goal on the shoulders of the person who benefits most from it - after all, isn't this what all those "Great Generation" types told boomers? You have to put your nose to the grindstone, work up the ladder, and eventually you'll have your reward? Remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper? You don't want to be a grasshopper, do you, freezing while the hard-working ant lives in a cozy home...
Like, who wants to listen to that stuff? That's like "eat sensibly and exercise and you'll control your weight" - no one wants to do that either because 1) working towards a long-term goal is hard in an immediate gratification culture, and 2) there's no one to blame but yourself if you fail. Better get a pill, or better yet, blame someone else.
Personal responsibility, diligence, hard work, and those other virtues of a bygone era don't play well in the "agony" talk circuit - they operate on the "blame, complain, and act insane" method of discourse (modus vivendi is Latin to these folks). So if boys are doing poorly in school, it must be someone else's fault. Right?
In the midst of this irrational debate, as one dispairs of any reason or sense, Sophie Theis, a 17 year old high school student for New America Media, elegantly pins the proverbial tail on the donkey with the keen observation that girls are succeeding more because they are willing to do the work, writing "The gender gap is all about the energy invested in school, not the intelligence".
According to Ms. Theis, "When girls talk about grades, you hear stress and effort. They worry about competition and vocalize their anxiety over grades. When admired males talk about school, the conversation is often a contest to see who could put in the least amount of effort to do the best". Who could succeed if they aren't invested in the work? And who is to blame if the individual is unwilling to work for such a goal?
Lest people think I'm biased against boys, guess again. In my own home I get to closely observe the "teenage male malaise" in action with my son Ben Jolitz all the time and the "teenage girl grade anxiety" from my daughter Rebecca Jolitz. Yes, he's a gold medal science fair winner, an Intel Promising Young Scientist scholarship grantee, and all that stuff. And she's a dedicated student and artist. I am very proud of them both. But I'm not blind to the "I aced the test without studying" stuff - especially because, as Rocky said to Bullwinkle, "That trick never works".
Having run predominately male engineering teams in a predominantly male technology industry after getting a degree in a predominantly male major (physics), I'm pretty used to this form of bravado - demos and project code walks can be very grueling, kind of like Psychoanalysis meets the Inquisition. And there's nothing guys love more than to point out the "loser" flaws in other guys. So just go ask any teenage boy (who actually will give you the time of day) if any of the guys he hangs with have "ever tried to ace a test without studying and flamed out" and you will get story after story of loser city. Like a gambler, they always go back for one more "spin of the wheel" thinking "this time I'll win". The "aced sans study" myth is too powerful a drug and too cool a boast. Girls do it too, but if "...the admired female is smart, concerned about school and active in achieving her success", once burned means twice shy.
As Ms. Theis notes, "Males still want and expect success, even as they disown any appearance of working for it". She feels that this attitude is an attempt to rebel against conformity. At this point, with a little more experience under my belt, I'd have to say that while notions like rebellion are sexy, this takes a back seat to two little words - "bragging rights".
And bragging rights, unlike a credential, are rarely subject to close scrutiny - even when you don't make the grade.