23-05-2003 07:13									#1
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http://www.businessweek.com/print/m...01_mz001.htm?mz

Oh well it could be worse. At least this way when the gender roles are reversed we get to stay home and watch soaps.

	23-05-2003 09:20									#2
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I think that article has somewhat too high a tendency to blame the system, rather then the individual boys who aren't suceeding. Also, while women may get bachelor's degree at a higher rate, men are more likely to get degrees in useful subjects whereas women are more likely get them in stuff like Sociology and English.

	23-05-2003 10:03									#3
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quote: Originally posted by Shi Huangdi I think that article has somewhat too high a tendency to blame the system, rather then the individual boys who aren't suceeding. Also, while women may get bachelor's degree at a higher rate, men are more likely to get degrees in useful subjects whereas women are more likely get them in stuff like Sociology and English.

Since when is sociology not useful? There is more to life than physical science and engineering after all. (No, I won't bother to defend English majors - useless beggars).

	23-05-2003 10:32									#4
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I've spent 15 years teaching university students; I've taught at large American universities (including Shi's), small colleges, and now overseas. And here's one thing I know:

Girls are, quite simply, much much better students than boys. I think the reasons include:

- Girls are socialized in the skills necessary to do well in school: paying attention to authority, sitting still, following rules. The socialization of boys tends to de-emphasize, if not discourage, all of those things. Broadly speaking, girls are taught to succeed within a system, while boys are taught to scorn systems and be "individuals." So if you're looking at success within a system (school), guess who's doing better?

- Girls are raised to be more detail-oriented than boys. One of my favorite stories from WWII is how factory owners fought the entry of women into factory work, only to discover that women were better at it than men; years of learning to sew, cook, and even apply make-up had made them more naturally focused on details than guys are. I find the same is true of students -- and in school as in architecture, God is in the details.

- Girls are raised to assume that, if they fail, it's their own fault and they should try to improve (Think of Cosmo headlines: "20 ways to make him howl in bed!"; "15 tips for a slimmer, trimmer you!" etc.). Boys are raised, I think, to believe that changing is the same as "selling out"; this is one reason that therapy, for example, is considered emasculating. Girls, in my experience, get a "D" on a paper, then come by my office and ask for advice on how to improve it; boys get that "D", feel dissed, and call me a bastard under their breath, and very occassionally to my face. Guess who does better in school?

All that being said, I think the one advantage boys have is that they ar more likely than girls to be taught to "think outside the box." For that reason, while the vast majority of my best students have always been girls, the VERY best students -- say, 8 out of 10 truly great ones in my career so far -- have been boys. But those 8 boys are very lonely (or lucky) faces in a vast sea of girls.

Final point, to Shi: you might want to rethink the concept of the "useful degree." If you take a good look at the world, and a good look at who's running it, it tends to be a bunch of people with so-called useless degrees, at least at the undergraduate level.

	23-05-2003 10:33									#5
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I am not condemning social science, in fact that is what I am in(Economics). Sociology just seems to be rather suspect among the social sciences.

	23-05-2003 10:36									#6
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Also I never said English was useless, I think it is a valid topic of academic inquiry. I am just making point that in terms of advancing within society it's not the most helpful.

	23-05-2003 11:05									#7
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Well the degrees that net you the most $'s (engineering etc.) are still male-dominated although there's still plenty of men with some useless degrees (like me in history ) which keeps this sort of thing from projecting into into society at large.

quote: Girls, in my experience, get a "D" on a paper, then come by my office and ask for advice on how to improve it; boys get that "D", feel dissed, and call me a bastard under their breath, and very occassionally to my face. Guess who does better in school?

Soooo true. When I get a good grade on a paper I usually don't read the prof's comments because I know what I did was fine as is and if I get a bad grade I don't read the prof's comments because I'm already annoyed enough about getting a bad grade without having my writting insulted Luckily, for some bizarre reason I've gotten a lot better at writing in the last four years, it used to take me a whole weekend to write a term paper and now I can whip up a better one in a few hours.

quote: All that being said, I think the one advantage boys have is that they ar more likely than girls to be taught to "think outside the box."

Also damn true. In one seminar I ended up as official class devil's advocate

	23-05-2003 13:17									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Boshko Well the degrees that net you the most $'s (engineering etc.) are still male-dominated although there's still plenty of men with some useless degrees (like me in history ) which keeps this sort of thing from projecting into into society at large.

I don't think this is true, actually. Engineering salaries tend to start high but level off quickly; they look good when you're 22, but not so good at 40. The opportunity for continually-climbing salaries tends to be on the business side of things; and business leaders, believe it or not, actually prefer liberal arts grads, especially for positions beyond middle-management.

	23-05-2003 13:24									#9
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shi, just say technical degrees

	23-05-2003 15:37									#10
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The article misses the point. The boys don't need to be better- what they learn to do is dominate, to have their agenda take up more of the shared time, to feel entitled to recieve more. The quiet, studious girls take the back seat and do extremely well eductaion-wise, but it's the boys - the boys who take up over 90% of classroom discussion time, the boys who're the class clowns and attension seekers, the boys who demand more of the teacher's time - who nevertheless are the ones who eventually succeed.

All of it, of course, enforced by a patriarchy of older men. Girls have been doing better at school for thirty years, but once they reach the workplace do more of them get promoted? Of course not. Their "natural" place is to lean back and be supportive and quiet. The old men promote like, even if not entirely based on sex then on the ability to grab power, to push themselves ahead, to make people pay attention.

	23-05-2003 15:39									#11
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Plus it's full of horrid sexual-hygenist biologist babble. When people look at us a hundred years from now they'll wonder how we so evilly believed men and women thought in fundamentally different ways, just as we today look at the racists of a hundred years ago with equal disgust.

	23-05-2003 16:14									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Buck Birdseed The article misses the point. The boys don't need to be better- what they learn to do is dominate, to have their agenda take up more of the shared time, to feel entitled to recieve more. The quiet, studious girls take the back seat and do extremely well eductaion-wise, but it's the boys - the boys who take up over 90% of classroom discussion time, the boys who're the class clowns and attension seekers, the boys who demand more of the teacher's time - who nevertheless are the ones who eventually succeed. All of it, of course, enforced by a patriarchy of older men. Girls have been doing better at school for thirty years, but once they reach the workplace do more of them get promoted? Of course not. Their "natural" place is to lean back and be supportive and quiet. The old men promote like, even if not entirely based on sex then on the ability to grab power, to push themselves ahead, to make people pay attention.

Did you turn in your penis to your Women's Studies professor yet?

	23-05-2003 16:18									#13
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The article brings up some very good points, especially the developmental stuff. One of my friends from college is a feminist, who had the luck to have three boys. Now she is constantly trying to get the school system to make school better for them. They vary considerably from girls much of the time, especially during the earliest years of school. It's hard to learn how to write when you can barely grasp a pencil for instance, which I learned the hard way in 1st grade. We need to take a very good look at K-12 education for the good of every child, and see if we can't design it to work with all of our children, rather than against some of them.

	23-05-2003 16:44									#14
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I'm not in high school anymore but... it is true that girls do whatever they're told, always do their homework and always write down stuff during class, whereas the boys in my class (it was actually about 18 girls and 6 boys ) never did any of those things, except for one secluded and quiet guy...

It's all about attitude: In the ol' days, in boarding schools etc,.. boys did make their homework and so forth because there was harsh discipline. They were raised with punishment in case of failure to hand in homework, not social guidance or whatever it's called these days...

Well that was the case over here anyway
Girls don't need punishment etc do to their best, it's just the different attitude between girls and boys..

In the end it doesn't matter shite how you do in high school though, for example my teachers always said I wouldn't succeed in anything, and that I should try a less hard degree
I proved them wrong at uni!!!

	23-05-2003 20:08									#15
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I think men may have more talent for mathematics and more tendancy towards brilliance. (Not that they are brighter than women, just that there bell curve has a wider deviation.)

I agree that girls are much more fun to teach in terms of taking instruction (in sports or in chemistry). They listen to advice on how to change body position or problem-solving method.

But all that said, they are not the better athletes and they tap out at a certain level.

	23-05-2003 20:13									#16
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but they look better when playing softball and soccer...

but stimming...guys that swim...

	23-05-2003 20:29									#17
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quote: Originally posted by The Templar Since when is sociology not useful? There is more to life than physical science and engineering after all. (No, I won't bother to defend English majors - useless beggars).

It may be useful as a field of knowledge, but a sociology degree is as useful as tits on a bull when it comes to employability.

	23-05-2003 21:59									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly I don't think this is true, actually. Engineering salaries tend to start high but level off quickly; they look good when you're 22, but not so good at 40. The opportunity for continually-climbing salaries tends to be on the business side of things; and business leaders, believe it or not, actually prefer liberal arts grads, especially for positions beyond middle-management.

??? Are you sure? I thought engineers had similar levels of advancemant. Although maybe you are right as the liberal arts majors are probably more likely to get MBA and law degrees. Does anyone know what the gender ratios are for getting law and business degrees?

	23-05-2003 22:08									#19
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It is clear that boys are handicaped when competing with girls at school. An Affirmative Action program is necessary.

From now on, no grade below C can be given to boys. Girls will continue to get Ds when they deserve it.

	23-05-2003 22:16									#20
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quote: An Affirmative Action program is necessary.

You don't think that doesn't already happen? I know at my uni we get more female applicants (who have higher average HS GPA) but to maintain gender balance, admissions admitts about the same of both genders.

	23-05-2003 22:20									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Boshko You don't think that doesn't already happen? I know at my uni we get more female applicants (who have higher average HS GPA) but to maintain gender balance, admissions admitts about the same of both genders.

I cant believe it. Really.

	23-05-2003 22:56									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly I don't think this is true, actually. Engineering salaries tend to start high but level off quickly; they look good when you're 22, but not so good at 40. The opportunity for continually-climbing salaries tends to be on the business side of things; and business leaders, believe it or not, actually prefer liberal arts grads, especially for positions beyond middle-management.

Thanks for pointing this out. Now a hypothetical - if you were building a society anew, who would you put priority on - engineers or businesspeople? Probably engineers because they do serious intellectual work. Businesspeople merely perform logistic tasks - they work to allocate the resources that engineers, technicians, and the rest of people with actual skills turn into products and services. Unfortunately our society values paper-pushers, aka businesspeople, over the people who actually create society. This is reflected in the fact that given the preeminence of money in our society, the highest salaries go to businessmen.

	23-05-2003 23:10									#23
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quote: Originally posted by The Templar Thanks for pointing this out. Now a hypothetical - if you were building a society anew, who would you put priority on - engineers or businesspeople? Probably engineers because they do serious intellectual work. Businesspeople merely perform logistic tasks - they work to allocate the resources that engineers, technicians, and the rest of people with actual skills turn into products and services. Unfortunately our society values paper-pushers, aka businesspeople, over the people who actually create society. This is reflected in the fact that given the preeminence of money in our society, the highest salaries go to businessmen.

Generally being in business requires excellent verbal and logical skills. These are not to the fore in the sciences where experiment and rule following predominate, but are essential for the humanities.

Trust me, I've marked enough papers written by enough barely literate science students to know this. Of course the converse is true - many humanities and social science students are or become poor mathematicians.

	23-05-2003 23:11									#24
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That's because the businesspeople decide what the engineers should do . The engineers, by themselves, normally wouldn't be in the right place at the right time if it were for the businessman steering him. As much as we disdain the paper pushers, they definetly are very useful in deciding where to allocate assets more efficiently.

	23-05-2003 23:23									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui That's because the businesspeople decide what the engineers should do . The engineers, by themselves, normally wouldn't be in the right place at the right time if it were for the businessman steering him. As much as we disdain the paper pushers, they definetly are very useful in deciding where to allocate assets more efficiently.

We will always need someone to do the logistical tasks. I'm saying that our societal priorities are misplaced.

Moreover, we don't need businessmen to make resource allocation choices. Engineers/scientists/doctors/sociologists/artists/etc. are equally capable of making these descisions. In fact, I would argue that experts in the field are more competent to make allocation descisions. In my view, businesspeople should be secondary players who free up the more technical, artistic, and creative types to do their thing. In health care, the doctor should be at the top of the hierarchy with the executive making it happen - freeing the doctor to do medicine, research, whatever. Capitalism is a failure in this respect.

Agathon:

I used to teach philosophy at a university (grad student instructor), and yeah I saw some of the worst writing ever, and even some shoddy reasoning, from science and engineering students. On the flip side, when I was teaching formal logic, I'd get these theatre people who took the course for a math credit - thinking a philsophy course would be less rigorous. Complete dumb@$$es! You are exactly right.

	23-05-2003 23:24									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui That's because the businesspeople decide what the engineers should do . The engineers, by themselves, normally wouldn't be in the right place at the right time if it were for the businessman steering him. As much as we disdain the paper pushers, they definetly are very useful in deciding where to allocate assets more efficiently.

This is an instance of a more general case. The sciences do not deal with questions of value; of what is worth and not worth doing. Partly for this reason many science worshippers endorse some form of subjectivism. But the joke is that, even if subjectivism is true, it has very little bearing on actual practice, since shared norms are the basis of any debate and you basically have to debate most of the time to get people around to your point of view.

	23-05-2003 23:29									#27
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quote: Originally posted by The Templar Moreover, we don't need businessmen to make resource allocation choices. Engineers/scientists/doctors/sociologists/artists/etc. are equally capable of making these descisions. In fact, I would argue that experts in the field are more competent to make allocation descisions. In my view, businesspeople should be secondary players who free up the more technical, artistic, and creative types to do their thing.

I think he's saying that business people aren't necessarily uncreative. Of course there is your average pen pusher. But these people rarely have the intuitive vision to be really successful.

quote: In health care, the doctor should be at the top of the hierarchy with the executive making it happen - freeing the doctor to do medicine, research, whatever. Capitalism is a failure in this respect.

But all the doctors keep saying that theirs is the most important research. Someone has to make an allocation decision somewhere.

quote: Agathon: I used to teach philosophy at a university (grad student instructor), and yeah I saw some of the worst writing ever, and even some shoddy reasoning, from science and engineering students. On the flip side, when I was teaching formal logic, I'd get these theatre people who took the course for a math credit - thinking a philsophy course would be less rigorous. Complete dumb@$$es! You are exactly right.

This is my current job. I have a hundred exams to mark this afternoon. Where were you an instructor?

	23-05-2003 23:31									#28
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quote: We will always need someone to do the logistical tasks. I'm saying that our societal priorities are misplaced.

That may be so, but that is how societies have usually worked. The decision makers get the cash, whether it be businessmen or politicians (which is why in many countries it is made harder for politicians to agree to raise their own salaries ).

quote: Engineers/scientists/doctors/sociologists/artists/etc. are equally capable of making these descisions. In fact, I would argue that experts in the field are more competent to make allocation descisions.

I disagree. These people would, of course, want all of the allocation in their own field or area of expertise. Someone has to decide who gets what. You can't give everything to everyone. The doctor at top of the hospital might be a neurosurgeon and thus give more to that field that is really required at the expense of others. Someone, detached from all that, should make decisions on what to allocate where, IMO.

	23-05-2003 23:33									#29
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quote: But all the doctors keep saying that theirs is the most important research. Someone has to make an allocation decision somewhere.

My point exactly. It may not be a businessman, it may be a politician, but someone has to decide which fields get what with as little bias as possible.

	23-05-2003 23:35									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui I disagree. These people would, of course, want all of the allocation in their own field or area of expertise. Someone has to decide who gets what. You can't give everything to everyone. The doctor at top of the hospital might be a neurosurgeon and thus give more to that field that is really required at the expense of others. Someone, detached from all that, should make decisions on what to allocate where, IMO.

In practice the division of labour is not that stark. In a hospital situation, for example, you have trained doctors who have some training in ethics on the same committee with trained ethicists who have some medical knowledge. It really isn't possible to get anything done otherwise - each side has to realise its own knowledge limitations and be prepared for open discussion and disagreement.