Gender bias on the left
The media, left and right, try so very hard to twist the facts into a story that confirms their views of the world. Heather MacDonald explains in City Journal how the New York Times is so convinced that gender bias exists in math and science education (against females) that it ignores the salient facts. One of those facts is that males saturate both ends of the bell curve, not just the high end.
A new study has “found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests,” claims a July 25 [Times] article by Tamar Lewin-thus, the underrepresentation of women on science faculties must result from bias. Actually, the study, summarized in the July 25 issue of Science, shows something quite different: while boys’ and girls’ average scores are similar, boys outnumber girls among students in both the highest and the lowest score ranges.
MacDonald reminds us that feminists don’t seem to complain about the “gender bias” that results in males outnumbering females in the lowest score range. But hey, let’s not let the facts get in the way of an interesting worldview.




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back to top17 Comments to “Gender bias on the left”
The left can be easily convinced of anything related to bias since they are discriminators of the highest order and the only ones left in America that do so today. Even the few religious buddies they have are gender biased, if you can call it that. Here is an example from a group of the left’s closest religious buddies. You would think they would listen to these spiritual advisors eventually.
‘Women should wear burkas, be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen or harem where they belong. What is wrong with you infidels? Who the heck let them go to school, much less study math and science? May your heads be cleaved from your pitiful necks god willing, Allah Ackbar’
Ali Khomeini, Ossama bin Ladin, The Taliban, OPEC Oil Potentates, the Arab League and the WAAC (Worldwide Anti American Coalition)
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The never ending search to find evil white males.
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Discussions of this subject always seem to miss the fact that women are less likely to want to be wonks, nerds or brainiacs.
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#3 Herb,
You will find that today, with men no longer going to college and women replacing them in all fields as a result, the wonks, nerds and brainiacs are all women. In my daughters high school, the Honor Roll and National Honor Society are composed, nearly 95% so, by the girls. Boys just can’t make the grade anymore.
Your stereotype is long dead and disproved in spades I would guess. The boys are drinking, doing drugs, skateboarding, being left behind literally as the girls go off to college in droves and the boys stay home and are miserably lonely.
I find it disturbing because the boys just can’t seem to compete with the girls at any level now a days. It is like they were castrated at birth or something. Very strange indeed. I think there are doomed to be whack jos for the rest of their lives.
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The fact that most teachers are women might have something to do with girls doing better than boys. I’m not sure it has as much to do with intelligence as it does a major difference in learning styles/teacher expectations and the difficulty boys have (generally) in sitting still and churning out worksheets.
I’ve got 2 boys. One is “typical”–slow to mature, quick to fidget. He had a slow start in math and reading–just had trouble grasping the topics at 6 y/o. At 10, he’s very sharp, but still fidgets.
One of the reasons I homeschool is that I’m able to give him more room to be a boy. (When the book work is overwhelming, he runs a few laps and goes back to work…) I think boys often get penalized in school, even in their grades, for their rambunctious nature.
This same boy does, however, know how to sit still in church. (He CAN be taught!)
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Llama – the public schools are structured so as to treat testosterone as if it were a disgusting deadly disease. It is the school system that is attempting to castrate young boys for the mere act of being normal young boys.
It is no great puzzlement why boys are opting out of a system that actively hates them.
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Funny, I work in an IT department that is still mostly men. And that’s not just the older people. (The last two retirees were women, by the way.) The latest batch of interns (local college students) was almost all guys. And the technical infrastructure people are almost all male, while those who apply for positions as analysts to work with the customers are mostly female.
When I watched the awards given out at my son’s high school last year, the split was just about even for academic awards, the only awards that went mostly to girls were for community service (which requires good record keeping, and some boys like my son figure it’s not worth the trouble to get the required signatures to verify the hours worked).
I don’t know if it’s the part of the country I live in, maybe it’s strong local programs like Boy Scouts, but I’m not seeing the guys “opting out of school.” And if boys are being discouraged from being boys, it sure doesn’t show up in Cub Scouts or at church. Maybe you all should move to eastern Iowa.
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If kids were graded on working hard outside in the heat, my distractable 10 y/o son would beat most kids I know. He knows how to work, that one! Just takes longer to warm up to the paper and books…but he has an amazing memory.
Pauline, it’s refreshing to hear that your area is so friendly to boys (and girls)! We live near a major university town, so that might explain the bias around here.
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When I saw this article in our city’s paper the other day, it made me wonder where the data came from. Heather McDonald does a great job of explaining the results – which make a lot more sense to me than the initial article.
I get upset when I hear about “underrepresentation of women” because it smacks of a quota system, unrelated to merit. I have both a daughter and a son and I don’t want either of them subjected to a quota system.
In any circle of gifted children or adults, the upper echelons in the math/physics/computer areas are dominated by males. As Heather McDonald pointed out, the learning disabled are more likely to be male as well. As a woman, I’m not threatened by it because that’s how God made us. Women are gifted in many areas and the world works better when people are allowed to use their gifts and not be stuck in – or out of – a job based on irrelevant criteria like gender.
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KRM you are absolutely correct.
And this is from a father of two girls!
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You are correct as well #3 Herb
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Llama, you wrote too much in post #1. Your argument would have been understood had you merely written “The left can be easily convinced of anything.” You didn’t need more.
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Do I have a strange circle of friends?
I have known a lot of women who like math and/or science, but I have known at least 10 times as many who don’t. Why should girls excel in things that they don’t really like? Why should they go into careers that don’t appeal to them?
Note that I’m talking in generalities. I’m not against girls or women doing whatever they want. I am against blaming their choices on sexism.
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Thank you, KyleA.
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#2
I am picking on Nick this month.
Nick, why do you post? What effect do you expect your messages to have?
Have you ever met any women (black or white)? Did they do something awful to you?
After I get done, Nick will have many friends and admirers here.
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KRM @ #6,
Great comment. Very well put.
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I’ll bite, Random.
Nick may make some blunt statements here, but he is certainly not the only poster to suggest that white males in America have served as whipping boys for the feminists and other liberal know it alls — unfairly, I might add.
Your need to attack Nick is fueled by what?
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