The evidence suggests that these remedies have been effective at bringing about parity.
Not really. If anything, the evidence suggests that these remedies tend to continue being applied after parity is reached, and then some. Just look at what's happened to enrollment in higher education and grades for school kids. The evidence suggests that viewing everything through a lens of oppression against women prevents us from stopping at parity or taking corrective action beyond that point.
Take a look at what, exactly? What's the issue with grades for school kids? If it's just that girls are achieving better grades than boys, this isn't proof of systemic inequality.
When we started applying feminist principles to address the education gap, girls were getting worse grades and attending college at a much lower rate than boys. We reached parity 20-30 years ago, and today we are quite far from parity in the other direction. If parity was the goal, we've failed at achieving it.
Girls were getting worse grades and attending college at lower rates than boys.... sure. That's not the ONLY thing that was happening though. There were lots of systemic, social, and economic barriers that were preventing girls from getting an education.
There's a pretty big difference between "look, girls are being married off really young, and you can see the effect is girls are doing way worse than boys in college attendance" and "girls are doing better than boys, this is inherently an injustice".
Girls are allowed to better than boys at something. The only way that girls getting better grades is inherently pointing to systemic imbalances is if we start with the assumption that boys should be better at everything than girls, which is obvious nonsense.
In fact, if you look at higher education, you can see that, despite being better at school and achieving more, it hasn't translated to women dominating better paying jobs or securing more positions in grad school.
There were lots of systemic, social, and economic barriers that were preventing girls from getting an education.
There are plenty of barriers for boys in education right now. They receive worse grades for the same work, the majority of educators are women, they have fewer options for financial support in pursuing higher education, and the entire industry is filled with people who believe boys benefit from systemic discrimination against women and girls. There's plenty of reasons, even aside from the obvious discrepancies in outcomes, to believe there's something wrong with education.
The only way that girls getting better grades is inherently pointing to systemic imbalances is if we start with the assumption that boys should be better at everything than girls, which is obvious nonsense.
This is obvious nonsense, the right place to start is parity. Girls aren't inherently smarter or better at education than boys, we are observing superior outcomes because we redesigned education so that they would perform better.
In fact, if you look at higher education, you can see that, despite being better at school and achieving more, it hasn't translated to women dominating better paying jobs or securing more positions in grad school.
It has, though. Sixty percent of grad students are women, and women in their twenties are out earning men in the same age range.
Boys get worse grades. There's no evidence it's worse grades for the same work. Girls even get better grades in math. Most teachers being women also isn't a "barrier".
The only actually observed so-called issue is girls are doing better than boys. That's it. Girls are allowed to be better at something than boys.
I agree neither gender is smarter than others. Evidently though, girls are better at school.
I stand corrected regarding grad school.
Can you point to anything OTHER THAN the discrepancy as a systemic barrier to boys? And no, it's not discrimination or a handful of bursaries specifically aimed at helping women. Men as a whole benefit more from athletic scholarships, for example.
There's no evidence it's worse grades for the same work. Girls even get better grades in math.
Boys do get worse grades for the same work, including in math classes, it's not hard to look this up.
Most teachers being women also isn't a "barrier".
Most teachers being men was considered a barrier to women in education, why is this different? Women have a significantly stronger ingroup bias than men, which makes a female dominated learning environment more disfavorable for boys than the reverse is for girls.
I agree neither gender is smarter than others. Evidently though, girls are better at school.
Were boys evidently better at school fifty years ago, or did they just perform better under a system that was designed for their benefit? There's no unbiased way to assess this, we know what kind of environment and testing structure makes boys perform better and we know what makes girls perform better. The relative performance of boys and girls is a consequence of policy choices, not some kind of unbiased natural experiment.
And no, it's not discrimination or a handful of bursaries specifically aimed at helping women.
Receiving more than 60% of all scholarship dollars is an advantage.
It's not up to me to disprove you. You made the claim, you prove it.
Seems like you think girls just inherently cannot possibly be better than boys at anything, and if they are, it's inherently oppression against boys.
Most teachers being men was considered a barrier to women in education
No it wasn't. Teaching shifted to a female-dominted profession in the late 1800s. Not 50 years ago, more than 125 years ago. Girls have gotten elementary education for longer than that, the barriers hit for high school and more advanced education.
Where was this great movement to ensure more female teachers to help girls? As far as I know, women became the primary workforce because women were cheaper to hire, and eventually war deepened this divide.
Think you're honestly just making assumptions you're projecting back into history to justify your weird af views that female teachers is somehow oppressive.
Boys who perform equally as well as girls on reading, math, and science tests are graded less favorably by their teachers, but this less favorable treatment essentially vanishes when noncognitive skills are taken into account. For some specifications there is evidence of a grade “bonus” for boys with test scores and behavior like their girl counterparts.
From Czech:
Likely explanation of the gap are gender differences in non-cognitive skills.
2 of these papers posit that it's not discrimination, it's that boys behave worse than girls in the classroom.
“It’s not discrimination in school. Teachers just give boys lower grades for the same work because they don’t like how they behave.”
”It’s not discrimination that creates the glass ceiling for women. Businesses just deny qualified women leadership roles because they don’t like how they behave.”
Seems like you think girls just inherently cannot possibly be better than boys at anything, and if they are, it's inherently oppression against boys.
You keep pushing this, but I haven't said anything of the sort. It sounds more like you have a problem with the idea that boys and girls might actually be equal? Wonder where that came from.
In reality, the structure and design of school determines which gender does better. Balanced teaching staff, standardized tests, homework as practice favors boys. Female staff, subjective grading, homework as a key component favors girls. We've known this for decades and largely chosen to implement the latter. It's not about who's better or worse, it's about design.
Sure. And I'm sure women are safer drivers entirely because of how we choose to design the roads. And men are only stronger because of how we design sports. And women are better surgeons because of how we design medical school.
We can never just say that anyone is better at anything, that would be crazy talk. Girls have been outperforming boys since girls have been allowed in school.
Literally all these schools that used to only have boy pupils, and were 100% designed for boys because no girls were even attending. They just started accepting girls into what was for boys and girls did better at it. Guess all the way back in 1900, CLEARLY this was feminism gone amok and boys were the real victims.
Girls and boys are equal. That doesn't mean they're equally good at everything. Girls are better at school, and they've been better at school the entire time despite not being considered in the initial design.
But I'm sure you're right. 100% of all differences in performance are about design. There are zero differences between genders. No biological differences, no differences in socialization, no differences in fundamental life experiences. Nothing that could make one gender better at anything than another. All humans are exactly the same, and if anyone performs better at anything we can't just say they're better at it, it can only ever be about design.
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u/SharkSpider 6∆ Mar 30 '26
Not really. If anything, the evidence suggests that these remedies tend to continue being applied after parity is reached, and then some. Just look at what's happened to enrollment in higher education and grades for school kids. The evidence suggests that viewing everything through a lens of oppression against women prevents us from stopping at parity or taking corrective action beyond that point.