Young men's differences are being discounted
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Published on September 21, 2002
© 2002- THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA
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Susan Swartz's Aug. 18 column -- "The macho ethic is back and boys are paying the price'' -- once again demonstrates that the gender commentators at The Press Democrat don't get it.
Swartz and some ivory tower junior college instructors attribute the declining college enrollment of men primarily to one thing: "the culture of macho.'' She doesn't explicitly define "macho,'' but there's little doubt that Swartz is using the term as a pejorative for masculinity itself.
And to that extent, her bias perfectly mirrors what she refuses to acknowledge: the anti-male bias of a female-dominated K-12 educational system that is primarily set up to meet the learning needs of girls -- a system in which boys are at a distinct disadvantage resulting in men constituting a declining minority of college students.
A recent Press Democrat editorial claimed that "for generations men have made up the majority of the nation's college graduates. There's nothing inherently wrong with women being the majority for a change.''
This seemingly logical argument neglects to mention, however, that female majority status was achieved during a period when rigid, numerical equality was established as a top priority in education and employment.
Why? Gender feminists (those who believe that women are in thrall to a "culturally conditioned'' system of male dominance) successfully argued that any desirable professional and academic area where females were underrepresented was due, not to neurobiological sex differences, but to sex discrimination.
On April 28, in an opinion piece titled, "The truth about boys, feminism,'' Press Democrat columnist Ann DuBay approvingly quoted the gender feminist's favorite boy-development researcher William Pollack, who claims it is a "myth'' that "testosterone will rule boys.''
DuBay wrote: "As Pollack points out, their (boys') play may be more rough-and-tumble -- but that doesn't mean they're 'aggressive'...''
Really?
DuBay then opined, "Thanks to the feminist movement and a lot of research that looked at girls and how they learn, we now know that nature doesn't necessarily rule -- that, in fact, nurture (including education and culture) has a lot to do with girls' success.''
The actual facts of the matter constitute a paradox: Men and women are profoundly alike but they are even more profoundly different. It is true that biology is not destiny, but it is proclivity. We are not two distinct human species, but two significantly different styles of humanity.
Evolutionary psychologists have documented that if a specific behavior has been a necessary condition to ensure survival, then the genes will adapt accordingly. Until about 10,000 years ago, males were the hunters and females were the gatherers. And these brains are still in us.
The unwillingness of both DuBay and Swartz to take neurobiology into account for learning differences between the sexes reflects a belief that women and men are primarily differentiated not by nature, but by a culturally conditioned patriarchal society.
Hence, when presented with this scientific evidence their spin control is, "sure there are differences, but those differences are inconclusive. We don't know what it all means.''
Why such an irrational resistance to this gender diversity? Because gender feminists view masculinity as a zero-sum game in which aggression is a social construct that results in male oppression and violence. Hence, they fear that the acknowledgment that the genders are in fact not created equal will in turn hurt the advances of women and girls and further divide the sexes.
Sure enough, DuBay urged the reader to concur with Pollack that it's a "myth'' that boys are "aggressive...'' because "it's the same nature over nurture argument that once guided society's treatment of girls: Girls' hormones make them naturally sensitive and nurturing, therefore they should act emotive, expressive and caring, meaning that they were unfit to be leaders or decision-makers.''
The plain fact is that both sexes nurture in different ways, even though ideologically driven feminists continue to define "nurture'' solely from a female perspective. They tacitly assume there are no intrinsic male or masculine forms of nurturing. They only see "macho'' as coercive, dominating, controlling, bullying, self-destructive and false bravado. Yet Latin culture actually understands "macho'' to mean courage, honor, protectiveness, dignity and service.
What gender feminists have done is politicize the issue, which, in turn, polarizes the sexes.
Once they give up this "culture of victimization'' mantra, we can thus uncover a diversity instead of a conspiracy and work in partnership as men and women who are firmly established in our own respective gender identities.
Petaluma resident Joe Manthey is the director of Kid Culture in the Schools. E-mail him here.
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