Earlier this month, The New York Times confirmed my long-held
belief that women are far superior to men. In “At Colleges,
Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust” (July 9), the Times found
that whether it comes to grades or graduating, women were reported
to be higher achievers in college than their male counterparts.
As a woman, my first thought was, “I knew it! Women are
more intelligent than men!”
But Linda J. Sax, an associate professor of education here at
UCLA, burst my bubble. She told the Times that the differences are
due to the fact that men are more likely to skip class, not turn in
homework and not complete assignments on time. When I asked to her
expand on her findings, she added that women “come to college
more … interested in academic learning” and are more likely
to form study groups.
And here I thought women were just higher beings. Apparently
it’s interest in the subject matter and hard work that make
women so successful.
Too successful, according to some.
The article prompted a show of outrage from men everywhere.
Times columnist John Tierney wrote that since “men are the
underachieving minority on campus,” Title IX, a federal law
that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational
programs and activities, should be abolished. Tierney’s beef
with the law is that it clings to “the myth” that
“women need sports as much as men do.”
Right.
How can women, with all of their academic success and superior
intellect, possibly appreciate the joys of kicking or throwing a
ball around the way men do?
Aside from appreciating sports more, men also derive more
benefits from sports, as Tierney notes. It gives them a reason to
go to college and keep their GPAs up. It isn’t fair that
women are motivated to get good grades and go to college
anyway.
The only clear way to remedy that unfairness to men is to do
something unfair to women ““ then everybody’s being
treated equally unfairly.
I found Tierney’s column ridiculous ““ he
didn’t go far enough. Why stop at sports? Why don’t we
put a GPA handicap on women? Five percent should be subtracted from
every female college student’s grades to make up for the fact
that they have the unnatural advantage of doing their homework on
time and being interested in school.
But before I could begin campaigning for reform, I had to be
sure the Times got its facts right. I went to my peers.
Stephanie Morgan, a second-year business economics student,
agreed she perceived women as being more successful in school than
men, though she admitted, “I am a bad example. I’m
lazy.”
She disagreed, however, with Tierney’s idea. “I
think that would cause gender typing. Girls study; guys do
sports.”
It would, she added, “change the dynamic of females”
in college and result in a less diverse female class, since all
women would be restricted to the same activities.
Diversity? How can she be thinking of diversity at a time like
this? There are more important things to worry about, like the fact
that men are being left behind at an alarming rate!
“Uh, I don’t think so,” Neeraj Berry, also a
second-year business economics student, contradicted me. “I
feel like it’s a level playing field.” The female
gender had obviously brainwashed him to believe that. How else
could such prevalent discrimination go unnoticed?
And boys have been discriminated against for a very long time.
The Boys Project, an organization that seeks to address problems
boys face in the world, claims on its Web site that we are in the
middle of a “boy crisis.” The cause of this crisis?
Boys, the site says, don’t feel “needed” or
“respected.” Their success is also hampered by cruel
messages such as “Girls Rule, Boys Drool.”
I asked Berry how he dealt with such blatant sexism. He
responded that such messages did not negatively affect his
education. I could tell he was only pretending to be brave. How
could one not be scarred for life by such harsh words?
But before I could begin painting my “Abolish Title IX
Now” protest signs, the Times released another article.
Professor Sax summed it up for me in an e-mail.
“There is a widespread concern that men’s
achievement is declining, but the real story is that college-going
rates are higher among all students, especially the women.”
Before anyone attempts to “fix” this problem, Sax
wrote, we must conduct further research to see why there is a
difference.
Sax stressed that before anyone tried to fix this problem, we
should examine what the difference is caused by and whether it is a
problem at all.
To think someone could get so worked up and feel so threatened
by the prospect of women achieving more.
You must feel really silly, Mr. Tierney.
Throw Strickland a curveball at kstrickland@media.ucla.edu.
Just don’t expect her to catch it ““ she’s busy
studying. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.