https://time.com/7335723/auto-draft-25-2/
"Many have raised concerns about a crisis among boys and men, ushering in a
“manosphere” cultural wave. After decades of dominance, boys have begun to fall
behind girls in school. Today, girls are better readers, earn better grades,
and are more likely to graduate from high school.
But the issue isn’t that we need more “boy-friendly” reforms. It’s that boys
are still socialized to compete only with boys and to read girls’ success as
illegitimate or emasculating. The result is dissonance, resentment, and
disengagement for boys—and hostile climates for girls.
If we really want boys to succeed, we need to ensure that they know how to both
beat—and lose—to girls.
Too often, competitiveness is culturally-coded as masculine, and for boys it
becomes a pillar of identity. From childhood play to college sports, boys learn
that “real” competition is male-against-male—the arena where status is earned
and manhood confirmed.
But these rigid gender ideals don’t leave room for boys to compete with girls
as equals in the classroom, or later, as adults, the workplace. As a result,
boys often experience cross-gender competition as confusing, shameful, or as a
test of masculinity rather than a test of skill.
When girls compete—and win, as they are bound to at least occasionally do—boys
tend to respond in three ways. Some boys recalibrate, softening overt bravado.
Others detach, underperforming or withdrawing to avoid the appearance of
“losing to a girl.” And others escalate aggression—interrupting, dismissing
ideas, excluding girls from groups or partnerships, and resorting to
sexualized, relational hostility. This anxiety also spills onto women teachers,
who increasingly encounter open intersectional misogyny: gendered slurs,
intimidation, and sexualization which can undermine teachers’ authority and
student learning.
Girls face a different bind. They are frequently explicitly encouraged to
emulate “masculine” traits—assertiveness, confidence, dominance—to succeed in
STEM, sports, work, and beyond. That expectation means that girls frequently
struggle to balance aggressive competitiveness with norms of deferential
femininity, a double standard boys don’t encounter.
These dynamics are bad for everyone. Classrooms become more hostile for girls;
boys’ motivation and achievement suffer. The problem isn’t girls’ gains—it’s a
competitive culture that equates boys’ worth with dominance over other boys and
offers no workable script for competing with girls as peers.
Either way—detachment or aggression—boys’ inability to compete directly and as
equals with girls is having negative outcomes for all, including boys whose
academic motivation, engagement, and achievement are suffering.
If we want healthier classrooms and better outcomes, we need to de-gender the
competitive script: teach mixed-gender collaboration and rivalry as normal,
interrupt status policing, and evaluate excellence beyond dominance. Boys
shouldn’t need to win to be masculine; they need a way to compete that doesn’t
make girls’ success feel like their failure or emasculation."
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
