http://www.whyboysfail.com/2009/08/20/new-book-on-college-gender-issues/ Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:26:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://www.whyboysfail.com/2009/08/20/new-book-on-college-gender-issues/#comment-11767 Anonymous Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:07:18 +0000 http://www.whyboysfail.com/?p=986#comment-11767 I would tend to consider the approach of Linda Sax to be almost uselessly academic. Look at all those recommendations for future research! She seems to have lost the humanity in what she is studying. Her subjects might just as well be labaratory rats rather than human beings. Her approach seems that cold. One question she doesn't mention in the article, maybe she does in the book, is the question of the effect of the much larger number of college women on the data she is using. Because so many more women are in college, you have more "opportunities" for problems, whether it be poor academic self confidence or other satisfaction characteristics. I would suspect that since the current professors are still majority male, this may have a negative effect on these college women, just as one can speculate that the high percentage of female teachers in elementary and secondary schools have a negative effect on the boys. Finally, one thing she does mention, that I have always wondered about, is why women seem to be able to separate life problems from their academic performance. They can be having drug problems, drinking problems, eating disorders, all sorts of things, and yet still perform well academically. In fact, since into all lives a little rain must fall, maybe that ability is a key to their success. I would tend to consider the approach of Linda Sax to be almost uselessly academic. Look at all those recommendations for future research! She seems to have lost the humanity in what she is studying. Her subjects might just as well be labaratory rats rather than human beings. Her approach seems that cold. One question she doesn’t mention in the article, maybe she does in the book, is the question of the effect of the much larger number of college women on the data she is using. Because so many more women are in college, you have more “opportunities” for problems, whether it be poor academic self confidence or other satisfaction characteristics. I would suspect that since the current professors are still majority male, this may have a negative effect on these college women, just as one can speculate that the high percentage of female teachers in elementary and secondary schools have a negative effect on the boys. Finally, one thing she does mention, that I have always wondered about, is why women seem to be able to separate life problems from their academic performance. They can be having drug problems, drinking problems, eating disorders, all sorts of things, and yet still perform well academically. In fact, since into all lives a little rain must fall, maybe that ability is a key to their success.

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