Christopher has complained for a very long time that, in schoolbooks and on children's television, boys are always the losers. They're dumber than the girls, weaker than the girls, slower than the girls; and they deserve what they get.

My impression has been that he's right.

Then a couple of days ago Instructivist posted a link to an American Educator article showing that at least two different sources have formally banned 'positive stereotypes' of boys in textbooks. I'm sure many more sources have informally and implicitly banned 'positive stereotypes' of boys as well; I'm equally sure that, in practice, 'no positive stereotypes' means 'no positive images,' period.

Certainly that would be the smart way to go. Drop in a positive image of a boy and you risk getting dinged for positive stereotyping. Drop in no positive images of boys and you don't.

Simple.

I'm sure that's the thinking, because when I look at textbooks or watch TV, I see an awful lot of cool girls, but precious few cool boys.

Which brings me to Everyday Math.

Given the well-documented deterioration in the academic performance of boys (Ed tells me that the NYU student body is now 60% girls), I am actively hostile to the inclusion of problems like this one in the Grade 5 E-Math curriculum:






source:
What the United States Can Learn from Singapore's World-Class Mathematics System (and what Singapore can learn from the United States): An Exploratory Study, page 77 (pdf file)


Message: men are rude schmucks, titter, titter.

It's a cliche, but it goes without saying that you could not publish the same word problem about blacks or women or Jews or old people or Muslims or Navajo Indians.

But you can tell 10-year old boys that when they grow up they'll be dopes.





source:
Banned Words, Images, and Topics: A Glossary that Runs from the Offensive to the Trivial

update: you can't say that