Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Horrendously Biased Anti-Boy Study, of course, widely and uncritically reported

Articles in the Washington Post (front page) and New York Times report uncritically, a horribly biased study, which will kill the deserved concern for boys' badly lagging girls in school and being Ritalinized en masse.

The media should have gotten the first clue of its being biased when they noticed who funded it: the American Association of University Women. If a study on smoking was funded by the tobacco industry, would you give it much credibility? At minimum, wouldn't you vet it carefully?

Yet regarding gender issues, the media has a double standard for how it vets and reports pro woman/minority research vs pro male (let alone, pro-white) research findings : It censors the latter and reports the former uncritically and as thought it were fact, to wit, the title of the article, "No Crisis For Boys In Schools, Study Says."

Here are the problems with the AAUW study:

1. It says, deceptively, that both boys and girls scores have increased. Why did the study (or at least the reporting) omit is that girls' scores increased much more? In a world in which ever higher-level skill is required, does it mean there's no crisis for boys if their scores have increased a bit while girls' have increased much more? Why did the media not probe that finding as it surely would have if it were a pro-male finding?

2. The study says there's virtually no gap between boys and girls who enter college. Of course not---the requirements for getting into college are roughly equal for boys and girls. What the study (or the reporting) fails to say is that many more girls than boys go to college. Why did the media not probe that finding as it would have it were a pro-male finding?

2a. The study reports that since 1982, 57% of the college graduates are women. Why do the study's authors go back to 1982? To hide the fact that the gap is larger today. For the class of 2008 the ratio is 60/40 and is projected to increase further. Wouldn't the media have probed that finding if it were pro-male?

3. The study reports the terribly deceptive statistic: "Among all women and men working full time, year-round, median annual earnings for women were 77 percent of men's earnings in 2005." Of course, the study (or the reporting) doesn't mention that a far smaller percentage of women are working full-time. And it doesn't mention that women disproportionately avoid the high-paying fields: engineering, computer science, coal mining, sewer repair, etc. And that even those who work full-time work, on average, far fewer hours than men who work full-time. Or that women in corporations are far less likely to do the things required to be promoted to higher-level jobs, such as move their family to a far-flung place (Montgomery, Alabama anyone?) As reported in the book, Why Men Earn More, FOR THE SAME WORK, women earn the same or more than men. Why does the media give a free pass to such as misleading statistic as "women earn 77 cents on the dollar?" Wouldn't the media vet that claim if the statistic favored men?

4. The study omits the fact that eight times as many boys as girls are put on the methamphetamine-like Ritalin and similar drugs. If it was a pro-male finding, wouldn't the media have made the effort to interview and quote sources that would have presented that? But because the AAUW study advocates for females, the media somehow didn't bother.

5. The study omits that the suicide rate for boys is 400% of girls'. If it were the reverse, wouldn't the media have made the effort to interview and quote sources that would have presented that? But because the AAUW study advocates for females, the media somehow didn't bother.

6. The study omits that boys drop out of high school at a significantly higher rate. If if the reverse were reported, wouldn't the media have made the effort to interview and quote sources that would have presented that? But because the AAUW study advocates for females, the media somehow didn't bother.

Truly, I don't understand why the media would be so relentlessly unfair to boys and men.

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