I wasn't going to post this article

[conuly]

"Girls read more than boys, it's awful, how can we fix this!?"

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-girls-are-better-reading-boys/571429/

But the commentary I've seen elsewhere positively infuriates me.

I'm all for stocking schools and libraries with a wider range of books to appeal to a greater variety of tastes. We should definitely increase funding with an eye towards this goal.

But it absolutely kills me to see the same people who either a. earnestly explain that we can't have gender parity in films because men and boys won't watch movies about girls and women and then the filmmakers wouldn't make any money (women have to suck it up, I guess) or b. who huffily insist that pushing for more diverse books is insulting because only reading about people who are "like you" means you don't stretch yourself (reading about white people is automatically stretching yourself even if they're basically your clone) are now falling all over themselves to say that of course we can't ask boys to read about girls and never should have suggested it. Boys never have to stretch themselves and never have to suck it up, I guess.

Is this what they mean when they talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations?

Comments

[osewalrus]

First, WRT gender and educators.

https://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/757-the-teacher-gender-gap

From the Association of American Educators:

According to the most recent population survey released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the teaching gender gap is still alive and well. Male educators constitute just 2.3% of pre-K and kindergarten teachers, 18.3% of the elementary and middle school teacher population, and 42% of the high school level teaching staff. These numbers are down from 2007, but suggest a clear female majority in the teaching profession, especially in the earlier grades.


So why are male teachers still few-and-far-between in the United States? According to expert analysis, the most readily apparent answer is that sexism and status deter men from entering the teaching field.

And, as you will notice, the trend is that you see more women the younger the child. This flows from a combination of factors. But there is *surprise* an actual literature on this with lots of statistical analysis and other yummy crunchy data.

To be clear, not all data is statistical. A very annoying fallacy when people seek to dismiss anecdotal or non-statistical evidence of other sorts. But statistical data has its uses, especially when talking about national trends.

As for impact on boys and reading, somewhat more complicated. But again, there is a lot of literature about role models. This is one reason why fathers reading out liud is stressed in a good deal of the modern parenting literature.

[osewalrus]

Oh yeah, we very much need to raise teacher salaries. Current salaries reflect the bias that this is babysitting.

[conuly]

That's because women do it :(