Bashing Boys at ABC
Call me self-interested, but it seems to me that there is a definite
anti-male bias in much of the media. Commercials, sitcoms, and cinema
often mock dopey, arrogant male figures while lauding spunky women who
can do anything a man can.
This attitude (which got so bad it prompted a book The War Against Boys) also extends to news coverage. Usually the bias consists of cheerleading for girls and women, often to the exclusion of men. Ironically, it's not just female reporters who exhibit such behavior as ABC reporter John Berman demonstrated on Wednesday's "World News."
His report on this year's SAT scores (available in video or a less-biased text version) ignored many key aspects of the high school test and focused more on how girls did better in a new essay portion than boys.
Now it is true that girls have not outperformed boys on a section in quite a while, still, the bigger news is probably the essay portion itself which has never been included in the SAT. (A more comprehensive report available here from AP reporter Justin Pope talks about some of the other trends in the results of the new test.)
That said, Berman's story focus isn't the main problem. After he and his producer quoted two experts explaining how women's brains work better at things requiring writing, Berman ended his video piece with a little kicker that was edited out of the text version of his report:
BERMAN (voiceover): Ironically, the SAT was designed to help predict how students would do in college, but while boys still score higher on the test, girls still get better grades.
(on-camera) If a boy does bettter than you on the SAT is he smarter than you?
ANA MERIDA (High school student): No. but he can take a test better than me.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but shouldn't the focus of educational policy be to see all students improve their performance, regardless of sex? Must the tired "battle of the sexes" mentality be applied to every facet of human action? While we should be taking note and hailing improvements in womens' scores, shouldn't we also be trying to fix the problem of why men don't do as well in college as women?
UPDATE 14:15. Via the Ace of Spades blog, I found this report from City Journal entitled "How the Schools Shortchange Boys." Interesting stuff.
UPDATE 20:34. Comments on this thread have gotten off-topic and out of control. I've locked this post from further comment. I realize the topic of illegal immigration is very sensitive. It should not be cause for rude and uncivil behavior, however.
