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The common thread is a shift away from concerns about opportunity for girls and women to opportunity for boys and men. And there is serious reason to broaden this discussion. Boys attend college at lesser rates, perform less well academically and participate less in academic activities.
Women and girls also still face gender-related problems, despite legal equality. We can debate the reasons and the source of these differences, but women still do not earn equal pay for equal work, and they are dramatically underrepresented in corner offices and boardrooms of top companies. While women have equal or greater access to professions such as law and medicine, they also drop out of these professions at greater rates than men. And we have yet to fully understand why highly capable women are less likely than men to choose science- and technology-related careers.
Gender
"Gender" refers to those characteristics and attributes that culture and society expect of women and men, and of girls and boys. Gender is not synonymous with sex — the biological condition of being male or female. Instead gender roles are socially constructed beginning at birth.
As parents and teachers, we consciously and unconsciously discourage children from straying from gendered behaviors aligned with their sex. In doing this, we limit the potential of both.
Historically, gender-typical expectations for girls and women were reinforced legally, and access was officially denied in many professional, political and athletic organizations. Today, of course, women really do have equal opportunity. Any differences we see between the sexes aren’t the result of laws or requirements. In fact, today women are in the majority in the very colleges and professions that they fought to access when they were all-male bastions.
Of course, men and boys were never restricted legally from entering specific professions or participating in sports, for example. But social expectations related to gender have always exerted stronger prohibitions against men’s behavior, lest they be viewed as feminine or "sissies."
Because many decades of attention to inequality between the sexes has focused on women, the realization that they now have equal legal access has lulled parents, teachers and professors into a false sense of security. If we pay attention, however, we needn’t look too far to see evidence of
inequality and challenges faced by both sexes. Gender stereotyping is a very powerful force, and it can’t be overcome by legislation.
Gap in college
In her book "The Gender Gap," Linda Sax outlines differences between college women and men in their behaviors, their approach to learning and their achievement profiles in college.
The differences are many and profound. And both sexes show deficits and strengths relative to the other. For example, college men and women of equal ability showed different levels of confidence in their abilities. Women often underestimate their strengths and men often overestimate theirs. Society reinforces these differences to the detriment of both men and women. Could overconfidence cause a man to work less hard and be more likely to be laid off
in tough economic times? Could lack of confidence cause a woman not to reach the highest levels of leadership?
Single-sex educational experiences were designed to combat gender stereotypes and provide oases from the pressures to conform. Today, there are only four men’s colleges and about five dozen women’s colleges nationwide. It is unrealistic to think there will be any resurgence in that form of education.
But it is a great mistake for parents and educators in coeducational institutions to ignore the cultural forces that limit and constrain the realization of opportunities and talents in girls and boys.
When our college students ask me, "What does equality for women look like to you?" I say that it looks like equality for men. My dream is that each person can soar to the height of his or her own potential.
For an earlier, similarly related story, Click Here
