The End Justifies the Means

Feminist thesis: Girl must be (at least) equal to boys at math and this must be acheived by any means possible.
*************************************************************************************
Step 1: Feminize the boys with Ritalin. Suffocate them with reduced playing time and a preponderance of female teachers who penalize boys because they are not acting like girls.

Step 2: Gear the curriculum towards girls and pretend as though boys are not affected

Step 3: In high school math tests, remove all the hard questions which require students to use their spatial ability and creativity and make sure the remaining questions can be answered using a minimum of logic and a maximum of calculators.

Step 4: Collect results from these dumbed down tests and then come to the conclusion that girls and boys are equally good at math.

Step 5: If anyone asks, pretend as though Steps 1 - 3 do not exist. If someone persists, claim feminism=good because equality=good and feminism=equality. Therefore anything feminism does=good. If there are those who question the premises of feminism, deluge them with ad hominems. Avoid a debate on the impact of feminism on boys' schooling at all costs, because, ya know, it's all about the girls.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some feminists cobbled together a study claiming that girls are as capable as boys in math and published it in Science of all places (I noticed all of the 5 authors are women - a red flag for me). The authors feel completely justified in minimizing the importance of innate gender differences without considering opposing evidence. The lead author, Janet Hyde, is the prototypical 2nd wave feminist as proven by her bio picture and 'credentials'. Here are the rest of the motley crew that wrote this publication: Sara M. Lindberg, Marcia C. Linn, Amy B. Ellis & Caroline C. Williams. You can google their names and check out their feminist creds. This, my friends, is typical of the plague infesting the American education system.

They proceed to process results from a bunch of tests from grades 2-11, arrive at the conclusion that girls perform as well as boys on math (a conclusion they use to sell their equality agenda i.e. 'there should be more female mathematicians, scientists, engineers etc.') tests but then belatedly mention that they couldn't process results from level 3 and level 4 complex questions given in higher grades because the states don't use such questions to query students any more!

They say:

"Level 3 (strategic thinking) includes complex cognitive demands that require students to reason, plan, and use evidence. Level 4 (extended thinking) items require complex reasoning over an extended period of time and require students to connect ideas within or across content areas as they develop one among alternate approaches.

We computed the percentage of items at levels 3 or 4 for each state for each grade, as an index of the extent to which the test tapped complex problem-solving. The results were disappointing. For most states and most grade levels, none of the items were at levels 3 or 4. Therefore, it was impossible to determine whether there was a gender difference in performance at levels 3 and 4."
* bold = my emphasis

Thus the NCLB (no child left behind) grade results are all (easy) level 1 and 2 questions i.e. questions that girls and boys could both get right in roughly equal proportions.

To counter this allegation, the feminists contrived to introduce another system (NAEP) and glean questions from there that were allegedly (according o the feminists) level 3. However, there is admittedly no level 4. Undaunted, the feminists compared grade 8 and grade 12 results and concluded the boys had a slight edge over the girls but fail to mention the huge disparity in help the girls get in those grades over the boys. Even the feminists because there has been a deterioration in the quality of education. This deterioration precludes any comparison because if one dumbs down math beyond a certain point, eventually the innate differential advantage of boys will be untapped and thus invisible. It is probable that what are considered grade 3 and 4 questions today are really the grade 2 questions of 20 years ago.....

"If the tests do not assess the sorts of reasoning that are crucial to careers in STEM disciplines, then these skills may be neglected in instruction, putting American students at a disadvantage relative to those in other countries where tests and curricula emphasize more challenging content."

Thus, they cannot make any conclusions regarding the alleged 'improvement' in girls vs. boys because the level of deterioration has affected boys MUCH more than girls.

-They do not correct for all the systematic feminization and the suffocation imposed upon boys for the past three decades because gains for girls exist in a black box for them and negative effects on boys are irrelevant to them.
-Neither do they correct for the fact that female teachers are more apt to teach in a style that benefits girls because most of the teachers are themselves women who are told to teach a feminist curriculum.
-They do not account for the fact that girls mature faster than boys before puberty and thus would be expected to score around the level or a little higher than boys for the first few grades.
-There is obviously no mention of the gap in verbal fluency because women are ahead and in feminist lingo, if women are ahead, that is equality too!
-There is also the fact that what one gets in earlier grades is no indication of what you have an aptitude for: I (and several of my school friends) got higher marks regularly in various subjects other than the one in which they eventually specialized. Grades, especially since the 1980s, are not an accurate indicator of what you want to do with your life or even how good you are intellectually. The ultimate proof of this is that even girls who get good grades in the STEM (sceince, tech, engineering, math) line are more likely to opt out of those fields later on. If they don't what to study STEM stuff, why (a) force them to get into STEM lines and (b) why deprive boys of STEM chances?

They go on, in the pdf addendum to the article, to compare the composite ACT score which includes English, mathematics, reading, and science to the SAT math score. This is clearly an inadequate comparison. In 2002, states made the ACT mandatory for all students but the SAT is taken only by students intending to go to college. This fact is used by the feminists to claim that the ACT is a better indicator of the gender gap in mathematics. While that may be true, we still await the comparison of the SAT math score with the specific ACT math score. Since we know that girls score higher than boys on English and Reading (and God forbid the feminist do anything about those), it is very likely that boys will score higher on the ACT Mathematics subsection.

The SAT is a better IMO indicator of the USEFUL M/F difference because most of the students taking the SAT will go to college while a significant percentage of the ones taking the ACT wont. Thus the ACT is essentially irrelevant to universities as a guide to recruit students.

The feminists also use the fact that there are more Asian American girls than Asian American boys in the 99th percentile of acheivement to say the following: "thus the pattern of more males than females receiving exceptional scores is not universal." Their definition of 'universal' is selective because they are compartmentalizing by race rather than considering all boys above 99 percentile vs all girls above the same.

They completely gloss over the sample size of Asians which is only 219 (compared to 3473 for whites) and also the fact that they have cherry picked Minnesota to represent the whole US. Regardless, it is unclear whether 219 refers to all those above 95% or whether 219 is the whole population of AA. I will assume it refers to the whole AA population for the following but my conclusion would be unchanged even if the sample size referred to those above 95% only because of the relative difference in the sample sizes of the white and asian populations.

1.37% of women are in the 99th percentile which equals 3 women (.0137*219). By contrast 1.25% of boys are in this percentile which equals 2.73 boys. It is not possible to have 'fractional boys' because the percentages MUST equate to exact numbers of children. Further, a sample of 5.73 children does not allow one to extrapolate to all Asians much less the general population. The allegation of non-universality can be debunked by using their own data: in the 99th percentile, if one adds the white boys to the AA boys, one gets: 64.25+2.73= 66.98 if one adds the white girls to the AA girls, one gets 31.26+3=34.26. The M/F ratio then becomes=66.98/34.26=1.96. This is a better 'universal' comparison of boys to girls above the 99th percentile than simply compartmentalizing by singular races where there is not enough of a sample size to make any definitive conclusions.

It is absolutely horrible that the media goes around bandying stories like this that present factoids in a highly selective fashion to those who are ignorant of the ravages of feminism on the schools.

Update: Luboš Motl Pilsen has written an excellent post on this topic and Daran at Feminist Critics has written a very insightful post on the same. Check them out.

This is Absolutely Outrageous!

File this story under Exhibit #129837 of how a man is blamed for a woman's choices.

"During the three-day trial, Shell testified that she quit a job paying $81,000 a year in Pensacola, Fla., to move back to Gainesville and be with Gibbs after he proposed in October 2006. In December he left a note in the couple’s bathroom expressing second thoughts about the marriage, and he broke off the engagement for good in March 2007. Shell, who now makes $31,000 a year working for North Georgia College & State University, sued the following June."
..........

""If you make an agreement with someone, if you cause them to rely on that agreement to their detriment, you’re responsible," Sartain said."


There is no indication anywhere in this story that Shell's quitting was not entirely voluntary.
Her decision to quit her job was HER CHOICE.

Look Who Eventually Becomes Unhappier!

Apparently, middle aged men are happier than middle aged women nowadays.

"Men are most miserable in their 20s, but grow more satisfied as they get older, marry and earn more money, they found.
Women on the other hand are happier than men in early adulthood, but the glow wears off with time.

...........
41: Age at which men's financial satisfaction exceeds women's financial satisfaction

48: Age at which men's overall happiness exceeds women's overall happiness

64: Age at which men's satisfaction with family life exceeds women's satisfaction

................
These findings are consistent with an earlier study by Prof Easterlin showing that recent generations are less satisfied than previous generations, despite having more."

Isn't it shocking how all that female independence doesn't quite translate into women being happier? The average women is finding out that maintaining a good lifestyle by oneself is not quite a walk in the park as the feminists made it out to be. Cry me a river, I say.

Girls and women get all the props from gynocentric institutions when they are young, get supercharged with self esteem and then enter the workforce riding high only to have the rose tinted glasses fall off after a few years. This explains why they are happier initially but unhappy later on.

Men on the other hand, get no perks of any kind simply for being men and thus are unhappier when young in part because they can see that women are profiting simply because they have vaginas. Getting married in one's twenties is tough: they have no money and women will avoid marrying men with little money. However, they find out later in life that they can accumulate FAR more money over time than women can, especially if they, in their teens and twenties, do not waste it on women who do not appreciate them. Dating for men is easier in one's thirties because men are much more likely to be able to support a traditional female lifestyle in addition to their own. Ergo, men's happiness increases with time because most men want traditional women, not the ballbusters.

Where MRAs go Wrong

Apparently, there is some sort of effort by the feminists in Australia to prevent companies from penalising fathers who take paternity leave and more flex time than usual.

An MRA says that this is a good thing by assuming 'equality' if BOTH men and women get taxpayer benefits pursuant to their LIFESTYLE CHOICES (the choice to have babies).

He fails to question why women should have the benefits of tax credits and other goodies IN THE FIRST PLACE just because they made a personal choice to have children. Should I get a tax credit if I go skydiving? That is a personal choice too...

What about all the single people working? Why should they have to pay MORE TAXES to subsidize the kids of others? Why should single people have to pick up the slack when married people disappear randomly on company time? The Australian policy seems to be a move aimed at
- increasing birth rates by imposing financial burdens on single men and women and trasferring those benefits to mothers and pro-flex time dads.
- artificially justifying the inflated earning capacity of mothers by justifying the inflated earning capacity of pro-flex time fathers.

The commonality between a WRONG gender neutral policy and a WRONG gender biased policy is that they are both WRONG. There is no 'better wrong' and 'worse wrong', just wrong. To talk about shades of grey is to dodge the issue at hand. Additionally, it is has already been shown that men, by and large, don't WANT to take parental leave even when they can take it without penalty. Clearly, men do not want to spend as much time with babies as women do. This does not make men 'worser' parents than women because it is incorrect to judge men by female paradigms, just as it is incorrect to use the 'wage gap' to postulate female inferiority. Men and women are different, not inferior or superior to each other, period. The possession of different cognitive attributes and abilities from birth invalidates any group comparison between the sexes, let alone moralizing on how one sex should 'be' based on what the other sex is/does.

Feminism, however, assumes gender similarities that don't exist by using stay at home dads and career women as representative of their respective sexes, and thus exposes itself to the double standard of not considering women economically inferior but simultaneously considering men parentally inferior. Ergo, the feminists rationalize the 'wage gap' using some oppression claptrap but they interpret the parenting gap as somehow indicative of men being inferior parents.

The solution, clearly, is to completely remove taxpayer benefits for parents, not to impose more of them on single people.

Archetypal Angry Black Career Woman

Behold the kind of woman both men and women hate: Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth

Here's another video of Omarosa attacking the creds of Linda Vester ON VESTER'S SHOW!

If she is this bellicose with women can you imagine how she is with men?? Oh wait... we have evidence of that too:

Who among you would like to switch place with Piers Morgan in these videos 1 & 2?? Who?

No wonder her ex-husband ran for the hills.

God help the schmuck or cat who becomes a hostage to this caustic bitch. Gaaaaaah! There is a very useful benefit she and others like her serve: they tend to catalyze the movement of women AWAY from feminist ideals.

Rosie Boycott Kowtows to the Sisterhood Rules

Sisterhood to Rosie:

Article 1, clause 1: "You MUST NOT offend women by critiquing them under ANY circumstances OR going against the feminist diktat that KNOWS what women want."

Article 1, clause 2: "If you violate this rule, you must explain away what you previously said/wrote as a benefit for women (happiness) as a result of an outrageous lie obvious truth (women don't demand much). If possible, play zero sum games with happiness and make sure that men lose and women win. This way, women don't look stupid and/or sexist."

Aside: "We will assume the entire public is lazy and pro-feminist and will be convinced by anecdotes rather than evidence to the contrary that women have been becoming less happy since the 1960s."

College Degrees Don't Pay ANY MORE

This WSJ news article is not going to be news for the few who see the causal inverse relationship between universities relaxing standards so that more women could get degrees and a resultant decline the the quality of education/preparedness that employers see degree holders possessing.

Many women today claim women are smarter/better prepared/more intelligent than men because more women than men are graduating with degrees. However, this really means nothing because all of today's degrees are worth a fraction of the ones obtained, say 40 years ago, before pussified governments felt a need to expand their workforce by shoehorning women in AND today's female degrees are worth even less than male degrees because females have received (and continue to receive) preferential treatment of all sorts.

It is no surprise that men have sought other avenues where they are appreciated as men rather than reviled as aggressors/rapists/the 'privileged' by the all too common liberal pantywaist sitting in his/her ivory tower, beholden to the progressive agenda.

Here's an update supporting the point above: Barbara Ehrenreich, a feminist, is quoted in another WSJ article as saying the following "..there are ways in which the higher education industry is becoming a racket.." and "Employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as mark of one's ability to obey and conform."

Although the article writer disagrees with Ehrenreich, he fails to provide evidence to back it up. I agree with Ehrenreich but for different reasons: she would like to put the blame on employers but pretend as though gender affirmative action ia A-OK. I think the fault lies with the government and the educators who have dimished the value of a degree by subscribing to the egalitarian agenda.

Another Career Junkie Regrets her Decision

The article's title summarises it succinctly:

I thought by having a career I was giving my daughter everything. But now she wants to know why I was never there for her

It is false to presume as Diana Appleyard did, that children will be happier if there is more money. Children don't care about whether they live in a town house as opposed to a condo. More mothering at a young age is always superior to a higher standard of living. Chances are children will see the absentee mother as preferring to work and pay a day care worker to sub for her rather than be with the children herself.

Perhaps there should be 'Regretful Career Woman Anonymous' clubs where ball busters can commiserate and engage in group hugs to make themselves feel better about the collateral damage they have caused.

Boteach vs. Prager

Check out the videos below:

Boteach vs. Prager Part 1
Boteach vs. Prager Part 2
Boteach vs. Prager Part 3
Boteach vs. Prager Part 4
Boteach vs. Prager Part 5

This post is a nice followup to the previous one because you have two Jewish media luminaries, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach and Dennis Prager, debating Boteach's book "The Broken American Male" in which Boteach argues that men need to become MORE feminine. He simultaneously implies that women have little or no responsibility for the deterioration of present-day intermarital relations and absolves feminism from blame for the latter. He also states that Judaism is a feminine religion! From his logic, one must either deduce that women are 'big children' because they have de facto lesser responsibility than men within a marriage OR that women are superior to men in some aspect because they are less culpable for grievances within marriage by virtue of being 'right' more often via possession of some inherent characteristics as a result of being female. Boteach's talk is offensive on many levels to self-respecting men but sadly typical of the narrative from many leaders irrespective of what religion they adhere to.

Prager, in stark contrast, argues that men have become too feminized and disputes the notion that Judaism is feminine. He advocates a non-feminist position with which I agree for the most part. His talk centres around women denying their femininity and how feminism has caused this change within women. Importantly, he touched on the fact that male suicide rates have risen fivefold since the 1960s.

There is an aspect that both Prager and Boteach missed completely indirectly related to the last point above. A big reason men spend little time relative to women doing child rearing stuff is because men are COMPELLED via female hypergamous attitudes to earn more money in order to compete for the attention of women who would never give them the time of day if they earned below a certain level. This level has gone up since 1960 at a higher rate because women, en masse, have, for largely self serving reasons, joined the rat race and taken away jobs from men who, in many cases, were more deserving of those positions than the women. A higher paying job typically means more hours working and less time to spend at home. Less job niches per unit the same supply of men meant the supply and demand balance of available job openings tilted against men i.e. men would now:

(a) get lower salaries than they would have got had women stayed out of the career track work force en masse.

(b) be unemployed at higher rates than usual.

This is all notwithstanding the fact that men are literally paying to have their money handed over to women via welfare, tax subsidies, flex-time and social security and also to have their behaviour punished should women not find said behaviour acceptable.

This is a recipe for disaster for not just the American male but every male in a country where feminist laws hold sway. The last thing one needs is for men like Boteach to come along and blame men for the problems that women have, in large part, caused through their hypergamy.

Free Jewish Birds

People continue to be amazed that men have the capacity to walk away from egalitarian bullshit regardless of what religion they belong to or what ethnicity they are. It is inconceivable to them that personal freedom is of infinitely more value to men than equality will ever be.

There is the inability or the deliberate ignorance to see the forest for the trees:

"Some Jewish leaders dispute the statistics, citing contradictory evidence, or pointing to the continuing presence of men at the helm of the biggest community organizations and synagogues."

Then there are those who consider a preponderance of women within the Jewish religious hierarchy as ‘progress’.

"Others question whether a preponderance of women is a problem, or just progress."

By that line of reasoning, more women inevitably = more ‘progress’. Of course no one mentions affirmative action how they got to be in positions of leadership, why the manner in which they got those positions devalues the position itself and why most men would not want to get that position in the same way.

Others want to dodge the feminist issue and hope that the problem will fix itself.

"We talk about this a lot, but there are no clear solutions yet," Bair said. "I'm sort of hoping it will correct itself."

Still others are more cognizant of what is happening and are doing something about it but the numbers are far too few and they cannot make too much of a noise for fear of being pilloried by others.

"Some suggest that in the Western world, spirituality, especially in more liberal denominations, has become associated with femininity. Others believe that men are reluctant to join organizations unless they can play leadership roles, and with the entry of large numbers of women into synagogue life, there are fewer such opportunities for men."

Until such time as the delusional fools running the show reverse feminizing policies, men will walk away and seek out venues and social gatherings that are not feminized.