The Blunt Trust #3 - There is a huge difference between equality and sameness. Men and women should be equal with respect to opportunity, but to try and make them the same is irrational.
Evening everyone,
I picked up a copy of the Globe and Mail today as I`m getting ready to pick some stocks. The cover story was about the gap between male and female enrollment in univeristy with the female population at 60% and the male population at 40%. Prior to 1982 when the enrollment was 50/50, boys had outnumbered girls. The article went on to describe several reasons why this was happening and quoted several `experts`voicing their opinion on what should or should not be done.
For the recored, I was raised by a single mom and am married with 3 daughters and a son. I am far from being against feminism and given my family situation I would be a fool to believe that my girls are not equal in capacity, intellect and potential to my boy. I strongly believe that an even playing field should exists in which every individual in our society ise able to compete based on their abilities in a fair and unbiased process to determine the outcome. I am a strong supporter of ``may the best person`` win. You may not like what comes next, but someone has to come out and say it so let the chips fall where they may.
Based on this article and many other reports that I have read, my own observations and commentary from various individuals both in and out of the educations field, it seems to me that we as a society value girls more than boys. From TV shows, to commercials, to cartoons, to Hallmark cards, to the classroom, the prevailing perception is that men are red neck Neanderthals or whiny wimps that can`t think for themselves while women are self assured, intelligent, thoughtful beacons who have all the answers. I have no problem with women being portrayed in this positive light, but I have a BIG issue with boys and men being portrayed as inferior. And that is exactly what is going on in our society.
Go to any school and you will find that boys are being diagnosed with ADHD and literally drugged into passivity, competition is no longer accepted as everybody has to win. The books that they read are geared towards girls. Women`s groups and the Feminsit movement have tipped the scales by creating a variety of programs to promote girls in science, math, and computers with no programs for boys to deal with their weaknesses in reading and writing. The vast majority of teachers at all levels are women who do not relate to the boys as easily as they do to the girls. We have and continue to emasculate our boys to try to get them to act as girls by having severe resitrictions on anything that is aggressive in nature Everything from sports, to language, to attitude, to behavious cannot exude one iota of aggressive stance. There is a big difference between violence and aggressiveness people. Boys are aggressive by nature compared to girls, but not all forms of aggressiveness are necessarily violent. The system has a favorable bias towards girls to the detriment of the boys. This approach has permeated the airwaves, the movies, the sitcoms, the magazines, the office, the social clubs, to the point that people see men in a negative light.
Don`t believe me? Why don`t you test your own perception. Which of the following characteristics would you attribute to boys and which to girls:
Aggressive Boisterous Excited Kind Physical Smart Loud Rough Gentle Inatentive Genernous Lazy
Violent Quiet Rebellious Well Mannered Respectful Crude Honest Sweet Cute Civil Team Oriented
As the pillars of male organizations (Boy Scouts, YMCA, sport teams) get integrated with girls and the breakdown in the traditional role of men in the family becomes less common, the boys of our society are losing the ability to have the role models to teach them how to become good men. What are the attributes of a good man?
Honor Courage Loyalty Generousity Discipline Service Sacrifice Responsibility Achievement Humility Obedience Pride Honesty Perseverance Empathy Resourcefullness Leadership
When the last time you heard of these values being taught in school? Are we realizing just how much we are losing by painting girls and boys with the same colored brush?
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