Thanks for posting this. He really is unbelievable. My personal favorite is the closing:
"During the 1970s, it was believed that gender is a social construct and that gender differences couuld be eliminated via consciousness-raising. But it turns out gender is not a social contruct. Consciousness-raising doesn't turn boys into sensitively poetic pacifists. It just turns many of them into high school and college dropouts who hate reading."

Is he for real? I mean, did he ever stop to think that changing the way that society constructs gender involves a little more than changing the types of books we read in school? If that is the only thing that changes & boys are still confronted w/ crazy images of masculinity from birth, how can anything really change?

Christ, this guys an idiot.

Women, until late last century, were smothered in images of femininity. It's not until lately that they can start moving beyond those traditional borders. We've only just started that for men.

He should take a basic class in sociology.

What an idiot. All this mentality does is 1) excuse boys behavior if it is detrimental to themselves or those around them and/or ignore that they may have a problem, and 2) damage boys by making them think they have to walk a rigid line of masculinity. Its like, yeah, let boys grow up to be emotional cripples, feel they have to live up to a sole image, and perhaps go to an early grave just so long as they aren't "wusses".

Well I was in high school when they tweaked the curriculum to make it more girl friendly. I don’t know if it was title ix up here too, but changes were made, I saw them happen. While in English 33 we read "the wars" or "1984" as our novel, I did so well in the course that the next semester I upgraded to English 30, but that year the books were changed to “ joy luck club� and “withering heights� the boys did considerably worse with these books myself included. At least joy luck club had merit withering heights was just a soap opera and I thought it was really unfair to men to include a romance novel as curriculum.
I hate to say it but if the system can simply not cater to both genders than segregation may be best, it sucks to say that but men are doing so poorly dropping out, not going on to uni, not being able to READ like they should, girls got title IX when they were behind, boys get nothing, I do think it is serious, I think high rates of male suicide are related to the low rates of uni enrolment. It is an issue that has validity.

But dont get me wrong, yes this guy is a moron.

But, i want to be a sensitively poetic pacifist high school and/or college dropout who hates reading.

And is blue still a manly color when it is baby powder blue or sky blue? i love sky blue.

“Also, men's brains make them unable to talk about emotions (that's for girly-men).� This is what scares me most about this man’s ideas. We face this attitude al too much in our society. I would like to talk about my feelings on this issue but my brain makes me able to.

Hujo,
I disagree with you.. “I thought it was really unfair to men to include a romance novel as curriculum. “
We need a range of books and back grounds even if some them we might not connect well with. And sometimes our scores may go up and down with the deferent areas. I feel all youth should get a chance to read the books you mentioned along with many other “male� and “female� books. Also, education should challenge us and expand what we would read or discover just on our own.

I also remember in school i hated most of the books school made us to read because it is different then reading for fun.

Hujo, it seems to me as if you were unlikely to read much of anything.

It's WUTHERING heights.

OK. Wuthering heights is not a new inclusion into the cannon, nor was it an odd book to be assigned to readers. It's been part of the canon for years, and is an excellent example of the gothic novel tradition, which is a rather important period in the development of English literature. And trust me, other gothic/romantic literature (which was both authored and read by men) was equal in melodrama and emotion etc.

This entire article (and hujo's response to it) strike me as the perspective of a culture whose literacy has taken a plunge in general. Now, girls, due to the fact that we're all aware they have to work harder to suceed at the same level as men, not to mention the fact that they are socialized to be agreeable and "no trouble," would of course make more of an attempt. That doesn't mean we need to correct the canon.

BTW, Hujo. My manly man of a brother began reading avidly in 8th grade. The book that turned him on? Wuthering Heights. Not to mention, I know more males who are Romantic scholars than females.

And, I'd also contradict the OP's reading of the novels and their thematics. Beloved not being about isolation? Laughable.....

Hujo, if you were to go to university, you would be required to read a lot of things, most of them things you wouldn't normally choose to read and might not even be interested in. The fact remains that if it is in the course, you will read it and know it or you won't do well. And your professors won't even care if it interests you or any of the other students in the class.

Like it or not, Wuthering Heights is considered classic. So you didn't like it? Too bad. By the time you weree old enough to read it, you were also old enough that your teachers shouldn't have to cater to you; the things you like to read for pleasure you can read outside the classroom. It's not like there aren't plenty of books boys like to read, because there are.

School is NOT about entertaining you. University is not about entertaining you. If you never step out of your comfort zone, you are probably not learning much.

Boys who really want to go to university will go -- I have yet to see a college campus empty of men. I think a lot of the trend of men not going to university has more to do with the increasing desire of some men and boys to be teenagers forever.

I hear a great many young men who say, "I never want to grow up." I seldom hear that from young women.

Right, I didn’t like wuthering heights (I wasn’t sure, sorry jenna, its been a while, you are a teacher no?) It doesn’t mean that I don’t read or that I think classics are bad or that i havent been uni, just that this is a bad classic. Being an academic snob is real awesome btw!

Yeah I guess using this one assholes argument to right off all the men doing so poorly in school is a better idea than examining the issue, the whys and how comes, ya know just like we did for girls 15 years ago. I meant to say huh huh men are all dumb and stuff, like this dumb man, and like hujo, huh huh they are so dumb. Gee I wonder why?

Any smugites, who can educate old hujo about title IX? It seems it was created in the 70’s because women were shown to be doing poorly in school then reinforced again in the early 90’s as women were doing worse in science and math and uni enrolment, No? So why ignore the men in a similar boat now? WHY are men doing so poorly? Why do we not care?

To be clear, I am not siding with this author!!!

I think boys respond to drama poetry and poignant literature just the subject matter may appeal to them differently, like where Timothy findleys “the wars� like much of findleys work is wrought with poetry and drama, in the climax of the novel the main character (a soldier) abandoned his post risking and losing his life to save a stable full of horses in the middle of a war zone. It was very poetic and beautiful. One selfish altruistic act is juxtaposed with the murder and destruction of war, revealing the duality of man and emphasizing the male characters sensitivity. Wuthering heights was like ohmigod I like I am in love with the stable boy and its like so uncouth and stuff oh like should I pick the stable boy or the man within my class structure ohmygod. I just found it boring by no means difficult.

I just think if boys are in general able to learn how to read better outside the genra of flowery gothic literature and poetry teach them with the stuff they respond to! Isn’t that what title IX did for girls? And the point of high school is to prepare for uni or tech school or whatever! Shouldn’t the point be better preparing them.

Hujo, if someone wanted to come and say that you did badly because you were a dumb man, it would have been much simpler to just say that you did well in Alberta's English 33 and poorly in English 30 because 33 is an easier class that universities didn't accept in those days, in much the same way they won't consider a credit in English 30-2 now.

The fact is that all four of the books you mentioned are used in high school curriculum. It doesn't really matter if you like it, just if you understand it. And if boys want to go to university, they can make an effort to understand it. Should people only be taught concepts they find exciting in Science? No, because it's important to be well-rounded and know the basics of everything.

I don't know, I kind of agree with Hujo.

I had an experience with a woman Teacher with a chip on her shoulder (that I bet she wasn't even aware that was there)...

She taught my eleventh grade English Class, her name was Dr. Nanney. The books we read in those two semesters were...

"The Scarlet Letter" By Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The Awakening" By Kate Chopin

and...

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" By Zora Neale Hurston

What do these three novels all have in common? THEY ALL FEATURE FEMALE PROTAGANISTS. Instead of enlightening us men, we all referred to Doctor Nanney as "The Man Hater" and we would snicker about how we really hoped she got laid that weekend. Men typically did not do as well in her class as the women did.

Perhaps if she had thrown us a bone and allowed us to read "The Catcher in the Rye" (which would have been an appropriate choice since we were in fact at a boarding school)...or some Hemingway...or a book that didn't focus on the superiority of females over males...we would have felt differantly about her class.

It was kind of a shame too, since it was obvious she was a gifted and intelligent woman.

"Young boys are compelled to sit still in schools that have sacrificed recess for test prep."

Oh, the horror! What kind of freakish, horrible, man-hating sadists are these feminists? Forcing children to sit still in school!

Right. Because prior to feminism, little boys were allowed to run around the classroom and swing from the chandelier like monkeys. It's feminists who came up with the idea of having children sit still in rows and pay attention. How can we expect boys to learn if they have to...sit still and pay attention? Absurd.

I don't really get the difficulty with books about women, either--all the books that have been mentioned are bona fide classics--Wuthering Heights (and no, you don't have to be a teacher to have heard of it), The Scarlet Letter, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I had to read two out of three of those--and guess what? I didn't like them. I'm a woman, and I was bored to tears by both Hawthorne and Hurston. But...it was school. It's not there for my entertainment. I...sucked it up and read them. I also had to read 1984, Richard III, Catcher in the Rye (now there's a piece of self-indulgent drivel, in my opinion), Oliver Twist, David Copperfield,, an infinite number of books by John Steinbeck (God, was he dull), Native Son, and so on. I liked some of them, I hated a lot of them...but that's school. I loved geometry and I hated trig. Should I have been allowed to skip trig?

That's no excuse for dropping out of school. If boys really are dropping out of school because they're being told to read a few novels by and about women--and I don't for a minute believe that's the reason for dropping out--then they're wimps. Please, I sucked up Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and they can't hack it? They can cry me a river.

Hujo, if someone wanted to come and say that you did badly because you were a dumb man, it would have been much simpler to just say that you did well in Alberta's English 33 and poorly in English 30 because 33 is an easier class that universities didn't accept in those days, in much the same way they won't consider a credit in English 30-2 now. Oh god you're so smug, fact is i did much better in english 30, I was top of my class. Childish

I should note, male teacher.

I hate gender stereo typing of books!

I've known men whos favorite book was Wuthering Heights, my boyfriend loves (and did at a young age) Pride and Prejudice (and he's 'manly' in case someone wants to make a point of the issue) and one of the best plays I covered at school was called 'the long, the short and the tall' and was about a platoon of men in the war in the jungle. If you say that 'boys and girls like different books end of story' you miss out on discovering something you never knew you might like. Also it doesn't hurt to be forced to read a book you don't like - the process of finding out your own preferenes as a child is by trial and error.

One other point is that if you like books it doesn't necessarily mean you like English lit. I love reading but analising Jane Eyre to the nth degree ruined the book for me....

I agree with Hugo that we should find out why boys are doing worse in school and try to 'fix' this. I think this might entail a change in the books that are read. However, I think is important to get rid of the gender stereotypes. I used to work at Barnes and Noble. One night I was working in the children's section. I was helping a man pick out a book for his three year old. I don't have kids, I had a 3 year old nephew who LOVED Dora the Explorer, so I suggested that. The man looked at me and reminded me he was buying a book for his SON, not a girl. Clearly at the age the only problem was that Dora is a girl, not that the subject matter won't appeal to a boy or that the book is too emotional and touchy feeling.

Thanks, EG, for bringing up Faulkner and Fitzgerald. WE ALL had to read those dreary teenage-boys-coming-of-age novels in high school. Let's see, what else do I remember. Old Yeller and Deliverance. YAY.

That at least half the class (girls) couldn't relate to these boys' experiences was IRRELEVANT. Bottom line: If we're going to be committed to co-ed education, we need to mix things up a bit and present both male and female progagonists.

Also, thanks to the one upthread who reminded us all that sitting still in class and taking direction is NOT NEW, and NOT WOMEN'S FAULT. For cripes sake.

You wanna know what I REALLY think "problem" is with boys, Hujo? Kids needing college degrees to JUST MAKE IT BY in this New Economy IS relatively new. Once upon a time, boys could goof off in class knowing that high-paying union jobs (or desks in the corner office of daddy's firms) were waiting for them when they got out. Schools passed out "Gentleman's Cs" with winks and nods.

Times have changed. There aren't as many free passes given to penis-owners as there used to be. Girls have caught on to the realities of the New Economy and are doing what's necessary to succeed in it. THE REAL QUESTION: Will boys eventually catch on to this new reality, or will they just continue to whine and pout over their lost priveleges?

Pardon me, but the classical canon was established by men, not women. I suspect they might have selected books that they appreciated or saw some value in. If anything, the problem I experienced in my pre-uni schooling was the total lack of classics, which tend to have grand themes and dense, quality writing. Instead we read the literary equivalent of "a very special episode" that corresponded with whatever the pet issue of the day was. Bridge to Terabithia may be useful reading for students coping with death, but it's not the sort of edifying literature a classic would be.

Hujo, let's leave it at your mileage may vary, not every classic will appeal and this really is an anecdotal discussion either way. Men have enjoyed classics like Wuthering Heights, men have not, but I suspect most people have found less to engage them in the current crop of YA literature that's taught in schools. That said, I believe the majority of YA literature is written by women and next to none of it involves the sort of problem solving men have consistently found they enjoyed. What if younger children read the Iliad, Aeneid, Odyssey, and other such things rather than Tuck Everlasting? It seems to me books like the latter might be appealing, but aren't they the sort of thing you read on your own time?

along the same lines, we need to examine why women do worse in math and science than men. its not because we dont get it, or that its for "boys". its most likely how its taught and who the teachers are (mostly men in my experience).

we can go on all day about this debate really. what it comes down to is that the educational system in its entirety needs an overhaul and that men and women are no better or worse inherently at one thing or another.

i think how men and women are socialized before (and during) they even get to school has alot to do with the different thinking processes and why women are readers and communicators and men are good at the math and science end of things (generally). i dont think its innate differences but the socialization starts SO young and is SO subversive and powerful that we can easily be fooled into thinking its genetic.

My personal experience with science and math is this. (I went to a science and math boarding school for high school).

I only had two male teachers for science or math classes. My Pre-Calculus and Environmental Science (an elective) classes were taught by men.

On the other hand, in, Geometry, Algebra I, Algebra II, Calculus, Linear Algebra, Biology I, Chemistry I, Physics I, Physics II, Chemistry II, Molecular and Cellular Biology and Genetics were all taught by females.

If there is a gender disparity in the sciences and mathematics, it might not be because men are "all" of the teachers...because that isn't my experience.

Also, women did just as well as men in these classes.

sometimes i think you make shit up just to contradict people TT.
that being said, in general, women do gravitate towards humanities and social sciences while men do the science ath thing. i dont particularly think its any innate difference but how we are socialized.

Just because you think that I just make shit up, doesn't mean it's true.

What I said about my high school experience is entirely accurate. I would break out my year book, to verify it...but the vast majority of the Science and Mathematics teachers at NCSSM were females.

Except in the Physics department where there were three male teachers and one female teacher. (I happened to have the only female teacher, Ms. Winborne).

If boys really are dropping out of school because they're being told to read a few novels by and about women--and I don't for a minute believe that's the reason for dropping out--then they're wimps.
Writing them off like this only enables them to make bad choices

Will boys eventually catch on to this new reality, or will they just continue to whine and pout over their lost priveleges?

Wow I like that you can admit men have no more privileges, I do agree, perhaps letting boys in on this and not having such negative attitudes about male children could help. Why not treat them like we treated girls in the 70’s and 90’s? You know the whole care and concern thing; the whole funding, study and program creation thing, like titleIX? So it may require girls to give up their short lived privilege in the name of equality and progression wasn’t equality the point?

hujo,

when when hedonist made the statement about "lost privileges", i don't think s/he was conceding that all privilege of being a man have been "lost", for what it's worth.

i know you'd really like to catch someone in a semantic snag like that, but it just didn't happen this time.

at any rate, i've decided to read over title ix since you've been harping on how unfairly it treats boys and, well, it does no such thing. title ix says nothing specific about any programs and explicitly says:

Nothing contained in subsection (a) of this section shall be interpreted to require any educational institution to grant preferential or disparate treatment to the members of one sex

aside from being the point, it's the letter of the law.

hedonist, i think you're a little off the mark, too, for what it's worth. to be fair, you're probably just angry as some of the cats on here spitting a bunch of b/s, but whatever...

point still stands - as a former educator, i can't abide by someone faulting the students for their failures. especially in light of how overwhelming education is, these days, compared to other formative experiences, it behooves us to recognize the responsibility of educators and educational institutions in directing young people. to blame them or call them 'wimps' only serves to pass the buck onto young people who really have very little say in the world(s) into which they are thrust.

finally, i went through school reading all the books mentioned above... and, gosh, i hated dickens and bronte... but i absolutely loved reading steinbeck, dickenson, faulkner, joyce (god i love james joyce)...

hmmm... come to think of it, aside from the few books mentioned above, i can't really think of too many books i read in high school that were written by women or featured female protagonists...

and i went to high school in the eighties - long after the villianous title ix came into effect.

i went to a public school, too... and i read shakespeare, huxley, camus, sartre, fitzgerald, twain, hawthorne, salinger, melville...

maybe my high school was the last stronghold of the true brotherhood or something, but i really think, perhaps, there's some overreacting going on here.

(sorry for the long ramble... kinda sick today...)

"Kids needing college degrees to JUST MAKE IT BY in this New Economy IS relatively new."

Good point. Very good point. It used to be possible to drop out and do all right, and now I think it's not. I find it hard to believe that Brooks could really take seriously the idea that boys drop out of school because they don't like the books they're reading. When have kids, as a whole, ever bounded to school with glee in their hearts about every aspect of their education? I'd be interested to know how this data breaks down. Some questions I have are:

- What does this alleged increase in boys dropping out mean? Are we talking about a greater percentage of boys dropping out in the past ten years than fifty years ago? Are we talking about an increase in absolute numbers? What have the overall trends been for the past sixty years or so? Is this a normal fluctuation?

- Who, exactly, is dropping out? One of the things I find so bizarre about Brooks's notion is the supposition that it's the boys who are privileged enough to go to schools with the money to have acquired all new books over the past ten years and do test prep who are dropping out. Really? Not the boys who go to schools so crowded that the school session is on a split-shift and they don't have their own lockers and the teachers have to buy their own chalk and there are 40 kids to a class? I'd like to see this data broken down by 1) economic class 2) race 3) region 4) population density (i.e. rural-suburban-urban) 5) type of school (public, prep, religious)

- When exactly are these guys dropping out? If they're dropping out in 7th and 8th grades, they probably never make it to Wuthering Heights in the first place. Is there a year or two that's a big turning point? Is there a constant rate of attrition?

- What are they doing after they drop out? This would involve tracking down a representative sample of recent high-school drop-outs, which could be tricky, but if we're serious about keeping kids--including boys--in school, it's worth doing. Interview them. Why do they think they're dropping out? What's their situation outside of school?

This whole idea strikes me as a Republican smokescreen to try and pretend that massive funding cuts to social services and education don't have any knock-on effects--no, no, it's all the fault of those books about girls! It also occurs to me that these same Republicans (and I'm talking about Brooks here, not having any insight into any of the posters), when confronted with stats indicating that, say, black kids aren't doing well in school, preach "personal responsibility" and lay the blame at the feet of parents and families, or, depending on how whacked out they feel like being, pull a Charles Murray bell curve and say it simply reflects their innate inferiority. But when the failing students are a demographic they care about--boys--all of a sudden it's the fault of those wily feminists who've seized control of the school system.

and i went to high school in the eighties - long after the villianous title ix came into effect

Actually it enjoyed a second push in the early nineties on recommendation of the university of women?? or someone, yes, in its language it is gender neutral but I do believe it was created and reexamined more for women because back then men actually had privilege. There are some who say the second push in the 90's is responsible for the decline of men in school, but I honestly don’t know enough. I think we judt disregard young men in general because of feminism and that a little bit of effort to address the boys like we did the girls is needed, not boy power, not pushing boys only, not empowering only men, because that would be as wrong as feminism but I hear some attitudes here on this thread that make me believe boys will be stagnant until us adults become gender blind.

Puck I believe our age difference is the reason we don’t see I to eye, I grew up POST feminism and during politically correct, I always understood the reasons for these movements but I always felt prejudged and vilified by feminism and Pcness as I was not responsible for the past and was not born into a rich family the older I got the more dated and out of touch feminisms rhetoric became. To my generation the girls were raised with you can do anything and the boys were ignored. The boys got “don’t hit girls� the girls got “boys hit you� the boys got “you objectify women� the girls got, “sex is empowering� Just a reversal of double standards no real equality.

When I say feminism turned the most privileged and equal generation of women the world has ever known into the most oppressed group of all time, I meant only in there heads.

Ya really got to examine the effect that social movements have on the generation born after them to find out if a movement was good for society or not and looking at my generation and those younger I do question if feminism was needed passed the 90’s I think around the 90’s is where feminism started creating negatives as I think women were on there way to becoming equal and I think that made career feminists nervous, so now we have feminism the industry not feminism the movment.

Get well soon

i am confused, I thought Title IX had to do with sports and not what is in the class room.

Am I missing something here.

Hugo:
To my generation the girls were raised with you can do anything and the boys were ignored.

i hear your frustration and I am sorry you felt ignored. Does this happen in places? Most likely. Does it happen everywhere? No. I know as I was going up I was not ignored as a boy.(born 78) And working with youth I still see the girls are not seen as equal in practice. Often in speak they are but not in action.

i am confused, I thought Title IX had to do with sports and not what is in the class room.
Am I missing something here.

I am not sure, it does go beyond sport but it is meant basically to be equality of sex no sex discrimination however it always comes down to its implementations and I think it is an area where there is a lot of misinformation my jury is out.

And working with youth I still see the girls are not seen as equal in practice. Often in speak they are but not in action.

If you are talking about sports, in many sports women are generally at a natural physical disadvantage, to expect the boys to curb their ability is wrong. If by in speak you mean how the are treated by boys, yes I agree, it is my personal observation that boys regard girls as equals and that they both instigate nasty behavior, this was my experience and we are close to the same age. I am not in the mood for another childish stat spat, plus I have been here already it is exhausting, feminists used the race card to try to dismiss this one too. I believe men in general do worse in academics, drop out more, pursue fewer degrees, yes, more white men and men may go to Harvard or somethin but the elite is hardly a snapshot of society, I hope for empathy and I await more study, study that is just not there for men in general like it is for women.

"I'm a woman, and I was bored to tears by both Hawthorne and Hurston. But...it was school. It's not there for my entertainment. I...sucked it up and read them."

Seconded, here. *AND* I hate all of the Bronte's. But I read them, because it was school, and I had to do the work. As did all the boys, even when we had to read the dry and overbearing (imho) Edith Wharton.

Tangentally, I don't understand why "Catcher in the Rye" is the big Salinger novel -- I thought it absolutely paled in comparison to "Franny and Zooey."

By the way, when I was in school, which wasn't all that long ago, I do recall the entire class being taught female-related things in english and history. But it never included any feminist history, not even any real discussion of the struggle for the right to vote. It was all packaged up nicely in the "What was the common dress and home life like for such-and-such a time period/culture?" God forbid they touch Mary Wollstonecraft with a ten foot pole. Argh.