The Myth of 'The Boy Crisis'

Washington Post ^ | Sunday, April 9, 2006 | Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Chait Barnett

[palmer]

It was the early 1900s, and boys were supposedly in crisis. In monthly magazines, ladies' journals and books, urgent polemics appeared, warning that young men were spending too much time in school with female teachers and that the constant interaction with women was robbing them of their manhood...

Now the cry has been raised again: We're losing our boys. The media have been hyping America's new "boy crisis" in magazine cover stories, a PBS documentary and countless newspaper articles...

The boy crisis we're hearing about is largely a manufactured one, the product of both a backlash against the women's movement and the media's penchant for continuously churning out news about the latest dire threat to the nation...

[palmer]

The authors present some data that the boy crisis doesn't really exist except for blacks and claim that gender-based approaches are just trendy fads.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

He urged young men to "avoid books and in fact avoid all artificial learning, for the forefathers put America on the right path by learning completely from natural experience."

I thought the forefathers were highly educated, given their time.

[thoughtomator]

Next up, Mexicans telling us there is no illegal immigration crisis and Muhammad Al-Jihadi explaining how Islam is a religion of peace.

[Tax-chick]

I thought the forefathers were highly educated, given their time.

They were highly educated for OUR time, aside from the subjects that didn't exist in their day.

[ModelBreaker]

They were highly educated for OUR time, aside from the subjects that didn't exist in their day.

Are you saying that John Adams and James Madison did not understand deconstructionist anthropology and never took gender studies or Whiteness as a Social Construct? It's a wonder they could go to the bathroom in the morning.

[IronJack]

The boy crisis we're hearing about is largely a manufactured one,

But the "women's movement" is "real."

the product of ... the media's penchant for continuously churning out news about the latest dire threat to the nation...

A proclivity which is valuable enough, when it can be manipulated by YOUR side.

[Scotswife]

She has got to be ignoring something...because anyone who has worked at a kindergarten screening, special education classroom, or watched medicine be dispensed in the nurse's office - will be able to tell you there is, indeed, a boy crisis.

[palmer]

One of the authors seems to specialize in that kind of "science": Rosalind Chait Barnett, Ph.D. | Papers The other is "considered an expert on the Kennedy family": Caryl Rivers, Professor of Journalism

[ansel12]

Here is some info, on the two authors.


Professor Rivers is the author of many books, including Slick Spins and Fractured Facts: How Cultural Myths Distort the News; Indecent Behavior; a collaboration with Rosalind Barnett on She Works, He Works: How Two Income Families are Happy, Healthy and Thriving, and her latest book, Camelot, a novel set in the Kennedy admistration. Her television drama A Matter of Principal won a Gabriel Award as one of the best television dramas of the year. Professor Rivers contributes regularly to the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday, and other major U.S. newspapers. She is a frequent public affairs panelist on Boston television stations and is considered an expert on the Kennedy family.



Stories by Rosalind Chait Barnett


Happy Homemakers
A controversial study recently found that women are happier in their marriages when men are the bread-winners. What gives?
Posted on Mar 30, 2006


Girls Must Be Girls
This holiday season, pink-and-blue aisles and gender-coded departments are selling the same old message.
Posted on Nov 29, 2005


What Men Want
Conventional wisdom, promoted by the media, suggests that the traditional wife is back in vogue. But research shows that financial independence, education and intelligence are really what's hot.
Posted on Aug 10, 2004

[Old Professer]

Feminists are women without men.

[denydenydeny]

Ping.

[palmer]

A proclivity which is valuable enough, when it can be manipulated by YOUR side.

Barnett, R. C. (2005). Ageism and sexism in the workplace. A double whammy for older women. Generations, 29, 25-30.

[OpusatFR]

Pure unadulterated BS.

Ask the mothers of sons who have had to deal with these witches over the past decades. They have a deep-seated need to demonstrate their superiority and hatred for the masculine.

Fortunately, my husband and I managed to raise truly nice men who are unabashedly MEN.

[palmer]

Thanks for the info, I can't imagine two more biased persons to write about this issue.

[flib]

There is a big problem with the way we are educating our boys. Enrollment in colleges by women is gradually surpassing men. We are from pre-school on, trying to emasculate our boys. I once did a long term sub job as a nursery school teacher. As in most nursery schools , there were "learning centers" that the children could choose to play in. The girls were contentedly rocking and feeding baby dolls in the house center. The boys were in the block section making guns out of LEGOS and aiming at each other. The other adult in the room immediately chastised the boys and said they could not do that. I asked her why they couldn't do that. All boys do that. She said it would "lead to violence when they grew up" I said if that was the case, then they better get rid of the baby dolls because they could lead to teen pregnancy!

[palmer]

Not to mention their hatred for religion, tradition, culture, and free enterprise.

[oneofmany]

The authors state the problem is a backlash against the womens movement. The problem is the result of the womens movement.
I noticed that the authors didn't touch upon the fact that males living with their parents past high school and college into their 30's and 40's(if not their entire lives) is up 100% in last 20 years.

[Shimmer128]

haha, good reasoning. Schools try to turn little boys into pansies and wussies from the day they get their hands on them.
Not my (five) young men!

[Huck]

School is for sissies.

[LWalk18]

Enrollment in colleges by women is gradually surpassing men.

Is that really a big deal, though? As the article said, most of the gap is between black men and women; between whites it is only 49/51. And the gap could be just as much about more women going to school than fewer men going to school. Most of the more lucrative jobs that don't require a college education are so-called men's jobs- contruction, the trades, military, etc. In addition, the age of marriage has increased significantly, from 20 for brides in 1960 to almost 26 today. That means women need a career in order to support themselves before, and most of the time after marriage.