Letters: Sexism and the male achievement gap

Re “Everybody’s boy problem,” Opinion, June 11

We read that males mature much slower than females do; we are informed males are doing much more poorly in school than are females; and we are told that this poor male performance “drags down the overall competitiveness” of the American workforce.

Truly? Why was this “overall drag down” never discussed when females were forbidden full educations and jobs other than the most menial?

The glaring omission in Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann’s article is that sexism is now biting males in the butt, since the male attitude of “I want what I want when I want it” no longer works as well as it once did, even though men still earn more money than women do in identical jobs.

Males are, after all, raised in the same sexist society as are females; the important difference is that females know how hard they must work to achieve their dreams.

Julie Adele

Long Beach

Our male youth are not seeing the connection between being good students and being successful adults. They do not understand that education is the single most important key to their happiness.

One reason could be that there are not enough male teachers. Boys need male role models in all areas of their lives, education included.

Another reason could be that adults are not emphasizing the importance of education enough with our boys. We may be too wrapped up in our own needs or living vicariously through our boys through sports and machismo. We allow them to depend on luck, long-shot dreams and delusions. This needs to stop.

If we love our boys, all of us must focus on education as a team.

Jason Rosebaugh

Van Nuys

Let’s juxtapose this piece with the front-page article in the same paper on new game consoles by Sony and Microsoft. Why study when there is a new video game to play?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the decline of males in education could be pegged to the increasing proliferation of video games in the home starting in the early 1980s.

Richard Lindroos

Mission Viejo

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