Society’s forgotten minority – boys

While other minorities in the United States have made significant progress in the last decade, one minority is still facing discrimination in many forms, particularly in our educational system.

Boys.

I’ve hammered on this issue many times in the past, and it receives recognition from the national media occasionally until something more burning takes its place.   But the issue of discrimination against boys cuts across all racial lines, all income levels and all communities.

I’ve talked about our educational system, run by women for girls.  Boys are forced to conform to a system that rewards traditional female behavior and punishes traditional male behavior.   Boys drop out of high school in greater numbers than do girls and girls go on to additional schooling in greater numbers than do boys.

Nearly 65 percent of all students in college are females and in some fields – medicine and law – – the number of women is significantly higher.

More than 20 percent of boys with only a high school diploma had no full time employment.   (Prior to Covid).

Our national media continues to tout the number of girls who take math and science courses, but forgets the number of boys who don’t take either.

Schools need to become boy friendly.  In grade school they need to give boys space and time to be boys.  They need to find innovative ways to keep boys attentive and at their desks rather than resort to drugging them to keep them quiet.  (I don’t know how many boys are not doing on-line education now because of Covid, but I suspect they make up a large segment of those who are missing.)

It’s been a long period of neglect for our boys.  Our educational system is non-functioning for them.