
Boys are being outclassed by girls at both school and university - stared
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21645759-boys-are-being-outclassed-girls-both-school-and-university-and-gap
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ac1294
As someone who has been in school for his entire life, I've always noticed
that the average girl typically outperforms the average male in my classes.
But it seems like the distribution of males was much wider.

For example, if each gender's academic capabilities were normally distributed,
then I would expect the mean for girls to be higher than the mean for boys,
but the variance for boys to be larger than the variance for girls. I say this
because I tend to see many boys at the very bottom of my classes, but also at
the very top.

Of course this is all based on my experiences in school, and I have no data to
back this up. But I'd be interested in seeing distributions of academic
performance for each gender.

~~~
pokpokpok
I think this is a misnomer, in my experience boys just telegraph their
academic ability more than girls do.

~~~
Dewie
A greater variance among men is a widely-noted phenomena. But by all means,
keep selling the narcissism[1]-line if it's more soothing to you.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9153685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9153685)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Lots of widely-noted phenomena do not stand up to actual evidence.
([http://www.minnpost.com/sites/default/files/attachments/rtx1...](http://www.minnpost.com/sites/default/files/attachments/rtx120100010p-2.pdf))

~~~
sanxiyn
Thank you for a great reference. It seems to me that Figure 1B (girls' versus
boys' variance scatter plot) clearly shows greater variance for boys.

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grayfox
As someone who proceeded through institution, then was employed by
institution...

Not entirely convinced that success in these channels is conducive to
anything.

Adherence to a specific structure is just one way to provide merit to youth.

Let's see a gender comparison in lucrative web project creation?

~~~
sukilot
Why so defensive?

~~~
kelukelugames
We can interpret the comments in two different ways.

1) Nope, this doesn't mean girls are good as boys.

or

2) That's nice but this doesn't mean we have achieved gender equality.

~~~
Jimmy
I'm sure there's some defensiveness going on in this thread. But there's also
some truth to the fact that people place undue emphasis on certain
quantitative measures of academic performance. This is why I don't like it
when, for example, people are overly concerned that America's standardized
test scores are lower than those of other nations. What matters is what you
achieve, not what you are predicted to achieve (although there is certainly a
correlation between the two).

~~~
Dewie
Maybe certain Americans should get over their we-need-to-be-nr-one-at-
everything desire.

~~~
Jimmy
"Need to be" number 1? Sure, I suppose that would be a bad desire to have.
It's impossible for anyone, individual or nation, to be the best at
everything. But what about "want to be number 1"? I would love to be number 1
at everything. Balanced with some reasonable expectations, I think this is
great; in fact, I think we should encourage more people to feel this way.

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JDiculous
The problem is not boys. The problem is school. School is like a modern day
prison for kids, particularly boys. Kids were not meant to sit still for 8
hours/day listening to lectures, then go home and complete hours and hours of
bullshit assignments and busy-work. I hated school back then, and if I had to
go back now, I'd probably hate it just as much.

~~~
marrs
Well, at least it prepares you we for a career in programming :)

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dkhenry
I would be more impressed by this if I thought academic success was any
indicator of aptitude. As a hiring manager I have completely stopped looking
at things like GPA and in some cases even if you have a degree, they are such
poor indicators of aptitude. So who cares if girls are doing better in school
I still won't hire 90% of them.

We really need to stop caring about how boys are girls are doing in school and
start caring why so many people are being given degrees and can't get a job in
their chosen field.

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marrs
Well what should we expect? In the last 20-30 years, a huge amount of effort
has (rightly) been put into bringing girls' performance up. Examples include
substituting practical classes for theory, exams for courseware, and so on.
Also, for quite unrelated reasons, there are fewer male teachers (i.e. role
models) than ever before.

So if I was interested in gender equality then I might suggest that maybe the
balance has swung too far and we need to reverse some of these changes just a
little bit, but I'm actually a feminist so I'm just going to declare victory
and move on.

~~~
orblivion
> if I was interested in gender equality ... I'm actually a feminist so I'm
> just going to declare victory and move on.

I'm not a feminist, but I wonder if you're really representing the feminist
point of view, at least as most feminists would like to be seen.

~~~
LanceH
I rather expect these results will be used as proof of sexism at the next
level. Women outperform men in school (not a problem) therefore men are only
achieving through the patriarchy in business.

I say that I expect it, but I've already had friends telling me this is the
way it is.

~~~
sanxiyn
I wouldn't say "only" there, but isn't it true that men are achieving through
the partriarchy in business?

~~~
LanceH
"men are achieving through patriarchy"

That's a true statement, but it's not a basis for action, much less
legislation.

Another true statement, "women are achieving by sleeping their way to
promotions."

Most of us, however are at a place of employment where men and women do get
along. An imbalance of men/women in the workplace isn't by itself proof of
anything. I'm in a shop with an imbalance, but we're hiring and can't find
_anyone_. If women were out there making 77% of men, we'd love to talk to
them. But they're not, and at the same time we're lumped in as the problem
because our industry has some "brogrammers" which is a phenomenon I've never
actually witnessed. Of course the next thing I'll hear is that because I claim
not to have witnessed it is because the culture is so deep it is invisible and
I'm a part of it.

Well, I'm sorry, 30+ years of hearing how I'm the problem really gets old. Of
course some people aren't talking about all men, but if I say "not all men",
I've hit another trigger.

It's a minefield and I'm sure just by writing more than a single line of
agreement I've stepped on one.

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dankohn1
It seems like society is facing two serious problems on both edges of the bell
curve: 1) undereducated men can't find good jobs and 2) well-educated women
are still not getting the share of CEO, politician, and other top professional
jobs that they deserve. I cannot think of any sense in which one problem
cancels out, compensates for, or assists with the other.

They're both very serious problems, and we should all be looking at solutions
for both.

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Issac
I think the gap in income in the first years after leaving University, is at
one point because a lot of woman at least a higher percentage then from men
may have not enough confidence in themselfs so at one point dont struggle for
higher payed jobs, those jobs they still dont completly satisfy the
qualifications for, while a higher percentage of men is more willing to just
try to get such jobs even without appropriate qualifications.

Also in my opinion a higher percentage of woman then men are not willing to
get a job which has a lot of conflict potential , so at least a higher
percentage of men are willing to try more stressfull and demanding jobs which
also pay better.

These effects add up showing why there may just be a gab in the first years.
This is mainly a problem of preferences.

The gaps later on and in higher positions i think are still really a huge
problem for woman in all professions, so i would certainly not include them in
this really simplified explanation.

This is truly only my opinion regarding the small gap right after getting a
degree.

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klipt
I wouldn't be surprised if part of the problem is lack of role models. There
are very few male teachers.

~~~
protomyth
Particularly in elementary school and pre-K. Daycares tend not to hire males
because of parents and insurance. Add in changes in play that are not boy
friendly and you have a trend. At this point, I am starting to lean to
separate schools. Twenty years ago, I would have thought that insane.

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im3w1l
Hypothesis: School doesn't allow natural Homo Sapiens adolescent male
behaviour. Is therefore disliked.

Idea: Compare and contrast school behaviour with behaviour in the wild
(youtube comments, videogames teamspeak)

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sanxiyn
From the article:

"According to the OECD, the return on investment in a degree is higher for
women than for men in many countries, though not all."

I think this is enough explanation and no more analysis is necessary.

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shorttime
[Serious] So, why, exactly, is this a problem?

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sukilot
HN is not mature enough to hold a discussion related to gender issues.

~~~
walru
I would instead gather it's entirely too superfluous and divisive for the HN
crowd who is routinely above such pettiness.

I fall back to Carmack on this issue.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmbW4ueGdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmbW4ueGdg)

~~~
throwawaymaroon
Quickly proving sukilot's point, are you? Gender issues are petty and
superfluous?

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Someone1234
It seems like whenever someone brings this up, they have an untone of sexism
within their point. Like "See! Women are fine, let's ignore pay imbalance, the
lack of female CEOs, lack of woman in tech', and every other problem."

Facts cannot be sexist. However I cannot help that feel like this one gets
bounced around because people have some type of agenda. This just further goes
to prove how powerful of a force patriarchy is. Woman do better in academia
but get lower paying jobs and promoted at a lower rate.

~~~
mingusdew
you are ignorant if you think the pay gap is a function of male patriarchy.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
How would it _not_ be? Women weren't in work at first, because of patriarchy.
After social reforms they slowly entered the workforce, but they were not paid
as well and not given as good jobs. Things have improved over time, but
there's still a gap.

I don't see why it wouldn't be because of patriarchy. Look at history.

~~~
paulhauggis
If companies knew they could just hire a woman with the same talents and
education for as little as all of these reports claim, why don't we see
startups filled with women being hired at this low rate? If it's really a
systematic problem as claimed all over the Internet, we would see at least
some example of this.

"After social reforms they slowly entered the workforce, but they were not
paid as well and not given as good jobs."

How many years ago was this? I've worked at many tech companies over the years
and the women that were hired were paid just as much as any man in the same
position. Of course this is my own personal experience, but again, I would
think if it was as wide-spread as many claim, I would have seen it at least
once.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-09-22/tech-
start-u...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-09-22/tech-start-up-
founder-says-women-are-like-men-only-cheaper)

