I Identify Myself as Tall.

[Murfreesboro]

Teaching in the public school system, my husband believes he sees a society which promotes girls at the expense of boys. Boys are often drugged to make them more manageable in grade school. By the time they graduate high school, lots of them won't even attempt to go to college. Right now, the stats are that 2 women apply to college for every 1 man. If men do go to college, they can expect to be regarded as potential rapists just because they are male. The feminist message has been drummed into our brains for the last forty years or so, but the urgent issue today isn't so much about the girls. It's about the boys. The message they are absorbing from popular culture is that women don't need them, society doesn't need them.

[Kolchak]

Teaching in the public school system, my husband believes he sees a society which promotes girls at the expense of boys. Boys are often drugged to make them more manageable in grade school. By the time they graduate high school, lots of them won't even attempt to go to college. Right now, the stats are that 2 women apply to college for every 1 man. If men do go to college, they can expect to be regarded as potential rapists just because they are male. The feminist message has been drummed into our brains for the last forty years or so, but the urgent issue today isn't so much about the girls. It's about the boys. The message they are absorbing from popular culture is that women don't need them, society doesn't need them.

You are so right. The emasculated American male is the norm these days. Just like the tenants this country was based on are being replaced with greater restrictions, fewer freedom's and rhetoric that is taking us over the edge into a dark and bottomless abyss.

Boys and men are told there is no difference between them and girls and women. Then why do we even have rape laws?

If we are told that women can do the exact same things men can do, then it should be easy for a 100 pound woman to keep a 275 pound man from raping her. Right?

We're shown that 5 and 6 year old boys and girls can play soccer together, so why not play it in high school, college and professional levels. That is the end game in this insane attempt to re-engineer the world.

30 maybe 40 years down the road, the rules to sporting events will be such that the male participant will be playing at a physical disadvantage, so females can "compete" with them, but the politically correct world will ignore the fact and proclaim, that equality and diversity are just so wonderful.

Know the definition of diversity and equality today? White, heterosexual males, need not apply.

[Murfreesboro]

Know the definition of diversity and equality today? White, heterosexual males, need not apply.

I certainly felt the sting of this fact back in 2007 when my older son applied to college. I probably can't even remember all his qualifications, but some of the more outstanding ones were as follows:

1. Published in an international physics journal when he was 17.

2. Taught himself calculus at 15; at 16, won first place in the regional calculus competition. When his high school calc teacher was working on her masters' thesis, she came to him for help. She turned her class over to him rather than getting a substitute when she couldn't be there.

3. Popular throughout high school--twice elected to the homecoming court, and voted Most Intellectual.

4. Extracurriculars included both band and theater, where he ran lights for 2 1/2 years. (He dated the girl who starred in their musicals.)

5. National Merit Finalist & Valedictorian.

6. Scored a perfect 800 on the SAT Advanced Test in math.

7. Won departmental awards in math, English, Latin, theater, sciences.

8. Eagle Scout.

9. Attended both Governor's School for the Sciences and Boys' State.

This boy was turned down by Princeton and wait-listed at Stanford. Meanwhile, his classmate, a hard-working young woman from China whose academic record always fell short of his (for example, as a senior she was tenth place in the calculus competition he had won as a junior), was accepted to MIT and is now in Harvard Medical School.

The lesson I learned that spring is that the so-called "top" schools don't really want the best and the brightest. A middle-American white boy need not apply unless his family is wealthy or politically connected.

Meanwhile, this year I have learned the flip side of the coin. Our daughter is not as amazing a student as our son (who is?), but she shares many of his distinctions (for example, National Merit Finalist, valedictorian, Girls' State, musical theater, Most Intellectual) and is extremely outstanding in her own right. Yet she was wait-listed at Vanderbilt, a school that our family has considered "ours" for forty years. My husband and I met there in the late '70s, and the son who didn't get into Princeton is still there, working on his Ph.D. and teaching calculus to freshmen. A big reason she was wait-listed, we believe, is that she is female, and Vanderbilt is struggling to maintain a 50/50 gender ratio. This means it is twice as hard for a girl to get in right now as it is for a boy. (The gender crunch hadn't happened yet 8 years ago, when our son was applying. He might have benefited from it.)

[Murfreesboro]

Sorry--didn't mean to quote myself. I was trying to edit.

[Kolchak]

Makes you wonder why good kids even bother to excel. Everything we do to make ourselves better will take second place to what category or subgroup some racist slime decides to put us in.

I was lucky in that I was Catholic and played football, so I got into the undergrad school of mychoice. But, my GRE scores were not that great, but my family has had connections at the U of Miami since the 1950s, so I was still able to get in. Being a vet helped a little too. Private church affiliated schools, might be all we have to look forward to for our kids in the future. I won't complain though.

[Andybev01]

[MauEvig]

I guess my own experiences have been different. At least to me, it always felt like it was better to be male. I also feel a big part of it is that women are judged more based on their appearance, and not their academic success. I can dress up, but I don't like make up. Considering I've been turned down by quite a few jobs in my life there has to be something to that. I was turned down for a job once because they described it as being a "man's job." But as far as I know, turning me down based on my gender is illegal.

[Murfreesboro]

Kolchak, I think sports still help. The one kid at my daughter's high school who did get into Vanderbilt this year was a football player. His academics, of course, were light-years beneath hers. Also he was black, which didn't hurt him any. He was a "two-fer" for them, demographically. Another boy, much stronger academically, got into Brown on a sports scholarship.

Hey, my uncle--the one who knew JFK, we've talked about him before--went to the Univ. of Miami on a football scholarship.

I guess there was a brief shining moment when scholarship counted just as much. I got amazing scholarship offers back in the '70s, and I certainly wasn't an athlete. I had assumed it would work out the same for my kids, but apparently the tide has shifted away from academic performance.

Mau, if you could prove that those people denied you that job because you are a woman, you could probably sue. I do think that is illegal. Otherwise, it may well be that men have some advantages in the job hunt. But in the hunt for scholarships to top schools, white males are definitely not the favored class.

[Kolchak]

Kolchak, I think sports still help. The one kid at my daughter's high school who did get into Vanderbilt this year was a football player. His academics, of course, were light-years beneath hers. Also he was black, which didn't hurt him any. He was a "two-fer" for them, demographically. Another boy, much stronger academically, got into Brown on a sports scholarship.

Hey, my uncle--the one who knew JFK, we've talked about him before--went to the Univ. of Miami on a football scholarship.

I guess there was a brief shining moment when scholarship counted just as much. I got amazing scholarship offers back in the '70s, and I certainly wasn't an athlete. I had assumed it would work out the same for my kids, but apparently the tide has shifted away from academic performance.

Mau, if you could prove that those people denied you that job because you are a woman, you could probably sue. I do think that is illegal. Otherwise, it may well be that men have some advantages in the job hunt. But in the hunt for scholarships to top schools, white males are definitely not the favored class.

I did my graduate work at Miami, but Miami is nonsectarian. I got my ba from Saint Leo college near Tampa. We had to drop our football program due to cost. Every few years they talk of bringing it back, but I'm not holding my breath.

[MauEvig]

Not sure how well I could prove it Murf. The job was in New York State, and they said over the phone after the interview that it was "more of a man's job."

But I'm not sure if I'd have a case. It was several years ago. There have been circumstances at my current job where I felt discriminated against for being a woman (not getting to pull stock for one) but now I sort of think it's more about favoritism than anything.

[Murfreesboro]

Well, if people want to discriminate, they will find a way to do it within the letter of the law.

[MauEvig]

Yeah this is true. They'll bend the law to serve their purpose. It doesn't make it right though. The least they could have done was give me a chance for about a week, instead of just brushing me off as being another "weak female." Personally I don't think there's such a thing as a "superior" or "inferior" gender. We all have strengths and weaknesses, it's part of being human. There are advantages to being a woman as there are advantages to being a man. Growing up I tended to favor action figures more over Barbie dolls, though I liked the dolls more when I was really little and then I liked the boys stuff more when I got older. It might be that I was more easily influenced to the girl's stuff when I was really little, but as I got older I started making decisions on what I liked more on my own. Though I did like Ninja Turtles when I was five, and I liked Power Rangers when I got older. Then I started getting into Sonic the Hedgehog. To this day though I still enjoy a good Sonic game, and I got into Beast Wars: Transformers at some point as well. I'm more tomboyish but then again, I still go nuts when I see a cute kitten. Maybe I'm just odd.

Anyway perhaps you're right about boys having a harder time getting into college, but I think getting the right job/career is what really counts, and men seem to have an easier time with that sometimes; at least in my perspective. But I'm hoping I'll do ok when I start my teaching career. Once I graduate, I'm going to apply everywhere and I'll probably go with the school that's closest to home. I probably won't apply at the really local school though...and there's a reason for it...but I am hoping to get into Allegheny County School, which is near where I went to Dabney.

[Murfreesboro]

Yeah, we all have to make a living, so the job search is the big one. Fortunately, teaching is a career that is dominated by women, so you shouldn't face too much gender discrimination there. The only issue will be whether or not there is nepotism in your area. Around here, you almost have to know somebody to crack the system. But you say you have a good relationship with a mentor in your area. That counts for a lot. Work that.

[Kolchak]

"They'll bend the law to serve their purpose." That has been going on in every nation and every land since the beginning of time, and will be the norm 1,000 years from now. Every so often people get fed up and rise up and throw out the old group and hundreds, thousands and millions die in the process. Everything is hunky dory for a few years, but before long the new leaders start acting like the old leaders, and the process repeats.

During my time in Miami I did a lot of scuba diving and wound up going to Bimini and diving the famous Bimini Wall or Bimini Road. You may have heard of this place. It is believed by some to be evidence of the lost ruins of Atlantis, and Edgar Cayce predicted they would be found off the coast of some of the Bahamian islands around 1968. Well in 1968, some divers "discovered" it and it has been a big diving spot ever since.

Most geologists think its beach rock the new agers disagree. Almost a half century later they're still fighting over it and making money off of it.

But those who follow the new age style believe that there have been many advanced civilizations that have gained great power and science, and then blown it all up in some apocalyptic catastrophe. Maybe they're right, and maybe we're due for another?

Then we have to go back to living in caves and rediscover fire and then the wheel and start the process of evolution all over again. Taking a look around at what we have and what we've become, I don't think the positives outweigh the negatives. If we're due to pull an Atlantis, I'd say we're over due.

[Murfreesboro]

The Atlantis myth has always intrigued me. What did you think about that area when you were diving there?