Ken Coates and Clive Keen (“Snail Males,” March) suggest that one of the reasons the shift in education is happening is that positive male role models are disappearing. They’re not far off the mark, but I think what’s actually happening is not that the male role model has been replaced by the Bart or Homer Simpson ideal, but rather that the unearned privilege of men is finally, finally being questioned. What’s actually happening is what feminism has been pushing for all these years—the dismantling of traditional male/female roles and the unearned social, economic, and political power of men. The article highlights the complicated and unfair double-space that women have always occupied: be pretty, but not too pretty; speak up, but make sure you do it quietly; get an education, but make sure you don’t get any real power.
Lindsay Merrifield
Calgary, Alberta
Deep cultural and political forces are handicapping this generation of young men. In addition to women now having real choices about what to do with their lives, they are in tune with their feelings and have power in their relationships. Men, on the other hand, are faced with the meaningless choice between professions to get rich. As boys, they were shamed for sensitive feelings and, in adolescence, they found power in adopting the “whatever” attitude—Western culture had sold itself out and it was self-preserving to not care. Boys’ late maturity has more to do with the unhealthy choices we’ve offered them than with gender-biased education.
Psychologist
Antigonish, Nova Scotia
The women of today are the daughters of the women of the 60s. Many of the latter felt trapped in traditional roles and, sensing liberation, encouraged their daughters to be everything they could be. They did not similarly encourage their sons because they thought men would do what men always did. We see the results today.
Dan Cameron
Regina, Saskatchewan
American educator Alfie Kohn has claimed that one of the pitfalls of graded education is that “we tend to recoil from situations where our autonomy has been diminished.” Perhaps boys are just rebelling against the narrowly conceived rote curriculum taught in universities and following Mark Twain’s exhortation to never let school interfere with one’s education.
Or maybe they’re on to what education critic John Taylor Gatto has suggested is the real goal of school—to get good grades, get into professional school, earn a ton of money, buy a big house in a desirable neighbourhood, and have kids to follow in your footsteps—and should be commended for avoiding it.
Far from being “snail males,” boys may in fact be the quicker studies.
Kate Tennier
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