This study, about how Americans discourage the highest level of math genius, is far more interesting than all the ink we waste on the differences between boys’ and girls’ math skills. To me, this is the great American tradition of anti-intellectualism at its worst. My guess, of course, is that the lower you go on the socio-economic scale, the more pervasive these ideas are.

I had friends stomp on my report cards. Me and other smart working class kids weren’t exactly encouraged. I feel very lucky that my emotional needs to be smart outweighed all the discouraging influences; as with other kids from big families, being smart got me attention from my teachers, attention that was a little lacking at home. Because otherwise, being good at math came with major social stigma, and most of the young women I’ve met at colleges seem to have developed a reflexive “fuck you, I can do math” kind of attitude that keeps them safe.

That they should need it is the sore point. We celebrate athletic prowess, the people who make the top 1%, but not in intellectual arenas. Oh, this country. Maybe having an actual smart guy for president will change that & start to filter down, & kids might want to grow up to be something other than an NBA star.

De-gendering this stuff really points up actual real problems that need to be dealt with.

(h/t to Lena for sending me the article)

Today I’m taking the GRE, or Graduate Record Exam, and let me tell you, I’m not excited about it. I don’t mind taking a test for four hours - my time spent writing often runs longer than that - but the idea of this exam just pisses me off. I don’t do well with standardized anything, but the idea of standardized intelligence is so unbelievably counter-intuitive, especially for us humanities types.

I’ve always been good at math; I just didn’t like it. My sister, who always scored higher on verbal than math, went into banking. I always scored higher on math than verbal and I’m the writer. Maybe it’s just inborn perversity, or maybe this whole idea of a “right” answer offends me. Math encouraged the wrong bits of me entirely.

I’ve spent most of my intellectual career teaching myself not to look for a right answer, but to look instead at things in a way they’re not usually seen, to ask questions that expose more of the riddle of the thing in question. I love the idea of imbuing the subjective narrative with authority; of defining the universe in a kind of Buddhist solipsism. You know, in a healthy sort of way, that maximizes the importance of our humanity and decreases our judgment of what’s right or wrong.

Call me a recovering Catholic, but I had a literature professor in my first year at Fordham - I started out a theology major, no kidding - who called me The Church Lady because I found Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” a moral outrage. I was The Church Lady with a mohawk, but judgmental nonetheless. I think that tendency is sometimes referred to as liberal fascism, or for you D&D types, Lawful Evil. I recognized the streak and since then have learned to tame it.

And then this test comes along, a test I avoided taking the first time around by getting my MA in Writing, of all things, but now, considering doing a Ph.D., I can’t avoid any longer. And they want to know the best opposite of restive is, and I have to spend the first seconds while reading the question turning off the part of my brain that wants to know the context, and whether restive is being used sarcastically, who’s using it and what they’re describing. The next seconds I convince myself to just answer the damn question the way I expect they want it answered, and the next seconds after that I have to convince myself to stop thinking about it because my first “this is the answer they want” impulse is usually the one that gets me the check mark of correctness. It’s exhausting.

I don’t believe in check marks of correctness, and the idea - at this age! - of having to take a test to give someone a numerical way of understanding how smart I am, or am not, is pretty damned frustrating.

Either way, I’m taking the GRE today.

Please wish me luck in not sticking the pencil in my own eye out of frustration.

And in another part of the world, an update on far more dire issues: the percentage of Afghan girls enrolled in school is not increasing.

Aid agencies like CARE International last week attributed the gender disparity in Afghan schools to a lack of female teachers, the number of Afghan girls forced into early marriages and work, and attacks on schools by militant extremists, reports AFP.

Um, White House? Wasn’t this one of the big things we were supposed to help fix? Hello? Anyone? Have we forgotten about our goals in Afghanistan entirely.

(via Feminist Daily News)

It’s starting to seem like once a month, a new state tells the Federal Government to stuff it’s abstinence-only sex ed funding. This month it’s New Mexico’s turn.

Eventually maybe the Feds will get the idea, so write to your reps & tell them to “just say no” to “just say no” sex ed.

The Point Foundation’s next application season begins January 2nd, 2008, & they are actively seeking trans candidates for scholarships. From The Point Foundation:

“With Point Foundation, the “T” in LGBT is not just an afterthought. They really mean it,” states Point Scholar Ben Singer. Point Foundation (Point) is the nation’s largest LGBT scholarship organization. Point provides financial support, mentorship, and hope to meritorious students who have been marginalized due to sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity. Point is currently supporting 84 undergraduate and graduate college students with an average scholarship amount of $13,600 annually. Of its 84 current scholars 10% identify as transgender (7 FtM, 1 MtF). Additionally, Point’s Alumni Association is comprised of 26 alumni, 3 of which are members of the Transgender community (3 FtM). While Point Foundation is pleased to support this many Transgender scholars, it is not enough. “The applicant pool in 2007 consisted of only 4% Transgender identified candidates. We need to get the word out that this support is available,” urges Joanne Herman, member of Point’s National Board of Regents. Please visit our website at www.pointfoundation.org for more information and help us spread the word.

Since July of this year, 8 more states have said no to the abstinence-only Federally-funded sex education. The most recent, #14, is Virginia. Go Governor Kaine!

Let’s keep it going! Write to your state legislators & tell them you want your kids to get real sex edcucation, not this absinence bullshit that puts them at greater risk for STDs.

Yet another report has been published that proves that comprehensive sex ed keeps kids from having as much sex, as many partners, and from getting STDs. Despite that, of course, our government is still throwing money at abstinence-only sex ed:

“Congress is currently considering a funding bill which includes $141 to fund these programs, an increase of $4 million over President Bush’s request.”

So we’re paying more to educate kids less. Isn’t it counter-intuitive to spend so much money to keep kids ignorant? That’s never cost anything in the past.

Is everyone else tired of reporting this?

Source: Feminist Daily News 11/9

I wish they’d reported what his answer was.

It turns out that Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There is on the recommended reading list for 10th graders at Dana Hall School of Wellesley, MA. (News courtesy Vickie Davis’ blog.)

Way to go, Jenny Boylan. Her next book, I’m Looking Through You, is out next year. Keep an eye peeled her this fall/winter for a Five Questions With… interview with Boylan about the new book.

It turns out young black men have a better chance of getting made fun of for reading books than for playing sports. Not news, I know, but the commentary on how that fact intersects with gender is:

John Thomas, superintendent of the Aliquippa School District, said the notion that black men who read books are less masculine is one that should be dispelled in the African-American community. “It’s just as powerful to carry a book as it is to carry a football or a basketball, because the power of knowledge is in the books,” he said. “If we prepare our bodies for the gridiron or the basketball court, to me it’s just as important to prepare your mind to survive in society. The body will soon wear out for athletic competition, but knowledge you have will carry you through life.”

What’s interesting to me is that the cultural forces that would discourage black men from learning - because being brainy isn’t considered “masculine” or “strong” - are exactly the opposite of the ones at play that have historically kept women from learning, who are/were told that being too brainy makes a woman “unfeminine.”

& When cultural forces say being smart isn’t masculine to one group, & too masculine to another, you know there’s something rotten in Denmark.

A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) of India has posited that rural women in India, who tend not to be literate, learn a lot if they watch cable:

Women who were exposed to cable television over a 6- to 7-month period in India were less likely to report a preference for sons or complacency with domestic violence, and more likely to report autonomy in household decision-making, according to the working paper. In addition, more girls enrolled in school and fertility rates dropped.

But of course they’re talking about Indian television, not American, so let’s not send them Baywatch.

Yet another report has come out that abstinence-only education fails our kids; in this case, abstinence-only education has been shown not to prevent HIV infection.

So what I want to know is when we go on the offensive, and start accusing people & agencies who back this bullshit why they want to kill children. Granted, people don’t die of HIV the way they used to, but goddamn, if we can avoid having a kid get a serious, life-long compromised immune system, surely that should be enough reason to get some real sex ed taught, no?

It’s downright embarrassing to live in New York these days: six states have said no to the “abstinence only” Federal sex education money, but New York isn’t one of them.

So our kids get basic HIV info - because that’s required - and otherwise “cross your legs & take a cold shower.” Genius.

(from The Feminist Majority Foundation)

The Supreme Court handed down this morning a 5-4 ruling that requires the elimination of integration plans at elementary and secondary public schools.

The decision was made in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, et al. and Meredith, Custodial Parent and Next Friend of McDonald v. Jefferson County Bd. Of Ed et al, two cases brought by parents with schoolchildren in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky. Federal appeals courts previously upheld integration plans in both school systems after parents sued. The Bush administration threw its political weight behind the parents.

In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “There is a cruel irony in The Chief Justice’s reliance on our decision in Brown v. Board of Education… The Chief Justice rewrites the history of one of this Court’s most important decisions.” Justice Stevens, who has served on the Supreme Court longer than any other current justice, concluded his dissent, writing, “It is my firm conviction that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.”

Another governor - this time Governor Strickland of Ohio - has given the Feds back the abstinence-only strings-attached sex education money.

That’s six states now, & the fifth (Wisconsin) only refused the impractical funding a few weeks ago.

So now there’s the other 44 to work on. Write your governor and tell him to return funding that denies a state the right to teach sex education in the way that we decide is most appropriate for our kids.

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle told the Feds to keep their money if the only education it can fund is abstinence-only.

Wisconsin has received the federal funding since 1997, but new guidelines tying the money to abstinence-only education programs were implemented this year. These guidelines include that students be taught that sexual activity outside of marriage could have harmful physical and psychological effects and that students receive no information about contraception or sexually transmitted diseases and infections.

How much does he rock?!

Four other states have already rejected this strings-attached financing: California, Maine, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

50% of high school students surveyed think Sodom & Gomorrah are married.

(From last night’s Colbert Report).

The US was ranked 66th in women’s political empowerment, of 115 countries, because we’ve never had a female president and because only 15% of congressional positions are held by women.

Overall we were ranked 22nd, and we were 65th on educational attainment:

While fewer girls are enrolled in elementary school in the US, women far outnumber men in enrollment at the secondary and tertiary levels.

I’m sure it’s not a big surprise to anyone that the Nordic countries scored best, but considering recent news from Darfur and Afghanistan, I’ll stay put, thanks.

The World Economic Forum has the report available in .pdf format.

I reported recently on the attacks on Afghani girls’ schools, but now their teachers are being killed - and in brutal ways.

Mohammed Halim, a 46 year-old man from Ghazni, was taken from his home and partly disemboweled before his limbs were tied to motorcycles and torn off, according to the New Zealand Herald. Halim is the fourth teacher to be murdered by Taliban extremists in Ghazni, a center of violence among the Taliban, US, and Afghan militaries, reports The Independent.

He’s the fourth teacher who was killed for disobeying the Taliban’s orders because he continued to keep teaching girls, and the other teachers are fully aware of what they’re being told:

Fatima Mustaq, the director of education in Ghazni, says she has received many death threats, due to her gender and her unwillingness to stop educating girls, The Independent reports. “I think they killed him that way to frighten us, otherwise why make a man suffer so much?”

This kind of violence echoes the kind of violence used against trans people, and goes to show how deeply gender infractions upset jerks. In Afghanistan, a girl learing how to read is apparently at least as threatening as someone born male wearing a dress is here.

If the US could guarantee that I could work guard duty protecting these teachers’ lives, I’d sign up. Fatima Mustaq and Mohammed Halim are my new heros; I wish there were a way to let the Taliban know that every person killed for disregarding their orders would become a folk hero - maybe then they would quit creating more.

Health and Human Services is considering appointing Eric Keroack, a doctor who is not just anti-choice but anti-contraception, to be in charge of the US’ birth control funding. Basically, he’s an “abstinence only” type - which is, as most of us know, the worst form of birth control around. You can get more information about him from NOW’s site.

NOW has a petition up that you can (and should) sign, and is also asking people to write directly to their reps to get them to keep him from this appointment.

Lunatics running the asylum. This is like us appointing someone hostile to the UN to represent the US… oh, wait, we did that one already.