The problem with leaving boys out of the results day picture

August 15, 2014 by Inside MAN 21 Comments

It’s not just the red tops: An image in the Guardian before results day

Yesterday saw the publication of this year’s A Level results and along with them the inevitable rash of Front Page Leaping Blondes ™.

The fact that newspaper photographers are so skilled at seeking out A Level and GCSE students who are also pretty, middle-class girls, is now such a cliché that articles like this one are published about it almost as often as the pictures themselves.

These articles tend to argue that FPLBs ™ are another example of our society’s objectification of women – girls prized for their looks not their brains.

There’s obviously some truth to this – where are all the less attractive girls? And for that matter, where are all the black and Asian girls? Don’t they do well in exams too?

Where have the boys gone?

But this is a selective analysis both of who’s missing from the front pages on results day and why it’s a problem. The primary omission isn’t unattractive girls, or girls from minority backgrounds. It’s boys.

And it’s also boys who really are missing out on educational achievement. In January this year UCAS reported that there were now a third more girls applying for university than boys, leading the head of the organisation to state that boys are becoming “a disadvantaged group”.

Now the year’s results are in, this gap has reportedly widened even further.

What does it say then, if “a disadvantaged group” is consistently left out of the images that show who is and can be successful? Results day pictures that only show pretty girls may objectify women, but they also tell boys academic success isn’t for them in the first place.

Photo: Duncan Hull

And this comes in context of other images of young men that are pervasive. A 2009 media analysis of news reports found depictions of teenage boys were overwhelmingly negative — with young men most likely to be portrayed in a positive light if they had died.

Meanwhile, recent high-profile anti-sexism campaigns now routinely portray the young men who do get into university as misogynists and sexual predators.

‘Gender Expectations and Stereotype Threat’

But all of this, including the pictures of FPLBs ™, may in fact be a manifestation of something boys have already been told from a very young age indeed.

A 2010 study of boys in primary schools – with the sinister title of ‘Gender Expectations and Stereotype Threat’ — suggested that under-performance among boys in most national exams could be linked to adult’s lower expectations of them.

Bonny Hartley, the study’s lead author, told the Daily Mail: “By seven or eight years old, children of both genders believe that boys are less focused, able, and successful than girls – and think that adults endorse this stereotype. There are signs that these expectations have the potential to become self-fulfilling in influencing children’s actual conduct and achievement.”

‘Reading not seen as masculine’

Her study found that girls as young as four think they are cleverer, try harder and are better behaved than equivalent boys. By the age of seven and eight, boys agreed with them.

The study was reflected in the findings of a 2012 report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Literacy, which found reading was not seen as a “masculine thing” by boys – leaving them lagging behind girls from the age of four. It found boys are held back by a “number of gender stereotypes which seem to kick in early”.

None of this should come as much of a surprise. It is now widely accepted that if you consistently have low expectations of a certain group, those expectations tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The puzzling thing is why this awareness is so rarely applied to underachievement among boys.

By all means be concerned about the objectification of female students in today’s newspapers. But you should also be just as concerned about the boys who aren’t there at all.

By Dan Bell

Do you think leaving boys out of images of academic success is a problem? What impact do you think negative portrayals of young men may have on their educational achievement? Or do you think we should be more concerned about the objectification of female students in these pictures? Tell us what you think in a tweet or a comment.

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

Also on insideMAN:

Darren Ball

The London Evening Standard had nine images of which eight were girls picked from a range of ethnicities. I don’t want to make too much out of the fact that the only boys’ face appeared to be Asian, but Asians are well-known for doing well at school, so perhaps the Standard was playing to two stereotypes. There were no photos that the average working-class London school boy would directly relate to.

The huge predominance in the coverage of girls sends the message that education is a girl thing. If we’re only fed images of young women clutching their A* grades, then we’ll soon start to associate exam success with girls. Schoolboys will likewise internalise this. This is a well-known advertising strategy of association.

For instance; currently there is a push to get more women into engineering, so whenever they’re advertising engineering courses, or whenever a professional institution publishes a pamphlet showing engineers, they’re always sure to show a disproportionately large number of women – this is not because they’re objectifying women, it’s because they want women to imagine themselves in this role. It’s more difficult for a woman to imagine herself as an engineer if all the images she has of engineers are men. If this works for recruiting women into engineering (and advertisers are paid good money for these strategies), the corollary is that these A Level images in the press will make it more difficult for boys to imagine themselves doing well at school – the only images of exam success they have are of girls.

To make this about the objectification of women and girls (as some people do) is to massively missed the point: images of attractive girls doing well at school sends the message the girls can be both pretty and clever, which is a very positive message to send. For certain it’s only boys who are being disadvantaged here.
- Inside MAN
  
  Cheers Darren, you make a really good point that I considered including when I wrote the article — the argument for showing equal numbers of women in successful fields in which they are under-represented, applies equally to male university applicants.
Daniel Mirante

Interesting. I would like to look into if boys are at such a disadvantage (reflected in their uni applications) in alternative educational modalities such as Steiner-Waldorf schools. There has been talk of how education has become ‘feminized’. When this is invoked, stereotypes of ‘discipline’ and ‘competition’ seem to be involved in hearkening back to a ‘masculine teaching style’. What if this was reframed as ’embodied’ and ‘practical’ and ‘rewarding’, as one might see in the more outdoorsy Steiner-Waldorf schools? How do results compare there? In other words, is it our expectations on boys, or is it the culture within mainstream education?

There has also been the research showing that teachers grade tougher if they know its a boy student! And other forms of prejudice schoolteachers are bringing into the classroom and inflicting on boys and girls. This may be again that girls are somehow more compliant, on average, within the situation and environment these kids find themselves in.

Another point is that we are in a country where production output is low and jobs in management etc are centered around big cities. It may be that boys are choosing more apprenticeship style vocations – people earn reliable and good wages from trades formerly seen as low on the ladder – plastering, plumbing, electricians etc.

As an aside, my dads generation (now in their sixties) guys were taught how to fix motors and do bricklaying. I really believe this has been empowering for him in this life as he has little resistance to getting practical. I don’t think my own generation or younger have such practical skills.
- Inside MAN
  
  I think your question about whether mainstream boys’ underachievement is reflected in the Steiner-Waldorf school system is a really interesting one. From my understanding, the Steiner system focuses on teaching children when they are ready to learn and in responding to the ways in which children want to learn. One of the explanations for why the mainstream education system is failing boys, is that the system is set up to favour learning styles that are more naturally suited to girls — spelling and reading at an age that’s developmentally too early for boys and sitting quietly rather than physical learning through play. I wonder, if the Steiner system tailors its approach to the individual children, then it would be more likely to meet the different needs of boys and girls….? Would love to learn of any research on this. Dan
Nigel

I work with people with a wide variety of learning difficulties. In effect those who have fallen be the wayside by the time we pick them up at 18. By this time in a variety of ways its a struggle to get the (mainly) young men to aspire to much and a part of this is institutional low expectations. In looking back for these young people, as I say mainly male, one can see repeated patterns of negative “reputations” developed fed by stereotypes. It is quite clear that the early seeds are sown at a very young age and seem to set up a cycle of circular logic magnifying what were relatively simple early difficulties. I admit that this is a “special” sample but I think it does reflect ,in perhaps a magnified way, the way in which our society is both quick to judge boys and finds it hard to make concerted efforts (such as a few positive images) in the same way for girls.
Inside MAN

I have experience in working within the homelessness sector, and have found that after speaking to homeless men they have said their early disengagement at school, which was reinforced by teachers, was one of the key steps on their road to unemployment, crime, low self-esteem and finally the streets. Dan
http://www.amis.org.uk Nick Smithers

Good article Dan. The reality is that we are seeing in many ways the unintended consequences of the push for gender equality from feminist campaigners. The narrative that women and girls are disadvantaged is so ingrained that journalists and others unconsciously promote images of women and girls as you describe assuming that men and boys continue to hold societal advantages. Obviously reality is much more complex, as you describe.
Dr Gary Clapton of University of Edinburgh has carried out an audit of Government and Third sector publications in Scotland to look at the representation of fathers with very interesting results- a summary can be found here http://www.fathersnetworkscotland.org.uk/archive/WheresDad.pdf
The negative stereotyping of fathers in social services policy and practice literature certainly plays a significant role in the marginalisation of fathers from support services and in some cases from the lives of their children.
In my own field of working with men who experience domestic abuse the barriers to men getting help are possibly even greater and again fuelled by a media driven narrative that plays on outdated and dangerous gender stereotypes.
It is becoming ever more apparent to me that there is a need for conscious and explicit balance in the media to reflect what is going on in peoples lives rather than attempt some kind of societal engineering where the message is all important, regardless of the harm it causes along the way.
- Inside MAN
  
  Hi Nick, great to hear from you and thanks. I think you’re right — the narrative that women and girls are disadvantaged is so ingrained that we tend to see issues in those terms, even when the facts don’t add up to that conclusion. And of course, it’s also possible to be both objectified AND privileged… Or non-objectified (i.e. invisible) AND disadvantaged. Thanks for the link and extending the discussion into depiction of fathers and the real-world implications for how they are treated — really interesting. Would you be interested in writing a piece on this for insideMAN?
  - Nick Smithers
    
    Yes, why not – send me an email
    - Inside MAN
      
      Brilliant, will do. Thanks Nick.
Ahuman

I don’ t really understand the to-do about objectification. Anyone who is in the media is there for a reason and therefore being objectified as that reason. A singer or comedian is being objectified as an “entertainment object”, a writer as a “knowledge object” etc. This applies even in our daily lives. How many people understand any of us for truly what we are? we are all just objects of one sort or another to most people, and usually we accept it because we are also rewarded for being useful objects to others. The joker of the party is the “comedy object” who becomes popular by being such and gets invited to more parties, the rich guy who buys the drinks is the money object who gets a lot of hangers-on to do his bidding, etc. This is just how human society and relationships work, and till the day human beings can gaze into each others’ souls this is how it must be. So when people go on about women being objectified as if that is some solitary cross they alone have to bear I can’t help but notice the self absorption and lack of awareness of reality that signifies.
Riku

Dear author,

thanks a lot for this article.
You mentioned some really good points but you stopped digging when you were right on top of the buried box of truth. Buried as in not receiving any attention from mainstream-media — despite being big issues.

Feminists are responsible for the male underperformance and underrepresentation in academia.
And before you shoot me, please let me argue my point.
I will link a video at the end that explains it much better than I could and might add a video inbetween as an informational source. I get the feeling that you are really interested in this stuff, so I hope you watch them.
You mentioned feminists demonizing males as predators and perverts. That is absolutely correct and goes way beyond what you described. But I will get to that later with a link because something else needs to be explained first.
One of the main issues of male students is that they lack constitutional rights in academia. Feminists have used inflated and phony statistics in order to propagate the lie that there’s a rape culture – that 20% of women will get raped at college. Obama, who is a feminist as well, feeds the masses with these already widely debunked(!) statistics.
But that’s only scratching the surface. Obama, who acted in the name of feminism, cheered on by feminists, is responsible for men’s loss of basic, constitutional rights on campus. When it comes to accusations of a felony (rape) on campus, the “dear colleague letter” mandates that basically, there must be
a) protection for the accuser
b) no protection for the accused
c) no right to a lawyer for the accused
d) no right to present exonerating evidence for the accused
e) no right to protection from double jeopardy for the accused
f) no duty to report said alleged rape/assault to police
g) the lowest possible standard for conviction, which is “preponderance of evidence”, which means 50.00001% likeliness of guilt of the accused. Which basically equals a toss of a coin!
Pair that with the requirement that the accused is being judged by selected people with a clear bias in favor of females. They will always find innocent males guilty. And if they don’t, there’ll be a feminist backlash. Innocent male students are routinely being expelled from college/university based on nothing but the word of a woman, and a lot of lawsuits have been filed over this.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/false-rape-culture/list-of-lawsuits-against-colleges-and-universities-alleging-due-process-violations-in-adjudicating-sexual-assault/

Colleges that did not report a lot of annual rapes (because they did not happen) were basically punished for it and are now under investigation, and labeled the most dangerous colleges out there. What the fuck!
Here’s more information about Dear Colleague Letter, Title IX etc. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GC_QVlgGPA

Also, check out this video of Christina Hoff Sommers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKgrYVtYSCk

More information about misandry on campus (you only scratched the surface, try to dig deeper next time!): http://www.avoiceformalestudents.com/banners-and-posters-of-misandry/

Men speaking up on these issues are constantly shut down by feminist protestors who illegally block doors, harass attendees and pull fire alarms.
One example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iARHCxAMAO0

Finally, if interested, do some research on biased grading. It was shown that female students tend to get better grades than males overall, even if the males scored higher in tests. This is a not insignificant factor to mention when it comes to male underperformance.

But you probably noticed one thing: male suffering is not covered by the news media. Males are treated as disposable and unimportant, almost all of men’s issues would be absolutely OUTRAGEOUS if the genders were reversed, feminists would be up in arms with torches and forks, media would be all over it. But when it affects men, it’s no big deal.

I guess that’s all part of my male privilege, eh?
http://redpilluk.co.uk/ William Collins

Last month two things came through my door on the same day. One was a Guardian supplement “Parents Guide to University 2014” and the other was a product of the University of South Wales entitled “Parent Space: Guide for Parents”. Both had many pictures of intending students – essentially all of them girls. See
are UK universities only for women now?
- Inside MAN
  
  Hi William, thanks for that link. It’s pretty powerful stuff. How would you feel about scanning that brochure and sending it to us to publish on insideMAN along with stats on gender breakdown for subjects? Thanks for the heads up.
Greg Allan

I was running funding and grants systems for schools in Australia through the eighties and nineties. It was during this time that the call went out that education systems were hostile to girls or not sufficiently “girl friendly”. The result was a concerted effort to alter both curriculum and it’s delivery in ways that made it more appropriate to girls. The needs of boys were never a consideration. By the mid nineties there were programs for girls in every school in my state but nothing for boys anywhere.

Myself and quite a few others in my state’s school system warned of a bleak future for boys but were roundly denounced as misogynists. The potential impact WAS known but they forged ahead with changes nonetheless. It was quite deliberate and we have reaped exactly what we sowed.
- Darren Ball
  
  Hi Greg,
  
  I would be fascinated to know more detail about that. In the UK the attainment gap occurred abruptly in 1987 with the introduction of the GCSE. When people say that the education system in the UK discriminates against boys, the usual rebuttal is that it can’t be because girls do better than boys all over the developed world. But what if the same agents have been acting all over the developed world. I would really like to understand if there’s a common international thread. Any ideas?
Tony Adamson

My apologies for joining this discussion late, but I have only just discovered this site. I am a teacher with over 30 years experience and so I feel that I am qualified to speak.
Many reasons are given for “male underachievement” – lack of male teachers, “lad culture”, coursework etc, but while these things may make some contribution to it, by far the most important factor is structural; the exams favour girls.
What happens in every country in the world is that when the exams are easy (as they are now) then girls do better than boys, but when they are difficult (like they used to be) then the situation reverses and boys do better than girls. The reason for this is because while there are more boys at the top end of the ability range there are even more girls in the middle. Evidence for this will be provided if requested.
Because they have been so badly discredited, we need to scrap GCSEs and “A” levels and replace them with new exams that test for both high and middle ability.
- insideMAN
  
  Hi Tony, sorry in turn for not seeing your comment when it was made. That’s a really fascinating insight and certainly sounds as if it comes from experience.
  - Tony Adamson
    
    I have just posted another comment – it provides evidence that “male underachievement” is a myth.
Tony Adamson

THE MYTH OF MALE UNDERACHIEVEMENT

I am writing from experience. When we give the students “A”
level exams set at today’s standards (easy) then girls do slightly better than
boys but when we give them exams similar to how they used to be (hard) then
boys do much better than girls – what happens is while boy’s grades fall
slightly girl’s grades go right down (typically girls who usually get 80’s and
90’s go down to 40’s and 50’s). This happens every time we set difficult exams
and it also happens at other schools.
If you consider what happens at 16, boys and girls did about
the same in the old “O” levels and the pass rate for these exams was fairly
constant year after year. When “O” levels were replaced by GCSE’s the pass rate
went up and up (the pass rate for “O” levels in 1987 was 25% while in 2014 for
(higher) GCSE’s it was 69%) and as it did so the “gender gap” widened and
widened. This huge increase was caused by progressive “dumbing down” – girls do
better as exams get easier (see the excellent article by Nathan Trent http://boyseducationaustralia.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/boys-are-discriminated-against-in.html).
If you consider what happens at 18, thanks to dumbing down,
some Universities have lost confidence in “A” levels http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1023992/Top-university-Britain-make-students-sit-entrance-exams-A-levels-worthless.html
and have experimented with entrance exams. Boy’s do much better than girls in
these exams https://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6003223
(and notice the comment by Professor Alison Wolfe about GCSE’s and “A” levels favouring girls).
For many years now, Medical Schools have been setting
entrance exams (because “A” levels are not difficult enough to identify genuine
high ability students) and boys do much better in these tests. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/7251676/Medical-school-selection-tests-favour-white-middle-class-boys.html
Now consider what happens at University. More girls go to
university (because more pass “A” levels), but study the following graph http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/25/average-iq-of-students-by-college-major-and-gender-ratio/
It compares what percentage of boys and girls study each different subject and
the average IQ of students studying each different subject (the data is from
the USA, but similar applies to the UK and the rest of the world). Notice the
following (1) Far more boys study STEM. (2) Boys dominate subjects were the
average IQ is high (120-129) and very high (130+). (3)Girls dominate subjects
were the IQ is average (90-109) and above average (110-119). (4)The more boys
study a subject the average IQ INCREASES. (5) The more girls study a subject then
the average IQ DECREASES.
All of this explodes the myth of “male underachievement” –
what we have been seeing in the education system is due to dumbing down and
grade inflation. This needs to go viral, and I hope that your readers will
spread it via newspapers and radio stations. The best time to this is on GCSE
and “A” level results day; this is when people’s attention is focussed on exams.

Tony Adamson
- Tony Adamson
  
  For some reason the link to Nathan Trent’s article is not
  working properly, but if you click on the link and then click on “Home” you will
  get to it.

Share article