to be totally bored hearing this same old trite trotted out

[curryfreak]

Get this all the time from parents of boys.
How difficult they are, how much more of a handful they can be in relation to girls, how much they eat in comparision to girls ffs,- who cares.
The one though, that has been in vogue for a while,(courtesy of daily mail headlines and the like) is how terrible boys are faring in the education system, and how these dreadful female teachers are feminising the poor little mites,- how they have no male role models, because there are so few male teachers (particularly in primary schools)
Yawn yawn yawn...
Simple facts are girls have been on the backfoot for years. Nobody gave a toss, when they were lagging behind educationally, and in some cases activly discourgaed from taking subjects which were considered male dominated.
Boys are having to wake up to the fact that their sense of entitlement is no longer acceptable.
So, thoughts.

YABU.

HTH

Yes I think you are spot on that my 2 and 3 year old boys are misbehaving because they no longer have it easy compared with girls?!!

What a crock!

FWIW I don't think my boys are more of a handful than girls. There are just as many challenges depending on the CHILD not the sex. Yes there are some things that are harder with boys but same goes for girls.

And YABU

I have a boy but only 4 so school system isn't relevant to him. I've NEVER heard a mother of a boy say how difficult they are, I've much more commonly heard mothers of teenage girls complaining about how much more difficult they are than boys! I don't subscribe to either - I love my boy I can';t imagine considering him to be "difficult" (YET!)

However it is true that boys do worse than girls in school and its not fair. The fact that their father/grandfathers/great-grandfathers might have benefited from a sexist education system is hardly reason to point and laugh and sneer at any child who might be struggling.

If I had a girl I'd be pretty bloody pissed off if she only EVER had male teachers - from 4-18 in EVERY subject.

I hope I'm not raising my boy with any "sense of entitlement" - he's growing up with a single mother so its not likely. Having said that it was just as often mothers who raised their sons with that sense of entitlement you talk about (thinking of my grandmother/father) so we (on behelaf of our mothers and grandmothers) should just as much be blamed for the previous degree of inequality.

OP has girls then?

Oh sorry I forgot... YABU

D'you think so cornsilk?

all the male teachers seem to have been scared off though. there are none at my son's school yet there was at least 4 when my 16 year old was there.

having a male teacher is important for boys.

imo

So it's OK to give boys a raw deal because of past sexism towards women? Where's the equality in that. YABU

I think boys have done worse because of the coursework nature of realtively modern GCSE's. Girls are said to be better at wrting etc, whereas boys like more hands-on stuff - which is why they used to excel in science - and test taking.

In fact i think there was some info to the effect that at Uni it is still the boys that do better in the hard sugjects, not the girls.

My five-year old is just grasping three letter words at the moment but I could try reading the likes of Naomi Wolff to him and see if that stops him wriggling in long lessons while he longs to expend energy outside.

Surely we should be asking for a society where noone is on a backfoot anymore - utopian I know.

Hellooo curryfreak!

crikey!boys are well rubbish! I've got 2 sons and I tell you something...they're THICK AS SHIT. I wish I'd had daughters. girls r cooooool.

It makes me right sick, like, when "they" talk about those them hormones, you know, them ones what make ladies act weird...there's other ones, that make boys weird. it's all right strange.

I think boys should just shut up because they might...you know...rape someone, because if they're not told from an early age that they're capable of RAPE , then they might do it.

Anyway, I took the opportunity earlier to tell my sons that they are not entitled to anything!

THANKS OP!

YABU

The education system is slow to adapt, slow to take on board new research, slow to meet the needs of each generation and quick to ignore glaring evidence if it doesn't fit with what the current government want.

Just because the system didn't work for girls for a long time, does not make it right that the same should now apply to boys.

YABU. You are being sexist by saying that is now boys' turn to have a rough time. Get over yourself or go back to your Daily Mail.

YABU.

Oh, and at whoisasking!

Yes I have girls (2). The reason there are so few male teachers is that teaching is still considered a fairly low status occupation, and men are reluctant to enter in to such a profession because of this.
Interestingly, when they do, they are promoted over female teachers at an alarmingly rapid rate!
Just to clarify, I dont think that boys are more difficult than girls,- in fact I would probably venture the opposite. I grew up with two brothers and I would say that I was by far the more challenging of all of my siblings.

Could you translate please whoisasking. A little touchy perhaps?

Why are you so happy that more boys are being let down by the education system?

Since you have girls, it's just out and out nastiness, isn't it?

"Boys are having to wake up to the fact that their sense of entitlement is no longer acceptable."

You sound mad there - you're talking about primary school age boys!

I have a son who is struggling in school. He is miserable and his self esteem is shot to pieces. Glad you feel this is acceptable.

Is teaching really considered a low status occupation? By whom exactly? And ime (as a female teacher) men are certainly not promoted over female teachers.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that teaching is the most highly unionised profession and I doubt very much that governers and SLTs would get away with giving the top jobs to men simply because they are men.

Speaking as a Mother of boys, YABU and deliberately provocative.
I don't see why my boys should suffer because Women were treated unfairly in the past.
My boy is doing great in school thanks, the naughtiest child in his class is a girl. His female teacher (also a Mother, a girl and a boy) acknowledges that boys learn in different ways and takes great steps to make sure that all children in her class are stimulated and engaged.
They are a handful, my boys, I'll grant you that but aren't most children at one time or another?

My boys are five and three so have no historic sense of entitlement at all. They do, however, have that long documented sense of entitlement that small children have.

I'm lucky that my boys' school has a number of male teachers. It's one of the reasons I chose it. I desperately hope they stay there.

I think it's good for both boys and girls to have both male and female teachers. And not "just" male headteachers and sports teachers.

I'm a woman. My great grandma was a suffragette. My grandma and my mother were qualified professionals in make dominated fields. I spent many years trying to improve the lot of women in my own field. My family has cared about how women fare for about a century and done something about it. That doesn't stop me caring about how my boys do. Why should it?

And gender stereotyping isn't helping anyone.

I am speechless. What an ugly and stupid OP!

in education and child development there are no Simple facts

but if you were more clever you would know that

you cannot redress gender imbalance females have suffered by wishing disharmony and inequality be heaped upon wee boys

"Boys are having to wake up to the fact that their sense of entitlement is no longer acceptable."

I'll go and wake ds up now.