Why do girls let the boys get away with it?

[Weneedarevolution]

My DS is doing A levels. In geography they have been put in a group of boys and girls - 5 students I think. They have to complete a project. The girls have organised and allocated th work, my DS has minimal work to do. He is GOOD at geography his input would help the girls. He is quite happy to let this happen as he can benefit from their efforts while getting on with other work.

His argument is that if they had asked him he would have gladly helped but they organised it and he just agreed. I really believe if the girls asked he and his friends would do the work to a high standard.

This has happened through out his school career, he and his friends almost expect it now.

So who is to blame the girls for not asking or the boys for letting it happen?

[IAmAmy]

Haha, thanks Im0gen. I'm glad she's happy and successful and wish she was right. Crave a day when no women experience misogyny but that's quite a long way off sadly!

[Pallisers]

OP you seem to think every boy is like your son and all the girls are just doing the work for them. In reality I expect there are groups where the girls say (like my dd often does) "Oh I have Max and Emma and Alex and Josh in my group so it will be easy to complete". I suspect plenty of boys are contributing just fine and taking leadership roles

Except such boys would be accused of ousing their male privilege to dominate the girls.

Is that what you would accuse them of? How bizarre. Maybe it is a generational thing. My 15 year old would say "delighted to have Max and Josh pulling their weight"

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Lass you seem to live in a parallel universe. Boys are always praised for being leaders, decisive, showing strength whilst girls who take charge are "bossy", "difficult", "ball breakers" and whatnot

No Amy, I'm a 57 year old woman and a partner in a large law firm.

I live in a world where as I said before I am capable of working our whether the people who work for me are doing their jobs effectively without having to define them as "man children" if they are male or making excuses for them if they are female.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Is that what you would accuse them of? How bizarre. Maybe it is a generational thing. My 15 year old would say "delighted to have Max and Josh pulling their weight"

No I absolutely not would accuse them of that.

I'm just thinking of all the times I've seen criticism on FWR of men or boys taking over.

[IAmAmy]

Lass you are clearly a very successful woman, I aspire to that for my future. However you didn't directly respond to the points I made which were that girls and women are often criticised for showing qualities boys are praised for, such as those associated with leadership and "girl" or "woman" themselves are deemed terms of insults by some.

[Pallisers]

I'm just thinking of all the times I've seen criticism on FWR of men or boys taking over.

Well we are on this thread where the only criticism in the OP was at the GIRLS taking over - not the boys.

I have never seen criticism in real life for boys taking leadership roles. I also am a lawyer and have been in very senior roles in the corporate world. I'm surprised you have - do you want to give a few examples?

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I have never seen criticism in real life for boys taking leadership roles

No I haven't in real life, but on FWR it's a point which is frequently made - boys taking over and dominating.

[IAmAmy]

In general, though, criticism is so often aimed at girls or women, dissuading us from acting with authority/showing leadership skills, whilst boys are praised for them.

[YonicProbe]

But Lass, Amy and the OP are both pretty new to MN, so why argue something that they haven't said?

[Pallisers]

No I haven't in real life, but on FWR it's a point which is frequently made - boys taking over and dominating.

What is FWR?

and why is what is said on it more important that what is actually happening in real life??

[YonicProbe]

FWR is this board; it was called feminism and women's rights years ago.

[Pallisers]

FWR is this board; it was called feminism and women's rights years ago.

So you think the way we advise our sons and daughters should be dictated by what is posted on a mumsnet board rather than what is happening to them in real life?

My 15 year old daughter often has to take the lead in group projects. She complains as often about girls who don't pull their weight as boys to be honest. And calls them on it.

So when she complains about a boy not pulling his weight should I say to her "well love, if he tried to be a leader and pull his weight many people on this website you don't give a shit about it but that I post on would say he was being domineering so you shouldn't complain"

Seriously?

[libprog]

BuffytheReasonableFeminist and IAmAmy - in a scenario where the boys would have taken the lead and not assigned much to the girl and the girl didn't ask for more, you would of course not in a million years dream of saying how sexist that would be, right?

You will never be a "reasonable" feminist if you don't look at things from the other side. Which you are clearly not. So it's rather ironic that you call yourself a "reasonable" feminist. Because I can tell you that the attitude you display here is nothing but cannon fodder to men who already feel threatened by feminism. "Could not be the girls' fault" - you are showing you never even considered anything else.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

What is FWR?

and why is what is said on it more important that what is actually happening in real life??

This part of MN.

I don't think it is more important than what is said or happens in real life. I was being sarcastic about the type of response often made on FWR.

I frequently think this part of the forum bears little resemblance to real life. The boy here is criticised for free loading but if he took charge he'd be criticised for using his "male privilege " to dominate.

Re being new I've been posting since 2012.

[Im0gen]

Don't you think any individual act needs to be seen in its wider social and political context ?

If an African American spits at a KKK member, is that exactly the same as a KKK member spitting at at African American?

Is a teenage boy excluding a girl from a leadership role in education exactly the same as the other way around ? Dont you think that the social structures in high school and in society might be just a tiny bit relevant ?

[Im0gen]

Lass - don't you think there's a third option apart from freeloading or taking charge? In any group in which you are NOT the leader, are you a free loader?

No one has said that the OPs son should take charge and push out the girls. They are suggesting that he should pull his weight as team member. That's why posters are accusing you of straw manning .

[scaryclown]

or..the OP is saying her DS in the name of feminism should undermine the allocation of work by the girls, and say 'i'm better at this subject than you, let me do the work and we'll all get better grades'. Or 'here, let me do it, love you dont know what you are doing'...

or..

her DS is standing back and letting the girls fix the car even though he knows how to do it, so they can learn themselves..

or..

he is sitting back and watching the girls fail because he is lazy and condescending..

or..

the girls know that OPs DS will score all the goals if they pass him the ball, and the team will win because hes a great goal scorer but they dont want him to get the glory so they dont pass to him. wjen the team loses, they blame him for 'thinking he's so brilliant but he's not'.. but the team have lost. OPs mum says 'takle the girls and take the ball off them and score. OPs son does this and the team wins. The girls hate him more. the manager berates DS because 'he doesn't understand teamwork' DS says 'i fid what had to be dobe to get the best result for the team' DS is dropped and the tean feels better..but loses every game.

or..

DS is the expert in the team. the projevt is run by non-experts. he can expose them as non experts by giving the right answers, or doing the work himself, or make them feel better about themselves by pretending their wrong answers are right, or let them do the work and advise and guide.. but obv without being in the mansplaining, dominant, or 'MAN = RIgHT' position even though in this case man and expert are in the same body.

The question is, should he supress being 'right' in order to offset historic dominance by men two generations before him, or be treated as a genderless actor with skills in the present, and which is more feminist...

but also choose which perspective is more useful..the wholistic team perspevtive, the boy is to blame perspective, tge girl is to blame perspective, the individual that we have access to is to blame, or the group v individual perspective..

[IAmAmy]

libprog I'm at school now so can't reply in as much detail as I'd like but I wouldn't say that boy was necessarily sexist no. More that he was showing the traits he'd have been encouraged to by a society which praises boys for leadership and labels girls "bossy" for the same. It also ha to be seen in the context of wider culture as Im0gen put so well. Also this thread was asking why girls apparently let boys get away with doing no work even though they're the same age in the same class, hardly their responsibility to get boys to do their work.

As for "men who feel threatened by feminism", I'm more concerned with all the girls and women who feel threatened by male violence, misogynist abuse, street harassment and so on than men threatened by losing their male privilege.

[libprog]

IAmAmy but you see, that is exactly where you are wrong. These men that post on Breitbart, voted Trump/Brexit, think feminism means feminazi, think if a girl is drunk and doesn't say know they can fuck her, those that make sexual comments to you in the street, they are all the same person. And you are just fueling their idea of a world where (white) males have all the privilege.

"Hardly their responsibility" - forget gender/race, if you had 5 white girls or 5 black guys in one group, and 4 of them arranged everything between themselves and the fifth person is maybe a shy and didn't speak up and suddenly everything is settled, would you still say it wasn't the responsibility of the other 4 to include the 5th person. Wasn't there in the last couple of days a story about a child using her phone app to translate English to Spanish and vice versa because she realized the new kid couldn't speak English and she saw he was lonely? Should we not live in a world where that is the norm? Rather than "not my responsibility"?

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

No one has said that the OPs son should take charge and push out the girls. They are suggesting that he should pull his weight as team member. That's why posters are accusing you of straw manning

Have you missed the frequent complaints on this forum about men taking over and dominating?

In this particular case the work load should be shared but it is a common complaint on here that men or boys dominate.

I have said he should work with the team. I specifically said the problem in this particular case was the boy not pulling his weight- not as the OP would have it that the girls are at fault.

If you are going to start chucking "straw man" your last post is a entire hay rick of things I never said.

Oh and I still think the "man child " comments are trite stereotyping. Useless female employees are individuals for whom excuses are made-uselesx male employees are conveniently pigeon holed by a neat, glib phrase.

[YonicProbe]

"Re being new I've been posting since 2012."

I didn't say you were new; the OP and Amy are.

[YonicProbe]

Hence it makes no sense to them to be arguing against past threads.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Sorry , Yonic , misread what you said.