Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

THE WELLESLEY REPORT 161centage of women aiming for higher degrees in less than twenty-five years.As the institute's director, Alexander Astin, notes, "To close such a widegap in the relatively short span of two decades is truly remarkable." DavidMerkowitz of the American Council on Education agrees: "If you want along-term indicator of major social change, this is one." But indicatorsthat girls are doing well are not the stuff of the Wellesley Report.The report illegitimately bolsters its "shortchanged girls" thesis byomitting all comparisons of boys and girls in areas where boys are clearlyin trouble. In a study of self-reports by high school seniors, the U.S.Department of Education found that more boys than girls cut classes, failto do homework assignments, had disciplinary problems, had been suspended,and had been in trouble with the police. 17Studying transcriptsof 1982 high school graduates, the Department of Education found girlsoutperforming boys in all subjects, from math to English to science. 18Italso learned that in all racial and ethnic groups, "females were generallymore likely than males to report their parents wanted them to attendcollege." 19The Wellesley researchers looked at girls' better grades in math andscience classes and concluded that the standardized tests must be biased.Girls get better grades, but boys are doing better on the tests. But theirconclusion would have had more credibility had they also considered thepossibility that there could be a grading bias against boys.According to the 1992 Digest of Educational Statistics, more boys dropout. Between 1980 and 1982, 19 percent of males and 15 percent offemales between the tenth and twelfth grade dropped out of school. Boysare more likely to be robbed, threatened, and attacked in and out ofschool. Just about every pathology—including alcoholism and drugabuse—hits boys harder. 20According to the Wellesley Report, "adolescentgirls are four to five times more likely than boys to attempt suicide."21It mentions parenthetically that more boys actually die. It doesnot say that five times as many boys as girls actually succeed in killingthemselves. For boys fifteen to twenty-four the figure is 21.9 per 100,000;for girls it is 4.2 per 100,000. The adult suicide rate is not very different.In the United States in 1990, 24,724 men and 6,182 women committedsuicide. 22What would the Wellesley investigators and other advocateshave made of these statistics were the numbers reversed?The tribulations of schoolboys are not an urgent concern of the leadershipof the AAUW; its interest is in studies that uncover bias againstgirls and women. For details on how American girls are suffering frominequitable treatment in the nation's classrooms, the Wellesley investigatorsrelied heavily on the expertise of Myra and David Sadker of the