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

THE WELLESLEY REPORT 171she knows we are looking for gender bias." Pauley was visibly stunned bywhat she regarded as Ms. Lowe's sexist behavior: "So boys are getting themessage that what they have to say is important, and girls begin toconclude just the opposite, with serious consequences."I called Ms. Lowe. She agrees with the goals of the Sadkers' researchand believes teachers may exhibit unconscious bias. She herself took partin a teachers' presentation in support of the Gender Equity in EducationAct. Nevertheless, she felt that the "Dateline" program was a sham. "Thatclass was boy-heavy," she said. "Of course I called on more boys. A gooddocumentary should tell you the proportion of boys to girls in the class.There were four or five more boys than girls." Moreover, she pointed out,the "Dateline" crew had filmed her for eight to ten hours, but only a fewminutes were shown. Of course it was possible to find in all that footagesome small sequence that appeared to show bias. "By that method," Ms.Lowe observed derisively, "they could document most anything." (Thesegment, by the way, aired just after NBC had weathered the embarrassmentof airing a "documentary" on the dangers of GM trucks whose gastanks were located on the side. It turned out that an NBC crew had fitteda truck with an explosive and then graphically "showed" how impactcaused the fuel tank to explode without explaining how the footage hadbeen rigged.)Ms. Lowe told me that her fifth-graders were incensed by what "Dateline"had made of the long hours of filming. The kids knew there weremore boys than girls in the class. Why wasn't that made clear, theywondered. Their general feeling was that "Dateline" was stretching todrive home a message. I asked Ms. Lowe how the "Dateline" staff and Ms.Pauley had happened to choose her school to film. Ms. Lowe informedme that the contact was made through Dr. Sharon Steindam, one of herschool administrators who had worked with the Sadkers."Dateline" did interview one skeptic. Ms. Pauley asked Diane Ravitch,then assistant secretary of education under Lamar Alexander, what shethought of the Wellesley Report. Ms. Ravitch told Pauley all about theoverwhelming data that show boys to be in serious trouble. She spokeabout dropout rates, the grading gap that favors girls, the far greaternumber of boys with learning disabilities. According to Ravitch, Pauleyshowed no interest in the boys' plight but kept after her to concede thatgirls were suffering from gender bias. When it became clear that Ravitchwas not going to capitulate, Pauley asked her, "Well, what if people believethere is bias?" Ms. Ravitch, by then nettled, retorted, "If people believethis is a serious problem, they should send their daughters to single-sex