Excerpt: School Girls

Orenstein, Peggy. [1994] 2005. "School Girls". Pp. 288-292 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

Orenstein begins with a narrative of a sixth-grade classroom exercise. A teacher asks students to close their eyes and imagine what their life was like one year before, then three, six, eight, and all the way back to their birth. Then she asks them to picture living their lives the exact same way, except as the "opposite" sex. The students write down their perceived differences and the teacher keeps track of them on two lists on the board. What she finds is most interesting: the boys' list contains numerous "have to's" (e.g. "I'd have to spend lots of time in the bathroom on my hair and stuff") while the girls' list contains mostly wistful longings (e.g. "I'd get to play a lot more sports"). Orenstein sums up the findings: "By sixth grade, it is clear that both girls and boys have learned to equate maleness with opportunity and femininity with constraint".

Adolescence for girls is accompanied by a dramatic drop in self-image. Girls lose confidence in themselves and their abilities, adopt a "scathingly critical attitude toward [their bodies] and a blossoming sense of personal inadequacy", and reduce expectations for themselves.

Low confidence in math and science, even by girls who like the subjects, quite often leads to low academic achievement in these areas. While boys celebrate their achievements and often list their talents as the thing they most like about themselves, girls believe they are "not good enough" or "not smart enough" and list physical attributes as what they like about themselves. Orenstein notes one cause of this gender construction: "Both boys and girls believed that teachers encouraged more assertive behavior in boys, and that, overall, boys receive the majority of their teachers' attention".

This article provides the details to the common argument that gender is socially constructed. If we take note of what these sixth graders believed about themselves, it's clear that these ideas fuel future gender inequalities. Furthermore, it implies that if we can foster academic achievement and praise girls for their intelligence in their earliest years of education, this may help in the long run to raise their confidence.

Relevance: 3/5 (neutral)
Salience: 4/5 (salient)

References:

• American Association of University Women, Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America. - cited in agreement.
• "Girls' Low Self-Esteem Slows Their Progress". San Francisco Examiner. - cited in agreement.
• "Girls' Self-Esteem is Lost on the Way to Adolescence". New York Times. - cited in agreement.