Social Science Question
some boys are in crisis, researchers found that boys were experiencing a number of problems while at the same time studies were pointing to girls’ gains. The answer to these problems is not to pit girls against boys, but to discuss what problems boys are facing what is causing them and how to address them in a meaningful way.
Answer the following prompt with a minimum of 300 words.
From the text AND your own life experience(s) what are these problems, what is causing them and how can we as a society address them in a meaningful way?
2 replies to classmates with 100 words EACH
I will send you the two replies that will help you to predict the answer and reply.
change the wordings and their life experience
The text it discusses five problems: falling behind in grade level, poorer reading and writing skills, emotional and learning disorders, alcohol and drug use, and suspension. A common theme with these issues is school and the text says that researchers have found out that boys are discriminated against in the education system. While the girls may be excelling, the boys may be falling behind. This can be caused by a lot of different factors but is can largely be due to how society defines masculinity.
Society puts pressure on men to be stoic and strong, urging them to hide and be ashamed of their emotions. Although this is an expectation, it is never talked about within a society the way that society discusses the expectations they have with women. This goes back to the expectation of men being stoic, having conversations like this can be seen as weak and too emotional, so discussing it will be disregarded completely. Since masculinity is normally not talked about, boys learn to have these traits from observation and trying to replicate what they see. Through this, lots of traits can be lost in translation. Virtuous and good traits can be misconstrued, drastically affecting boys who now get the wrong message about how to act. Boys can get made fun of for doing well in school because of this miscommunication as a society on how boys should act. Being made fun of then directly affects these boys leading to the aforementioned issues. In order to properly address these issues, society, as a whole, needs to normalize men having emotions and expressing them freely. Only then can boys have open discussions about the proper ways to act and they can progress with society. By doing this, boys can break the stigma and these issues can be addressed while boys are young before the issues get worse.
the second one from Cynthia
The book mentions that researchers have found that boys are at a disadvantage in how they obtain information on gender role learning. Unlike girls, boys are more likely to fall behind in school, have worse reading and writing skills, be diagnosed with behavioral and learning disorders, use drugs and alcohol, and to be suspended. Some researchers believe that a large part of this is because of the mixed messages that are given to children from our media outlets. With the advancement in technology, media is more easily accessible.
Media content has been linked to providing males with mixed messages. For example, strength is confused with violence; intelligence is confused with egotism, and adventurousness is confused with egotism. Regardless of the media outlet, the underlying content is subconsciously shaping boys’ attitudes and beliefs towards gender stereotypes. For instance, the media portrays men who are strong, capable, muscular, successful, and even violent or aggressive. This has caused some men to believe that they too should be strong, muscular, violent, and so forth.
Because media is essentially unavoidable, have recommended certain guidelines that parents can do to help gain more control over when and what their children watch. Within the guideline, experts suggest that parents locate the TV in a place where they can closely monitor how much time and what content their children view. While the guideline may help to some extent, I do not believe it will eradicate the issue completely. Particularly because parents do not have the ability to watch their children 24/7 such as when they are in school or over at grandma’s house. This poses the question “what can we do?”
The only thing we can do for sure is holding ourselves accountable. We can limit the number of time children spends using media by filling that time with things like playing outside, family time, or by teaching them valuable lessons in which will serve them in the future. Time is certainly much different than when I was a child. My time was spent playing outdoors or making up fun things to do indoors. You could usually catch me digging for earthworms, making mud foot baths, building motes, playing pretend, or just finding silly things to occupy my time with my sister. I feel saddened by the fact that many children do not get the same experiences as I did, but I do believe that we can gain some control with future generations if we hold ourselves accountable.
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APA
204 words