Environmental Chemicals Are Feminizing Boys 614
pickens writes "Denmark has unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, sunscreen lotion, and moisturizing cream. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminizing male children all over the developed world. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes. 'The amounts that two-year-olds absorb from the [preservatives] parabens propylparaben and butylparaben can constitute a risk for oestrogen-like disruptions of the endocrine system,' says the report. The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising. 'Both the public and wildlife are inadequately protected from harm, as regulation is based on looking at exposure to each substance in isolation, and yet it is now proven beyond doubt that hormone disrupting chemicals can act together to cause effects even when each by itself would not,' says Gwynne Lyons, director of Chem Trust."
It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah it has nothing to do with forcing boys to engage in more timid play, impressing upon them that when they grow older they'll be expected to do their share of the child rearing, presenting them with effeminate roll models, balking at allowing them to take risks or play "politically incorrect" games, keeping them away from violence and agression more than any previous generation, or putting them in female clothing for a giggle. Nothing to do with that at all. It's the chemicals!
GIMME A BREAK.
Re:British children (Score:0, Insightful)
More cute gender-bending emo boys is a good thing.
Dolls and tea sets? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:2, Insightful)
I usually try to be thoughtful in my posts, but after the above, all I can muster is:
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be both. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the main reasons that we participate in cultural activities is to fit in with the group. If chemical-induced hormones made boys more likely to associate/relate with girls then they would be more likely to participate in girl activities - however culture defines them.
That said, it does seem like a bit of a leap to me - too many factors to control for to get meaningful results. I'd be more convinced by separate studies that showed that exposure to certain chemicals increased certain hormone levels, and people with those hormone levels were more likely to have feminine behavior than to jump straight between the two like the summary implies.
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:1, Insightful)
Then why do boys play with GI Joe and Army Man toys? I agree. There is no study that I'm aware of that says that estrogen makes you want to pick up a doll (action figure?). Those are gender roles, taught by parenting. If you stick a child in a room with a bunch of girl and boy toys, without showing them which they should be playing with, they would play with all of them. We teach children what toys to play with because we as parents buy them. We encourage boys to be boys and girls to be girls.
This article makes far reaching 'guesses' without any hard science to back it up.
The leap from this to the change in male to female ratio was a total guess. This reads more like a sensational news story than any sort of scientific paper.
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no known way to override this : it has been tried.
As the article points out, there is a way... exposure to PCBs and dioxins.
A bonus for men (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rednecks? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's important to note that the Danes are not genetically more gifted than the rest of us. The idiotic English chavs and the Danes were the same people a few tens of generations ago. The things that make us stupid are cultural anti-intellectualism and childhood malnutrition, not some inborn deficit that applies to whole swaths of people.
If we're heading for an idiocracy, it's not because idiots breed more. Their children have the same genetic gifts as anyone else, on the whole. Instead, it's our neglect of education. Really, it's appalling that teachers aren't some of our most highly-paid professionals.
Re:(s)he (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean animals that people dress up in waterproof clothes and rubber boots?
Re:Is it such a bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
If that is how you feel by all means try to be more feminine. The rest of us prefer to have a choice in these matters, rather than have the choice made for us (indeed, forcing choices upon others is, according to your lists, a masculine thing, and therefore it has no place in the feminine society you seem so keen to create).
Besides, I like to think self-reliance, strength and competition are positive qualities. Many of the most famous artists were guys, so I'm not sure 'art' should be considered a 'feminine element', nor is there reason to believe that 'thoughtfulness' should be on that list of yours.
Maybe you could try pointing to some sources to convince us that you didn't just pull those lists out of you ass, then some more sources to show that the masculine elements are bad for society, and then some more to convince us that forcing emasculation on 50% of your citizens is ethical.
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Social experiments and have shown that even in isolated communities, even if every attempt is made to treat boys and girls the same (so as not to condition them one way or the other), the boys will prefer playing with traditionally-male toys, and the girls will prefer playing with traditionally-female toys.
Of course, just because every effort is made to treat boys and girls the same, that doesn't mean they will actually be treated the same. Scientists use double-blind studies for a reason...
Re:Rednecks? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are government employees in Danmark, too. In fact I'd imagine a higher proportion of them are, based on grandparent's point about investment on education - just who do you think did that?
But then again, that's not compatible with libertarian/conservative/far right agenda, so you ignored it and posted pointless propaganda for your pet ideology instead. Just as pretty much everyone else who has strong opinions - left or right - on these matters - or any matter, really - does. That's an unfortunate human trait, and one we really have to get rid of if we're to advance as a species.
Re:It could be both. (Score:1, Insightful)
The statement "Gender roles such as play preferences are completely cultural" has become a joke unfalsifiable statement. Any evidence of the contrary is seen as the proof that gender cultural oppression is so pervasive and so omnipresent that no one can escape from it.
Well at some point... (Score:5, Insightful)
blah blah, and more polar bears exhibit hermaphroditic features, and there's a higher percentage of Florida alligators that are female, and girls are hitting puberty earlier these days, and, and, an
Well, I would think that, when you people are ignoring that animals in nature are all becoming genders, 10 year old girls are getting pregnant, that, you might look up from your Wii and say, "hey, you know, the whole planet is fucked up, and we might well, actually try to FIX IT." Sometimes when there is a fire, you have to yell more than once.
Just a thought.
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:3, Insightful)
Torchwood knew (Score:3, Insightful)
First episode (AFAIR), Captain Jack Harkness, tasting the estrogen in the rain - and cursing this bloody planet for its mismanagement of chemical waste.
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. There isn't a child alive who hasn't been conditioned from birth.
Gender roles are nothing like they were in the 1950's, and society is changing gender roles and expectations as a result. Children adapt faster than people. They mimic what they see without deep thought into the social implications. Monkey see, monkey do.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, it's our neglect of education. Really, it's appalling that teachers aren't some of our most highly-paid professionals.
The fundamental flaw of education is:
1) it treats all children the same. You should learn this, because you are 7 years old. Nothing else matters. You could be a grand master in chess, but you're not allowed to write cursive yet! You have been reading since you were 3? Well, forget it, you're going to learn it all over again!
2) No child left behind. We're treating everyone the same, and that treatment will be the one required for the dumbest. The smart ones are bored out of their skull? Who cares!
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, genetic information evolved over the last two million years can help identify dolls dressed in red as "feminine" and dolls dressed in green and wearing a hard hat as "masculine" ... except for 3000 years red was the "male warrior" color and only during the last 100 years were the "camo" colors fashionable in the army ... and the same genes are helping young children identify plastic tanks or knifes as "male toys" while plastic beds, plastic baby carriages and plastic table sets are identified (due to genes, hormone concentrations or something else of physiological origin) as "female toys".
It's not the chemicals, it's the media (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO, the media is mostly to blame for this. Next time you're bored, start counting how many commercials and sitcoms on TV (and even movies) portray the husband/boyfriend as a complete neanderthal moron and the wife/girlfriend as a level-headed rocket scientist. And can anyone remember when TLC had stuff worth watching? Now you are told what not to wear, that gay men know what women want in a straight guy, that it's okay to have eight or more ankle-biters and yet still have a completely dysfunctional family.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:2, Insightful)
Your argument doesn't agree with reality. We do in fact have magnet schools, gifted and talented programs, and special education. We need more of them, and more tracking in general, I agree. But that's beside the point.
Tracking doesn't matter for ordinary kids in the middle of the bell curve. We're failing them too, moreso than ever. You're going to have to find another explanation for the failures of our school system and the hollowing-out of our culture. Insufficient tracking simply can't explain what we're seeing.
"Was trying to save jobs." is bullshit excuse (Score:1, Insightful)
So, instead of encouraging research to develop newer. safer products (which would obviously have a market if the unsafe stuff is banned), it's better to have his oil buddies just keep manufacturing the same old crap.
So, what happens when an offshore competitor develops a replacement? Domestic production craters, and you end up with no jobs AND more imports.
There's a reason we don't allow asbestos (as another example of an unsafe product) to be used in schools, etc., and the ban drove innovation and created new economic opportunities. Your way of thinking, we'd have more cancers.
Don't knock the social sciences (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the fault of social scientists, really, that their error bars are huge. Unlike physics, social sciences (and medicine, and psychology) are constrained by quaint ideas like informed consent and humanitarian compassion, and these restrictions are enforced by hard-nosed institutional review boards who need to approve every experiment. Social scientists (and doctors, and psychologists) are talented people, but they're forced to make do with milquetoast studies and the exceedingly rare "natural experiment [wikipedia.org]". Some of the most [wikipedia.org] informative [wikipedia.org] studies in the area, in fact, would be off-limits today.
It's easy to decry the social sciences as fuzzy, but could you do better under the same constraints? We should commend social scientists for at least trying.
Re:what about chemicals that are masculinizing gir (Score:3, Insightful)
i suspect its been this way since hormones got discovered.
ever since, there have a been something of a divide between chemists and psychologists, as each want to be the authority on the behavior of man.
thing is tho that the body is a feedback loop, with more chemicals produced depending on all sorts of input, resulting in new output that again produce inputs. The results of this loop is then stored in dna, dna that gets passed on and mixed with other dna.
the big trick is that non-chemical input can result in changes in chemical production, just as well as chemical input can have an effect on existing ones. That's why mood altering drugs, placebo and conversations may all work.
all in all it becomes different tools to do the same job...
Re:Rednecks? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also like to add #3: Parents taking little to no interest in their child's education, and expecting the schools to assume that role in its entirety, and intervening only to tell of the teacher who took away their little angel's cell phone because they were texting during class. I dunno about you, but my parents were very proactively involved in my education. They taught me reading, writing, and 'rithmetic before I set foot in kindergarten, and they never stopped assisting and requiring accountability. They encouraged me to think critically and ask questions. If I didn't know, they encouraged me to look it up - and then asked me what I learned after I did. They bought me stuff at yard sales to take apart and I had to identify the basic components inside. If I got in trouble with a teacher and my parents found out about it (and since my parents worked in the school I went to, that was inevitable), the other half would come when I got home, and it wouldn't be pretty. I survived the wooden spoon, I survived learning to eat a balanced diet, I survived homework, and I survived not watching TV until I was 5 or 6.
Re:Transsexualism (Score:4, Insightful)
i cant help wonder if the suicide attempt comes from trying to fit into a world that reacts pretty much like a "uncanny valley" ones you look like one gender, but behave like a different one.
this may also be why homosexuality is such a "hot" topic.
i guess we humans prefer our lives to work along the lines of "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck"...
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:5, Insightful)
The girls play with dolls, boys play with cars dichotomy is a bit of a simplification to make a nice sound bite. There is some gender bias towards the type of toy: girls tend to be less interested in playing with toys representing inanimate objects, and much more interested in playing with toys that represent people, or at least animals, than boys are. The real difference, however, is in the style of play. Girls tend to construct elaborate social situations in their play (tea parties, for example) while boys play is much less socially structured and more geared towards action.
If you want the sound bite, when boys play with dolls they make them fight. When girls play with dolls, they make them talk.
The differences are not purely environmental. The pattern is seen across all cultures and, as a poster pointed out in another thread (including published paper), are seen in non-human primates as well.
PS: the Guardian and the Telegraph are newspapers. They are not known for publishing scientific papers. If you want actual scientific papers you will have to read scientific journals, where the link between certain chemicals, feminized male behaviour and male/female birth ratio changes are much better established.
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not simply *what* they play with, but *how* they play with them. If you put a girl in a room with a bunch of G.I. Joe action figures, the way she plays with them will likely involve some sort of social connection (i.e. doll A and doll B want to go and visit dolls C, D, and E at their imaginary house, so A and B jump into the Humvee and drive over to visit). Put a boy in a room with a bunch of Barbie dolls, and he will either decapitate them, or Barbie will fight with her friends using some sort of karate moves. Some parts might be social constructs (i.e. the girl might not specifically have dolls A and B married if she isn't exposed to the concept of marriage yet), but there are underlying concepts of how boys and girls interact with the world around them that *aren't* taught by society.
Re:It's not the chemicals, it's the media (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rednecks? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a child of seven, my public librarian talked to me a bit, and gave me an adult card with a note to personnel that I was authorised to use the adult reading room, the music stacks, microfiche and all other facilities.
In high school, my swim team had to meet at the civic center pool about 1 PM to fit its schedule. Local people made the decision to move all of us to an 11 AM lunch, a decision that didn't need to be ratified by the superintendent of schools - in fact, it took only the team coach asking an assistant principal to set it up with the cafeteria staff, and they served 12 people an hour early to make it happen.
High school fencing was a club, (even though our club beat several college teams). We picked a schedule when the gym was empty, and had a couple of keys to it, which were carried at one point or another by just about everyone on the team, with no problems.
This was all 35 years or more ago. It seems totally absurd now to say practically every responsible adult I knew as a child bent 'the rules', knew which way to bend them, and it all worked pretty damned well, but that was the way of things.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy and convenient to blame the parents. And who knows? You might be right.
But it's irrelevant. We can't compel parents to be better parents. Schools must take up the slack, for better or for worse. How do you intend to remedy the situation? As the old saying goes, you're cursing the dark without lighting a candle.
Re:(s)he (Score:1, Insightful)
And what is "natural" in men hunting or being killed. This is related to gender, not biological anatomic sex, this is inherited from culture (not in every cultures even !).
Evolutio
n theory NEVER mentionned that a population will actually react by rising the number of males or needed individuals. It states that the individuals who "better fit" their environments will remain and reproduce, thereby influencing species development by retaining their features.
And the same stands for Darwin's sexual evolution, it never stands that more males or female will be produced, but that the specie will evolve to include the sexual features of individuals that attract more efficiently a partner (or more).
So what this statement means is that this study is indeed propaganda, not science. Not every bit of it is propaganda, but some parts of it. It is an argument that dwells in naturalization of a cultural fact, relying on very fuzzy un-scientific statements and assertions like "men hunt, women cook".
And this is unfortunatel very common in science papers. Scientists mostly have a bias in gender studies, they should read more philosophy as buttler, foucault, bourdieu to understand what they are talking about and not include machist theories in the very early planning of their experiments or their conclusion.
If it is unsure than "men hunt", at least I can guarantee that they are culturaly preferred for roles of scientists than woman in a patriarcal society like our.
Stéphane
Re:Rednecks? (Score:5, Insightful)
That was back when exercising discretion wasn't a one-way ticket to being sued.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
I specifically made it reason number three on the list, because I do comepletely agree with the GP's first two points. As I said before, both of my parents are teachers, so I hear exactly what they're going through to try to convince parents that they need to take a part in their child's education as well.
I'ma flip the question on you a bit and ask you to clarify your statement, which says that "we can't compel parents to be better parents", but then implies that it's possible to compel schools to do a better job.
I'll be honest and say that I really don't know what the solution is, because I don't want to be a parent before I am in a place to become one. When I finally do become a parent, I want to be an active part of that child's life. I don't think it's a good idea to start legislating good parenting, nor do I think that some kind of "parenting license" is the answer. Maybe I am cursing the dark instead of lighting a candle here, but perhaps that's because I simply can't relate to a parent who has a child and then lets Nickelodeon and Disney Channel raise him/her. I can't relate to a childhood where I was told, "No, that behavior isn't acceptable". And I certainly can't relate to a childhood where abuse is present.
You've caught me, sir/madam. I don't know the answer. But do you truly believe that having a school say "$BEHAVIOR isn't acceptable" is going to work when at home, "Do whatever you want" is the standard to follow?
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent post is quite incendiary, but makes very good points.
One of particular interest to me is the issue of the aforementioned companies using these chemicals and continuing to claim that they are not dangerous. A libertarian idealist would say that the information will get out (as it is, slowly) and if it concerns people (as it should) they will find somewhere else to buy sippy cups. But this seems inefficient to me, and it seems like in the meantime there is widespread, preventable harm being done.
Now, I think the hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations on the books do more harm than good, because 1) they tend to be so burdensome that small and innovative businesses are squeezed out by multinationals, who 2) have regulations written in their favor (someone else mentioned regulatory capture), and 3) we already have laws to punish fraud (such as marketing an unsafe item as safe). Yet I don't see a good answer to a problem like this one without regulation.
First, it is my understanding that no single product is solely responsible; it is due to the chemicals' presence in lots and lots of things, so wouldn't any single company's statement that their product is safe be kind of true, invalidating claims of fraud? Second, presumably a lot of harm is being done due to the widespread use of these chemicals, and the companies' reporting record is abysmal, so I find it unsatisfying to just say "you need to be aware of what you are purchasing." That's good in theory and probably worked well when goods were mostly made from natural items, but when everything is made out of 900 different kinds of plastic, organic compounds, synthetic materials, and who knows what else, you could spend eight hours a day trying to trace everything you use and still come up short.
So how would a real libertarian respond? To be clear, I like a lot of libertarian ideals, but there are instances where I don't see it working well. The common thread I see among them is "trouble caused by many people doing little things in aggregate."
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure they do. Just the same as clever ones. The trouble is that stupid behavior doesn't necessarily imply stupid genes.
If a computer system behaves in a stupid manner, you don't immediately think "that must be a hardware error". The first place to look is the software. Similarly, if a person behaves in stupid manner, that doesn't imply the fault is in the brain. If otherwise bright kids get trained to act in a stupid way, then their avenues for expressing that intelligence are going to be somewhat limited.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) it treats all children the same. You should learn this, because you are 7 years old. Nothing else matters. You could be a grand master in chess, but you're not allowed to write cursive yet! You have been reading since you were 3? Well, forget it, you're going to learn it all over again!
It's pretty much the same all over the US, and it has been true for at least 40 years. The child who is permitted to skip a grade, or gets into a "gifted" program is a rare creature indeed. I spent most of twelve years bored out of my skull, and two of my three sons did the same. (we won't discuss the third - he's a special case) I didn't know my wife when we were in school, but she and her sisters say the same.
I've seen no public schools in America that actually push kids to perform, then rewards them for doing so.
There are MILLIONS of students in this country who can read a textbook, discuss it for a week or two, then take the "semester finals". I was one.
The public education system in America is broken, because the entire system is geared to serve people with high-average to low-average intelligence and learning skills. This is just great for the "average" - but it hinders both the genius AND the idiot. Neither is going to learn in the manner dictated by all those averages.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:5, Insightful)
I taught high school for five years, and that was what I saw. Because all kids were tracked according to age rather than ability, you had a wide range of ability in every class. As a teacher, you've got a few choices:
1) Teach to the middle. Too hard for the dumb kids, to easy for the smart kids, but most kids get something out of it.
2) Teach too easy or two hard.
3) Try to teach to each kid's needs.
#3 is the one everyone would like to do. But it's ridiculously hard to do. I had kids in a class who were taking geometry and had algebra under their belt, and kids who couldn't multiply even with a calculator. Kids who didn't really understand what decimal places were all about. If I stop to give them instruction in the basic things that they need to learn the material I'm actually supposed to be teaching, I get questioned as to why I'm not teaching it. If your lessons are different for every kid, suddenly you need to prove that they're fair and appropriate for every kid. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up for a lawsuit when you fail Johnny but pass Timmy, and they were learning different material.
My most successful classes were ones filled with homogeneous populations of kids. When they were all at about the same level, I could teach a lot of material very quickly. Treating all kids the same is a terrible failing in the US today. It's not the only one, but it's one of the leading causes of our issues.
As secondary cause is that teachers are given a tough job, but not the freedom to do it as it needs to be done. If I taught all the kids in my classes how to actually do science, they would have all failed the government-mandated science test. Why? Because it doesn't test whether or not you can do science, it tests whether or not you're motivated to remember facts about science that you have been exposed to and then scribble in a bubble.
What's the motivation for kids to do that? There isn't any. My master's thesis was on that very topic. Their test scores don't get sent to their parents, don't go on transcripts, and most of the time, don't even go back to their teachers. Yet those scores determine how well a school is functioning, from a government standpoint.
There are a lot of things broken about the US educational system. The top issue is that teachers can't just teach what kids need to learn. We have to jump through all these ridiculous hoops, and prove that we're poor teachers, because that what the test requires.
A good science teacher is not one who teaches kids to be masters at filling in bubbles on a sheet of paper with the wrote memory of facts. Fix the current methods of assessing teaching, and you're getting much closer to solving the root of the problem.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
> reality. We do in fact have magnet schools, gifted and talented programs,
I'm guessing you don't actually have kids in school.
We are in one of the highest rated school districts in the country (USA) and our third grade "gifted program" consists of ONE HOUR a week of gifted instruction. We pulled our kids and are home schooling now.
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Monkey see, monkey do.
So, then a monkey raised by humans would speak a human language? Maybe it will grow up to be a bank teller or a fireman?
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, there are magnet schools and gifted programs, all carefully "de-fanged" so they do as much as possible without actually changing anything. I know that when I was in school, what it meant is that for one hour a day you could do something more interesting, then back to picking the shape that doesn't belong.
As for the "ordinary kids" in the middle of the bell curve, I submit that due to "no child left behind", they too get held back and learn that school is boring because the class has to wait for the low end of the curve to catch up. The difference is that they are more apt to simply develop an anti-intellectual attitude since to them school=learning, school=boring, boring=bad, so learning=bad. 5 and 6 year olds don't go into school with that attitude. For them, the ability to know the answer to those zillions of "why?s" they ask is exciting.
Part of the problem is authoritarianism in school. Schools set themselves up as a major authority figure and they want you to learn, so when the kids reach the age of rebellion, the school and anything it wants (or purports to want) gets a big target painted on it. The smaller classes are, the less strict discipline needs to be in order to maintain effectiveness.
I certainly don't mean just let the kids run around lawlessly, but certainly not the current zero tolerance (zero thought) policies in place now. If there's no effective difference in the treatment of what amounts to minor symbolic acts of rebellion and much more serious behavior, they also become the same thing in the kids' minds.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if you think this is a problem (I certainly do), I would say go to your local congressman and/or representative and tell them to put their dollars where their mouths are and to back off from education agenda with stupid laws without consulting those who are actually supposed to enact those laws. Did you know that in US annual education budget is one twentieth of the military budget and one third of government operations, making it basically the smallest piece of the pie? (see following chart [globalissues.org] -- yes, it's that little tiny, barely visible chunk). Now ask yourself how many kids are enrolled in education every year vs. how many soldiers/personnel we have in military...
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not the chemicals, it's the media (Score:2, Insightful)
I am glad that I am not the only one who has observed this.
I cannot even watch the show "Everybody Loves Raymond" it is so demeaning to men. Absolutely disgusting, it is not at all funny, it is indoctrination. It is not funny to watch abuse, regardless of who is being abused, yet a whole generation is laughing at it. Very sad.
Here is another one for you (in a very different way): "At the end of my Rope" - that show about dog training where they guy comes in and analyses why you cannot control your dog? Well I have the answer for about 90% of the cases. (and many I have observed personally among friends and family). There is no longer a dominant individual in the family, there is no leader, so the dog by its nature will assume the role. It is almost funny that people cannot see it. But really it is sad, as on that show the solution in most cases (though not stated outright) is to make the woman the family leader. Then the dog is OK, but the man is not.
Then watch the genetic effects of this, selection for large penises, dark skin and small brains. It does not look good for western culture. The Muslim extremists are right. (but their methods unforgivable)
I'm OK with it though, I dropped out of society many years ago. You can't participate when you can see the truth, but are not allowed to speak it. They want it this way, they are going down in flames and loving it.
Perhaps it is for the best.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fix the current methods of assessing teaching, and you're getting much closer to solving the root of the problem.
Well that's a hard problem. How exactly do you assess teaching properly? A standardized test is not perfect, but it's better than nothing. Especially tests like the exit exam in California.......everyone should know basic math by the time they graduate from High School. So what would be the best way to assess teaching? Remember it has to be cost effective.
MOD UP: Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Private school teachers are paid even less, but then they're not expected to deal with violent kids, and most of the children either actually want to be there, or their parents force them to want to be there.
If we started a voucher system and private schools had to accept public-school-quality students, they'd suck just as bad.
I've got a family member and a substantial number of friends just entering the teaching profession, and they all agree with this strongly. Why is this modded troll? In fact, I thought this was common knowledge, that private schools refuse to deal with the troublesome, disabled, and malnourished, and so don't face most of the problems which plague public schools.
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:2, Insightful)
...and just to add, I find it sad that despite taking opposing views, both the OP you replied to, and the article, take the viewpoint that boys being "feminine" is a bad thing. I wish some people would just grow up.
Re:Is it such a bad thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you're just subject to whatever's the opposite of misogyny. Have no fear, it's just a consequence of the overly successful second wave feminism, and it's still politically correct to treat men like they're submen (or subwomen if that makes more sense).
Neglect of Education? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Instead, it's our neglect of education. Really, it's appalling that teachers aren't some of our most highly-paid professionals."
We certainly have some problems with education in the USA. Funding and salaries are not among them, however. Indeed, in the most of the richest states in the US, there seems to be almost an inverse relationship between per-pupil funding, and SAT scores [datamasher.org]. When you compare the states on this price/performance scale, all of the top ten states are in the deep south, or the mountain west states. And while no one is getting rich teaching public schools, the meme of the starving teacher is largely a myth, at least in most states. The American Federation of Teachers' own stats show that the average K-12 salary in the US is $47,602.
Now, I have no idea what's involved with teacher training and education in Europe. But I do know that most American teachers have degrees in education, a field that attracts the very bottom of the barrel in each college class. I'm firmly onboard the movement to eliminate the education major for junior high and high school teaching, and to require that teachers have a degree in their field. Football coaches shouldn't be teaching geography or math unless they have a degree in it. The current system produces cogs in a machine that aren't very well educated themselves, let alone well equipped to educate anyone else. There are driven, outstanding teachers, but there are more cogs just going through the system for thirty years until they draw retirement. I don't know how easy it is to fire a bad teacher in Europe, but in the US it's damn near impossible if misconduct isn't involved.
Re:MOD UP: Re:Rednecks? (Score:3, Insightful)
The main component of the success of the school: parents who cared sufficiently about their children's futures to pay for their education and make the sacrifices that entailed. The rest is a side effect - kids work hard because they expect to, teachers work hard because the parents won't pay for 2nd class service, uncaring/disinterested parents won't even sign up, and finally the school can eject disruptive children.
Disruptive children *steal* the education of their classmates, and sadly for many parents there's not much they can do about it.
I would happily be a teacher in a private school, but not one in a state-funded school where being a baby-sitter is as much part of the job as teaching. I saw this in my mother who gave up teaching to being a nurse, as at least the recipients of her efforts were grateful.
Evolution at work (Score:2, Insightful)
So children raised in a more natural environment with less exposure to these things (pretty easy to do) will be more fertile (as well as not getting cancer as much according to other studies) resulting in a shift in the future population towards people who care about their health, vacate the cities and lead a more natural lifestyle eating organic foods (not necessarily Certified Big 'O' Organic but real organic). Darwinism in action.
Re:(s)he (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rednecks? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't want to be a parent before I am in a place to become one.
I was the same as you -- I wanted to wait until I could afford to be a parent, but guess what? You never can. I wound up realizing that, and was 33 before I became a dad. You think it's hard to get up at 3:00 AM to feed the baby at age 20, try it when you're over 30! I'm 57 and still not a grandparent. If there's one thing about my life I'd change, it would be waiting.