Gender disparity at the geography bee

From Mark Perry:

National Geographic Bee - GW law professor Jonathan Turley reports that Minot State University professor emeritus Eric Clausen has been battling the National Geographic Society (NGS) in federal court over his claims that the national contest discriminates against girls because virtually no girls have won the national title.... 

According to Professor Clausen only 2 out of the state winners in 2009 were girls and only one girl advanced to the national finals in 2010. Clausen also claims that the “NGS knows and has known since the Geographic Bee competitions began that the contests do not provide girls with an equal opportunity to participate in the higher-level competitions.”

It appears that only five girls won state competitions in 2011, so the trend continues.

Related to this story are my observations during a recent 8th grade class field trip to Washington DC.  During our visits to the museums and other attractions, the boys appeared significantly more interested than the girls in history and politics.  They asked many more questions, including plenty of inappropriate ones.  Last time I checked, the middle school history club was mainly boys.

It could be that one of the reasons boys are drawn more to geography and history is that they tend to be the gender with a stronger interest in wars.  A quote by writer Ambrose Pierce comes to mind:  "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."  Curiously, the trend in history social studies classes seems to be to downplay the military details of wars in favor of an increased focus on the human suffering and victimization aspects.  This causes me to speculate it might be a conscious strategy designed to draw more girls into the subject of history.

On the other hand, take this quiz about two middle school clubs to consider another way our schools might be dealing with gender differences when it come to the study of history.

A funny, but sad, take on the gender inequality issue

Here's Mark Perry's "fantasy editing"* of an article describing President Obama's concern about how poorly women are faring today.  It should make us think about which gender is experiencing more inequality.

"President Barack Obama said women men have made great some strides toward full equality with men women over the past 50 years, yet more progress is needed to close an economic, college degree, and labor market gender gap.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said women men are still more likely than men to live in poverty, are: a) are underrepresented in math and engineering education for college degrees at the associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s levels, b) are underrepresented by academic field for degrees in biology, communication, education, English, foreign languages, health professions, psychology, public administration, social sciences, visual arts, optometry, pharmacy, osteopathic medicine, veterinary medicine, osteopathic medicine, and naturopathic medicine, and c) earn, on average, 75 8 percent as much as men less than women for the cohort of unmarried, childless workers under 30 who live in large cities, and d) are 20 percent more likely to be unemployed than women (over the last year).   

“We have to work even harder to close the gaps that still exist, and to uphold that simple American ideal: We are all equal and deserving of the chance to pursue our own version of happiness,” he said.  The facts that: a) 150 women will earn college degrees this year for every 100 men, b) young, single women earn 8% more than single men, and c) the negative effects of unemployment and job losses in the last recession disproportionately affected men, demonstrates that a lot more progress is needed before we achieve full gender equality.”

* Strike-outs and bold font text are Perry's edits.