[DRAFT] An Unwelcome Distraction

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

[description]The results of the recent Mathematical Aptitude and Reading Attainment Centralized Assessment Survey (MARACAS), administered by the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Ministry of Education, have shown that girls significantly outperform boys in academic performance in @@NAME@@. @@RANDOMNAMEMALE1@@, a teacher from a conservative private boys-only school, became the center of media attention when he suggested this was because teenage boys were distracted by the seductive female presence around them.

[validity]private schools are allowed

1. [option]"Temptation is the source of all evil!" pontificates @@RANDOMNAMEMALE1@@, punctuating every syllable of his statement by drilling imaginary holes into the air with his pen. "You cannot just put a bunch of boys into a classroom with voluptuous young girls in their prime and then expect them to concentrate on trigonometry." He casts a furtive but lewd glance at your intern and continues. "The boys in our school did far better than the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ average, simply because we keep them away from this temptation. Trust me, our students would soon outdo their peers in Dàguó if we implemented gender segregation in all schools."

[effect]theatrical plays in schools usually give kids their first experience with cross-dressing

2. [option]"I am appalled by the fact that we still have boys-only and girls-only schools!" exclaims @@RANDOMNAME@@, a feminist thinker, wrinkling @@HIS@@ nose at @@RANDOMNAMEMALE1@@. "How can we expect to have a functional society if men and women do not learn to co-exist? Gender-segregated schools are a hotbed for the emergence of chauvinistic ideas. We should ban them across the board and aim at gender balance in all schools in @@NAME@@. As for the boys' academic performance, well, maybe they would just do better if they stopped playing video games and did their homework instead."

[effect]many ballet schools are closing due to insufficient male student enrollment

3. [option]"As a boy who took that stupid assessment survey, let me give my two cents on this," chimes in @@RANDOMFIRSTNAMEMALE@@, your precocious teenage nephew, putting aside his uPad for a moment. "That test is really off the mark and measures utterly useless skills like how we solve pipe-and-pool problems or how to interpret a poem written five centuries ago. Many girls in my class do not seem to be bored with that, but I am. On the other hand, anything that involves more physical activity and the 'thrill of the chase' would be more appealing to boys like me. If we made school classes and performance tests more practice-oriented than abstract and theoretical, boys would perform just as well. Take my word for it."

[effect]biology classes in @@NAME@@'s schools involve catching frogs in the nearest pond for experimentation

4. [option]"If you ask me, it is stupid to try to fix a problem that is not fixable," snorts @@RANDOMNAMEFEMALE@@, a radical self-proclaimed gynosupremacist, who is dressed in purple from head to foot. "My sisters and I have been telling the world for years that men are cognitively deficient. The results of MARACAS only confirm what we have always known. Under these circumstances, we will just be beating a dead horse - and wasting lots of taxpayer money - if we insist that boys must attain higher education. It is enough if they learn their ABCs and basic arithmetics in primary school, but they should be encouraged to pursue menial jobs they are fit for after that, and women should be filling the intellectually-demanding jobs that only they are qualified for."

[effect]99% of @@NAME@@'s basket-weavers are men

[Pythaga]

I really like this one, good job!

The only real problem that I can find with it is that Daguo should be Dàguó in option 1.

[Trotterdam]

[box][description]The results of the recent Mathematical Aptitude and Reading Attainment Centralized Assessment Survey (MARACAS), administered by the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Ministry of Education, have shown that girls significantly outperform boys in academic performance in @@NAME@@. @@RANDOMNAMEMALE1@@, a teacher from a conservative private boys-only school, became the center of media attention when he suggested this was because teenage boys were distracted by the seductive female presence around them.

What, girls don't have sex drives?

Also, this would be a pretty suprising result given that most nations in real life are struggling with male-dominated academics (whether that's due to girls actually not being as good at those topics, institutionalized sexism pushing the girls down, or some more complicated combination of factors). Most nations' immediate response to such a study would not be "Okay, how do we get boys back up in the running?".

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

I really like this one, good job!

The only real problem that I can find with it is that Daguo should be Dàguó in option 1.

Fixed, thanks!

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

[box][description]The results of the recent Mathematical Aptitude and Reading Attainment Centralized Assessment Survey (MARACAS), administered by the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Ministry of Education, have shown that girls significantly outperform boys in academic performance in @@NAME@@. @@RANDOMNAMEMALE1@@, a teacher from a conservative private boys-only school, became the center of media attention when he suggested this was because teenage boys were distracted by the seductive female presence around them.

What, girls don't have sex drives?

You wouldn't believe the number of people who would say that. For many, the answer is yes. Girls either have no sex drive, or are better at controlling it than boys. *shrug*

Also, this would be a pretty surprising result given that most nations in real life are struggling with male-dominated academics (whether that's due to girls actually not being as good at those topics, institutionalized sexism pushing the girls down, or some more complicated combination of factors). Most nations' immediate response to such a study would not be "Okay, how do we get boys back up in the running?".

These types of studies almost always show that girls outperform boys.

https://www.womenintech.com/study-girls ... the-world/

As Silicon Valley struggles to inject diversity into the male-dominated halls of tech companies, a new study suggests that women have a natural head start.

In 70 percent of countries where statistics are available, the University of Missouri’s David Geary and his research team found that girls overwhelmingly outperform their male counterparts. The team had access to a standardized international exam, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the scores of 1.5 million students.

“Even in countries where women’s liberties are severely restricted, we found that girls are outperforming boys in reading, mathematics, and science literacy by age 15, regardless of political, economic, social, or gender-equality issues and policies found in those countries,” he concluded.

As you said, even though girls are usually better at school (whether it is because they are overachievers or boys are underachievers), that success does not trickle down to further stages of their lives most probably due to institutionalized sexism.

The disparity found in such a study still warrants attention, though. I can imagine a country asking why boys aren't performing as well as girls and seeking remedies for that.

[Trotterdam]

What, girls don't have sex drives?

You wouldn't believe the number of people who would say that. For many, the answer is yes. Girls either have no sex drive, or are better at controlling it than boys. *shrug*

Well yeah, some people believe that, but I'd consider it more fitting as the basis for a crazy option than an entire issue.

Even if girls have higher standards than boys, that just means they'll all be swooning over the same popular boy instead of the entire male student population. Not really an improvement, as far as not-getting-distracted goes, since it just means more catfights.

As you said, even though girls are usually better at school (whether it is because they are overachievers or boys are underachievers), that success does not trickle down to further stages of their lives most probably due to institutionalized sexism.

The disparity found in such a study still warrants attention, though. I can imagine a country asking why boys aren't performing as well as girls and seeking remedies for that.

Yeah, if I saw (and believed) a study that said that, my immediate concern would be why there's such a disparity between school grades and later success in life, and how we can go about fixing that (whether it means fixing institutionalized sexism so hiring prospects match school grades, or fixing the school exams to better measure students' actual competence at skills that are useful in adult life), not how to improve boys' grades.

Furthermore, for the people who rail against boys and girls mingling in school, their biggest reason is usually considering premarital sex or even excessive flirting by itself to be immoral (for both boys and girls, but often making a bigger deal about it with girls) rather than merely worrying about its effect on grades.

Besides, I have also seen studies finding benefits to segregated education for girls, particularly with the point that they show less awareness of "being a girl" when that's simply universal, and they're more likely to try things stereotypically associated with boys when those fields aren't already filled with actual boys.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

[description]The results of the recent Mathematical Aptitude and Reading Attainment Centralized Assessment Survey (MARACAS), administered by the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Ministry of Education, have shown that girls significantly outperform boys in academic performance in @@NAME@@. @@RANDOMNAMEMALE1@@, a teacher from a conservative private boys-only school, became the center of media attention when he suggested this was because teenage boys were distracted by the seductive female presence around them.

Feels to me like we're conflating two issues here.

One is that girls outperform boys -- it's worth noting that the meta-analysis that looked at this gathered studies from across the world, but was skewed towards having more data from nations that do these studies more often, of course.

The second is the suggestion that teenage boys do worse in mixed gender schools.

To me, these are two separate issues (or indeed, Issues).

[Australian rePublic]

So why can't girls be distracted by boys?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Indeed, and that's a third issue. UK and US studies have suggested that girls do tend to do better in single-sex schools than in mixed schools, though that data is skewed by the fact that girl's single-sex schools are more likely to practice test-based intake selection.