What+turns+boys+into+misfits,+Judge+Nigel+Willis,+Business+Day



=What turns boys into misfits?=


 * Nigel Willis, Business Day, 27 December 2007**

At the beginning of this month, I attended the annual prize-giving at the school where my son received an award. I observed the same phenomenon as in several previous years: in every grade and category of performance, girls were outnumbering boys about eight to one. An informal survey suggests much the same pattern occurs in coeducational schools across SA.

Why are the boys not doing so well? In a “normal” society, surely the proportions should be about equal? Indeed, there is a case to be made out that boys should, in fact, do slightly better when it comes to academic excellence. There is a solid body of research over at least the past 60 years which shows that, although the average IQ for boys and girls is exactly the same, among boys there are proportionally more geniuses at the one end and more dunces at the other end of the scale.

There are those who pooh-pooh these conclusions, and maintain that the results are skewed as a result of socialisation. There is, however, evidence that this is not so. DNA analysis shows the common male ancestor of all mankind lived about 60000 years ago, whereas the common female ancestor lived 250000 years ago.

One may draw two conclusions: the skills necessary for survival are more unevenly spread among males; and successful parenting is more unevenly spread among males. In other words, male lineages tend to die out.

Men who can successfully father children are proportionally more rare than women, but when they do propagate they do so more abundantly than women and with different partners. It has to do with the “wobbly” character of the Y chromosome, which must pass down father to son, generation after generation. The XX chromosomal phenomenon, which produces femaleness, allows, mathematically, the possibility of intergenerational “scrambling” of chromosomes, resulting in a more “balanced” distribution of skills.

So there is incontestable genetic evidence that inherent ability is more unevenly distributed among boys than girls, and one should expect not that girls should outperform boys academically but that there will be a slight imbalance favouring boys.

Questions then must be asked about the significant levels of underachievement now prevalent among boys. If, in 20 years’ time, the professions and the managerial and entrepreneurial elite are dominated by females, this will be a mixed blessing. Equality, not an inversion of centuries-old trends, is surely the goal. Besides, it is to be expected that there will be significant social pathologies if there is a vast, male, social “underclass”.

This links with another phenomenon: criminality, and especially violent criminality, is almost exclusively male. Why does so much social pathology — from membership of gangs to drug addiction to crime — have this distinctively male attribute? These conundrums of underachieving males, as well as male social pathology, are not confined to our own country. In Europe and North America, university graduates are now about 60% female. Similarly to our own country, criminality and other social pathologies are distinctly male in their profile.

The question puzzles sociologists, criminologists and political think-tanks in all advanced democracies. Answers have to be found. In SA it is imperative.

The victims of violent crime are disproportionately female. Rape and other physical abuse is, overwhelmingly, a male-on-female phenomenon. Apart from the social costs of this, there are enormous other costs in maintaining large prison populations. In any event, lives behind bars are lives wasted.

In the short term, the solutions to our problems of crime lie in better policing, but in the long run the solution has to be found socially. In this regard, it needs to be noted that criminality is not an inherently male attribute. In the country towns of Scotland, Ireland and certain other countries, the police cells for the most part stand empty.

Within living memory, Botswana was, essentially, a crime-free society. Something in the socialisation of boys in modern societies has gone seriously awry.

In the almost 30 years that I have been a lawyer, I have not come across a single serious criminal who has had a good relationship with his father. Herein, I believe, is to be found a clue. The quality of fatherhood has a critical role to play in determining the destiny of boys (and, no doubt, girls as well).

Obviously, this in turn must relate to the motivation given to boys to do well, the role models they have and many other subtle influences, which we have not yet adequately understood. Images portrayed by the media, almost certainly, play a role too.

I do not profess to have the answers. I would, however, like to stimulate some debate. Perhaps we should use this festive season to focus on how we are failing our children, especially the boys, and what we should do about it.


 * Willis is a judge of the high court and the Labour Appeal Court.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A668767**

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