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Who Asked Us -- The New (Female) Nerd and the 'Gender Gap'
The new gender gap is all about attitude, says one teen. The new nerd is
a hard-working girl, while boys try hard to not try too hard. That's why
so many girls are achieving more than boys in high school and college.
By Sophie Theis,
YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia
PIEDMONT, Calif. -
July 21, 2006
- The nerd has persisted as a consistent
character of high school practically since the invention of group
education. We see him with frequency in our own lives, and in pop
culture, too. The nerd reliably makes an appearance in every
teen-targeted blockbuster, novel or comic. But now, the stereotypically
male nerd is almost exclusively female.
No longer is nerdiness -- diligence and commitment to school -- so
derogatory a characteristic. In fact, now, it is socially prized, but
just in young women. Male nerds? No more.
The nation is antsy about this new trend, and so are teens. "Girls are
taking over!" exclaimed my boyfriend Tom, paralleling the media's
hysteria over this distinctive gap in the two genders' achievement. USA
Today reported that women now comprise 57 percent of American
universities.
I live in Piedmont, a teensy town surrounded by Oakland. If you imagine
upper-middle class, Piedmont is easily the archetype. It's white, it's
wealthy, and it's wild about success. With staggeringly high
expectations for its students, at least 95 percent graduate and go to
college. One would think that this positive pressure would push
everybody -- both genders -- to the heights of success, but no. Not at
all.
Watching Piedmont High's graduation ceremony for the class of 2006, I
pondered this "gender gap." Again, the valedictorian and salutatorian
were female. Yellow tassels fluttered on the caps of many more
graduating senior girls than boys, indicating membership in the
California Scholarship Federation. Females stood up to receive honors
out of proportion to guys. On the published list of Piedmont
matriculations, the most prestigious, coveted colleges are being
attended by girls. The majority of the California State Universities and
community colleges sit next to male names.
Females dominate the student council, clubs and projects. The
grade-worriers, the note-card makers, the hour-long studiers, the
highest grade-obtainers -- all female. Are girls suddenly smarter than
guys? Does school just no longer work for them? No. The gender gap is
all about the energy invested in school, not the intelligence.
Girls' and guys' academic attitudes vary just as much as their academic
achievement does. When girls talk about grades, you hear stress and
effort. They worry about competition and vocalize their anxiety over
grades. When admired males talk about school, the conversation is often
a contest to see who could put in the least amount of effort to do the
best. Who could take a test drunk and still pull off a passing grade.
Who could scratch an essay worth 15 percent of his grade during the
class before. It's characterized by an ostentatious carelessness, and
underscored by an implicit disdain for nerdiness. Nerdiness has become
girliness, and guys don't want to be feminine.
Success, however, is certainly not girly. Males still want and expect
success, even as they disown any appearance of working for it. With
hundreds of years of male-dominated society, a guy sees it as highly
likely that he too will be successful; it feels almost inevitable.
However, guys now see success as unrelated to academics. School feels
unnecessary -- a simple, arbitrary obstacle course. To many guys,
academic exertion feels too much like conformity, tolerance and
obedience.
These qualities are now expected in the modern girl. As a male peer of
mine said, "School doesn't cater to girls; girls cater to school."
Femininity is obedience to expectations, tolerance of hard work, and
willingness to work for others, all qualities that when translated to
the modern classroom enable academic success. With prideful graduation
ceremonies and published matriculations, my community showers girls with
praise and attention for fulfilling this societal role, which is now
easily quantifiable with a simple transcript, test scores and list of
extra-curriculars.
This idea of wanting to make sure you're as prepared as possible for the
"real world" motivates me to take advantage of the opportunities around
my community. There is no guarantee that I will end up in my dream life,
but I feel that I can start taking steps now to insure it by investing
effort in school. I explore my community and get involved to enrich and
expand my life's perspective, but I probably would not be quite as
active if there did not exist such support -- and pressure -- from
society. On top of all this, there is the feeling that in order to be
considered equal to males, us females have to be better than them. We
have to prove our worth. It's all in the outlook.
Society's pressures have created a new ideal female. Nerdiness -- caring
about school -- is now mandatory for the cool female, along with the
typical desired traits of attractiveness and sociability. Instead of the
movies' airhead cheerleader as the popular campus queen, in the modern
day, the admired female is smart, concerned about school and active in
achieving her success. Now the male cares nothing about school, even if
it ultimately hurts his chances at success. His new role is to be
invincible to failure.
Sophie Theis, 17, lives in Piedmont, Calif., and
is an intern at YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia. |
