The Trouble with Gender

(Originally published in Bay Windows, October 16, 2008.)

When Peg Tyre wrote an article titled “The Trouble with Boys” for Newsweek in 2006, outlining what she saw as a national trend of boys struggling at school, it caused a firestorm of controversy. Some feminists accused her of ignoring the age-old and still ongoing struggles of girls in school, particularly in math and science. Right-wing groups used her article to “prove” that feminists had ruined public education.

Tyre has now expanded her article into a book of the same name (Crown, 2008), addressing her critics and raising many thought-provoking questions about education and gender. LGBT parents and educators would be wise to familiarize themselves with her work. She documents a rising awareness of gender-based learning differences that may drive future educational practices. As a community more aware than most of the complexities of gender, we have the opportunity to become part of the debate and help shape these practices.

Tyre brings to bear an array of national data and local examples that indicate boys across the country, in all socioeconomic and racial groups, are as a whole not performing as well as girls, especially in reading and writing. (They remain ahead of girls in high school math, but the gap is closing.) She offers her thoughts on why this is happening at various grade levels. Although there are some instances when one wants her to clarify the statistical significance of her numbers, one can’t help but feel she is on to something here, even if the details are arguable.

Despite the hubbub from those who thought she was ignoring girls’ educational needs, Tyre is clear she means nothing of the sort. “We’re all proud of the gains girls have made and continue to make in education,” she says. “Nevertheless, we need to have a rational conversation about what is ailing boys without being forced to take sides in a cultural debate left over from 1974.”

Some would say the debate about women’s rights is not “left over,” but still flourishing. Tyre’s point about not taking sides, though, is the key one. Saying that both girls and boys face gender-related learning issues in school is not contradictory. Those who claim Tyre is ignoring girls, as well as those who misinterpret her by preaching that only boys are having problems now, seem to be forgetting that it is not a matter of either/or. What Tyre’s work highlights is that gender is still a major factor in education, and any child could suffer unless we are able to accommodate gender-based differences.

Tyre warns, however, “By broadcasting our cultural expectations about children, we risk conditioning boys and girls to favor certain activities and accept certain limitations. . . . And if we’re not careful, we may find out that so-called gender-based learning differences become for students a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

This is exactly where LGBT teachers and parents can play an important role. Many of us have our own tales of breaking gender-based expectations and limitations. Some of us may learn in a style not typical for our biological gender. By sharing our stories, we can help ensure these limitations don’t bind the next generation, LGBT or not.

We need to be wary, however, of those who will seek to use Tyre’s work as yet another reason to promote the supposed superiority of mother-father households. She notes, for example, that in our society, women read much more than men. “As boys get older,” she writes, “fathers or uncles need to engage them in discussions about the kinds of things that adults read—and to gradually initiate boys into the world of literate men. . . . Boys need to see men reading.” Expect this to be quoted without the “uncle” part by the Right—but Tyre herself is careful not to limit male influence to that of a father.

If Tyre’s words are to be believed, though, they do give LGBT parents something to think about. If two dads both fall into the typical male pattern of not reading, they must make an effort to teach their son that men can and should read books. A two-mom household should similarly provide models of literate men. This does not mean, as the Right would assert, that the children of same-sex parents are “missing out” on something irreplaceable. Parents find coaches if they cannot themselves teach their kids gymnastics, say. The same principle applies here.

One factor that Tyre does not bring up, but which many LGBT people would bring into this discussion, is that gender is not in fact a binary. Whether we work to address the educational problems of girls or boys, we must be ready to accept girls who learn like boys and vice versa, as well as those who dress, talk, form relationships, or identify themselves in ways usually associated with their non-biological genders, and those who exhibit a mixture of the above.

The LGBT community can offer the benefit of our experiences here as well. All this depends, of course, on the degree to which school communities accept us. If gender plays as big a role in education as Tyre and other scholars believe, however, they cannot afford not to. Far from fearing the influence of LGBT people in our schools, the educational establishment should embrace it.