Opinion | Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office (Published 2019) (2024)

Sunday Opinion|Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/sunday/girls-school-confidence.html

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Hard work and discipline help girls outperform boys in class, but that advantage disappears in the work force. Is school the problem?

Opinion | Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office (Published 2019) (1)

Opinion | Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office (Published 2019) (2)

By Lisa Damour

Dr. Damour is a clinical psychologist.

From elementary school through college, girls are more disciplined about their schoolwork than boys; they study harder and get better grades. Girls consistently outperform boys academically. And yet, men nonetheless hold a staggering 95 percent of the top positions in the largest public companies.

What if those same habits that propel girls to the top of their class — their hyper-conscientiousness about schoolwork — also hold them back in the work force?

When investigating what deters professional advancement for women, the journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman found that a shortage of competence is less likely to be an obstacle than a shortage of confidence. When it comes to work-related confidence, they found men are far ahead. “Underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in,” they wrote. “Overqualified and overprepared, too many women still hold back. Women feel confident only when they are perfect.”

As a psychologist who works with teenagers, I hear this concern often from the parents of many of my patients. They routinely remark that their sons do just enough to keep the adults off their backs, while their daughters relentlessly grind, determined to leave no room for error. The girls don’t stop until they’ve polished each assignment to a high shine and rewritten their notes with color-coded precision.

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We need to ask: What if school is a confidence factory for our sons, but only a competence factory for our daughters?

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Opinion | Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office (Published 2019) (2024)

FAQs

Why are girls outperforming boys in school? ›

From elementary school through college, girls are more disciplined about their schoolwork than boys; they study harder and get better grades. Girls consistently outperform boys academically. And yet, men nonetheless hold a staggering 95 percent of the top positions in the largest public companies.

Why do girls care about school more than boys? ›

In fact, boys and girls have similar intelligence rates. The difference is that girls are working harder than boys because they know that their future success depends on their grades. For boys, there are many alternative opportunities and paths to success, so a good grade isn't the sole path to attainment.

Are boys punished more than girls in school? ›

Not only do boys come to school with more behavioral problems than girls, but they are also punished more for them. The way schools respond to boys' behaviors plays a significant role in shaping their educational outcomes years later.

Do girls get better grades than boys in your school? ›

Girls often outperform males in the humanities, languages, and reading abilities when the results of standardized tests, which have a set scoring system, are employed, while boys score better in math. However, when teachers give grades, females outperform males across the board. What is this?

Do boys perform better in school than girls? ›

Nationally, girls do better than boys on reading tests but trail boys on math tests. I analyzed nationally representative data on boys' and girls' fifth-grade reading and math test scores and reports of their classroom behavioral engagement throughout elementary school.

Why do boys drop out of school more than girls? ›

Interviews with students, educators and researchers point to several factors. Men generally can earn the same wages as women with less education. But boys also are more likely to face suspensions or other discipline knocking them off track, and they don't pursue help as often when they face mental health challenges.

Can a teacher say no to the bathroom? ›

Unless you have some sort of medical condition and you have an accommodation waiver (504), they don't have to let you go to the bathroom whenever. There should be opportunities for you to use the restroom during the day, but the school can dictate when that is.

Is it illegal to whip your child with a belt in Texas? ›

Spanking or physically disciplining children is legal in Texas as long it's reasonable and doesn't cross the line into abuse.

Do teachers favor girls more than boys? ›

Contributor. Teachers give higher grades to girls than to boys with the same academic ability, according to a study published today in the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

Do girls learn faster than boys? ›

Types of Learning: How Boys and Girls Are Different

Girls tend to mature a little faster than boys, developing language skills sooner and giving them the edge over boys in reading, writing, and speech. While boys are lagging behind girls on writing assignments, they are often ahead in math and science.

Do girls or boys have a higher GPA? ›

Throughout high school and college, female students generally earn better grades than male students and are rated as having better competencies and skills.

Do pretty girls get better grades? ›

New psychology findings suggest that attractive students earn higher grades in school, but for female students, this beauty premium disappears when classes are taught remotely.

Do boys generally get better grades in school than girls? ›

Boys' grades, on average, are lower than girls'. But researchers found some good reasons they don't need to be as concerned about good grades as the girls.

When girls outperform boys, the gender gap in high school math grades? ›

Because girls and boys perform similarly on standardized math tests, the observed gender differences in teacher-assigned grades is likely associated with differences in other student behaviors such as attitude towards study, homework completion, and classroom conduct among other measures which are not fully captured by ...

Is school designed more for girls or boys? ›

Some might assume that based upon the expectations of high school, the education system is designed solely for girls. On the contrary, school is what the individual makes of it. Boys have just as much of a chance at succeeding that girls do.

Does gender affect academic performance? ›

Recent studies in the developed world have shown a reversal in academic performance between males and females, with females outperforming males in almost all disciplines at various levels of the educational ladder (see Grant and Behrman 2010; Tshabalala and Ncube 2016; Morita et al. 2016; Perez-Felkner et al.

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