This is an article from a series on girls' issues from _High Strides_, a
bi-monthly middle school newsletter.
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"Girls Can't Escape Sexism"
Anita M Seline
"Myra and David Sadker began studying sexism in the classroom in the
late 1960s.  More than 25 years later, they find it still pervasive.
The Sadkers, (she is the dean of the school of education at the American
University in Washington, D.C., he is a professor there,) have just
written a new book on their most recent findings, _Failing at Fairness.
How America's School Cheat Girls (Charles Scribner's Sons, New Yor, N.Y.
$22.)
They found that sexism pervades all levels of classrooms from
kindergarten through college.  The sexism is subtle; consequently little
is done to correct it.  They observed one second-grade teacher telling
girl students to get out of the way so that their male classmates could
play with blocks and toys in the math activity box.  In college, one
woman told them she was interested in signing up for an overcrowded
class course, but in the first class the professor cut the extra
students by demanding that students who had ovaries had to leave.
In middle school, girls face a critical juncture in successful social
and academic development, according to the Sadlers.
"Middle school is the fork in the road.  It really represents the time,
the first, girls are going to make a decision about the social world at
the expense of the academic world," says Myra Sadker.
There are many reasons for this.  Years of sexist teaching has piled up
on the girls.  And, "in middle school school, it's self-esteem that goes
first, you stop risking in class," she says.  "You get changes in
bodies.  Most boys are getting stronger, most girls are getting fatter
in a society that says you can't be too thin."
In urban areas, the problems are no different, although the Sadkers
believe more study must be done on the specific problems girls face in
these schools.  They have concluded administrators pay more attention to
males dropping out of school, even though it is more likely that boys,
not girls, will return to school earn their General Equivalency Degree.
The females who leave school--most of them because of pregnancy--are the
silent sufferers.
"What is happening with girls is they are quietly dropping out," David
Sadker says.
But when administrators look at the problem, he says, their reaction is
skewed.  They may propose establishing all-male academies even though
that does nothing for girls.
The Sadkers' book offers countless examples of teachers calling on their
male students more often than their female counterparts.  This may be
because boys are more likely to call out in class rather than politely
raise their hands, as girls are encouraged to do.  Teachers also often
give girls negative or neutral feedback: but they praise, encourage, or
challenge the boys."
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... "Uniforms?  But how will I express my originality if I'm not in 
fashion?!?!
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