The Communication Gap Between Boys and Girls

An article in the Vancouver Sun reports that boys are lagging behind girls in communication skills and that this is having a profound effect on their success throughout life. In the primary years, girls are better at communication than boys. This was not an issue earlier because the gap was closed by fourth or fifth grade, but now language requirements are more stringent earlier on in school. Boys no longer have the opportunity to catch up and start off behind. From this predisposed disadvantage they never have a chance to recover.

The repercussions are extreme. Boys do worse in school and then lose interest. School becomes something for girls. Thus, fewer boys are graduating from college. In fact, only 39% of the students graduating from college in Canada are male. This breakdown between men and women was even only a generation ago. Particularly in today's society, having a college degree is imperative. It is now a basic requirement for most jobs, just as the standard used to be a high school degree. Not only does this unabridged communication gap make it more difficult for men to express themselves in everyday life, but not it is also more difficult them to even enter the workplace.

This lack in the facility of language use has a very extreme effect. It demonstrates the importance in our ability to express ourselves. These are skills that can be cultivated, and clearly they are skills that need to be taught. The repercussions extend even farther in that it is then more difficult for men to get married because most women don't want to marry down in education level.

These effects are very dramatic on many personal levels for men. They all stem from the fact that boys are no longer receiving the time they need to develop these skills. They start off at a disadvantage that they never have time to recover. With school becoming more and more language focused, even math is taught with more and more word problems, boys don't even have a chance. This is something that needs to change. For everyone's sake.

I found this topic to be extremely interesting. It reminded me of one of the situations from Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. One chapter spoke about the hockey league and that cuts are made every February as to which boys should move up to the next level. As it turns out, the boys with birthdays closest to the cut-off date are much more likely to move up in level because they are the oldest and thus the biggest. As a result, though they may have no more talent, at least initially, they receive the most coaching and training because they appear to have more promise. Slowly they do get better than their younger peers just because they are given more attention and direction. It's a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. This is what is happening with boys and the educational system. Clearly it is something that needs to change.