Does our society treat boys like malfunctioning girls? In this article, I am going to show you a whole bunch of numbers which prove that our boys have fallen behind our girls in many different areas. From a very early age, our society tends to reward feminine characteristics and it tends to suppress masculine characteristics. Little boys just don’t like to sit still and pay attention for long stretches of time. They are designed to be hunters and explorers and adventurers. But our schools are not designed for hunters and explorers and adventurers. As a result, boys tend to have disciplinary problems more often than girls, and girls tend to get higher grades than boys.
Without a doubt, there are a lot of girls that are struggling in this day and age too, and I don’t want to minimize that one bit. Our system of education is deeply broken, and there are millions upon millions of broken families in this nation. So the truth is that we have failed both genders.
But statistics show that our boys are faring significantly worse than our girls. The following are 12 facts that prove that our society is causing boys to fall way behind girls from a very early age…
#1 Boys are being forced to repeat kindergarten far more often than girls…
For every 100 girls who repeat kindergarten, 145 boys repeat the grade. Students who are retained often exhibit behavioral problems, perform below their peers in literacy skills during kindergarten, and, on average, continue to lag behind their peers academically by the end of 1st grade, research shows.
#2 Girls outperform boys in reading and writing by a very wide margin…
On average, girls in 3rd grade outperform boys in reading and writing by roughly half a grade level. By the end of 8th grade, girls are almost a full grade ahead. That’s according to a 2018 study from Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis that tracked assessments from 10,000 districts across the nation.
#3 In the 8th grade, only 20 percent of our boys are proficient in writing…
Compared to 41% of girls (which is itself not very good), by 8th grade only 20% of boys are proficient in writing. Girls score on average 0.15 standard deviations above boys in reading from kindergarten through high school. And today, reading and verbal skills predict college attendance.
#4 In high school, girls have much higher GPAs than boys do…
Girls, in addition to being more likely to take advanced courses in high school, tend to earn higher grade point averages than boys in high school. In one statewide study of public high school students, 51 percent of graduating female students earned a high school GPA above 3.0, compared to 36 percent of male students. Girls were 1.9 times more likely to be in the top 5 percent of graduating GPAs, and boys were 1.6 times more likely to be in the bottom 5 percent of GPAs.
#5 This next fact really shocked me. In the United States, boys are approximately twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD or autism…
Boys are roughly twice as likely as girls to be diagnosed with A.D.H.D. or autism, though experts caution that those may be underdiagnosed in girls, for whom symptoms can show up differently.
#6 Boys are much more likely to be suspended or expelled from school…
Boys are roughly 2.5 times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than girls; of all expulsions from public school in the 2017-2018 school year (the last year the National Center for Education Statistics has available data), 72% of all expulsions and 70% of suspensions were of boys.
#7 Suicide rates for young males are far higher than suicide rates for young females…
Overall, suicide is more prevalent among men than women, and has increased among young people. But the increases are far greater for young men. In 2023, the suicide rate for males ages 15 to 24 was 21 per 100,000, up from 11 in 1968, according to an analysis of C.D.C. data by the American Institute for Boys and Men. The suicide rate for young women was five per 100,000, up from three.
#8 Girls graduate from high school at a much higher rate than boys do…
All this leads to a lower likelihood of graduating high school on time for boys than girls — 83 percent for boys compared with 89 percent for girls, according to a Brookings Institution analysis.
#9 Studies have shown that those that drop out of high school are much more likely to commit crimes and are much more likely to fall into poverty…
Boys who lag behind in school are less likely to graduate high school than girls. More high school dropouts means more crime, more suicides (even after controlling for gender disparities in the suicide rate), greater poverty, and greater unemployment. Rather than producing productive, well-adjusted citizens, high-school dropouts threaten the social fabric and increase stresses on the tax base.
#10 Young women enroll in college at a much higher rate than young men…
Women also outnumber men in college enrollment, which is linked to broader career prospects and higher earnings. Of recent male high school graduates, about 57 percent are enrolled in college, barely up from 54 percent in 1960, federal data shows. In that same period, women’s college enrollment has surged past them — 66 percent are now enrolled, up from 38 percent. (For both, enrollment is down from prepandemic highs.)
#11 After college, young men are much more likely to live with their parents…
Among men ages 25 to 34, 19 percent still live with their parents, up from 14 percent in 1983, according to census data. Of women that age, 13 percent live with their parents, up from 11 percent four decades ago.
#12 One of the biggest reasons why young males are falling behind is because they aren’t getting enough time with their fathers…
The statistics are jarring. Young men without both parents are more likely to spend time in prison than graduate college, according to sociologist Brad Wilcox’s Get Married. In the United States, the second leading cause of death for men under 45 is suicide. Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt contends in Men Without Work that male workforce engagement is at the level it was during the Great Depression.
Political scientist Warren Farrell and counselor John Gray point out in The Boy Crisis that by age nine, children who are not getting enough time with their fathers have telomeres (chromosome indicators which predict life expectancy) 14% shorter than average.
We need to have strong families if we want to have a strong society.
There is no way that we can get around that.
Unfortunately, more marriages are failing and more families are breaking up with each passing day.
And then when boys from broken homes go to school, they are treated like they are malfunctioning girls.
So now we have an enormous societal crisis on our hands, and turning things around will certainly not be easy.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.