Thread by @lymanstoneky

I think it's a bit much to call it an ideology of masculinity when a lot of it is wildly differential rates of diagnosis for ADD, ADHD, autism, and a gajillion other learning disorders. Differential rates of violent death by sex can be identified in pre-Neolithic remains!

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1437761928034754570

A theory of sex differences in education which doesn't account for the factors we know are OVERWHELMINGLY the most predictive of educational performance (diagnosed learning or attention issues and documented disciplinary issues) seems kind of weird.

And attributing it to a specific masculine ideology is also odd. There may be ideology involved, but the reason for differential rates of male diagnosis for ADHD may be related to ideology, but not an ideology we can call machismo.

Quite the opposite: some have cogently argued (over)diagnosis of these conditions in boys is actually a pathologization of "normal" male behaviors!

Wherever you land in this, the idea that what's going on is "toxic masculinity" and that's why boys have so much higher rates of autism diagnoses is kind of absurd.

Likewise, it's hard to attribute disciplinary issues to a specific ideology related to sex since we observe differences in propensity to violence by sex across an extremely wide range of cultures and periods. It may not be *universal*, but it's *extremely common*.

I agree with @DKThomp we should look to changing social conditions as a key factor explaining changing differentials in outcomes by sex (i.e. we should not assume that "men changed" and got worse). But I think we should not collapse "social conditions" into "ideas about gender"

I also don't think we should see these possibly deeper roots of difference and then conclude all differences are inevitable. Maybe some of those diagnoses are excessive (note: high quality research confirms ADD/ADHD diagnoses are often excessive and harmful to kids).

And maybe some of those excessive diagnoses are themselves related to an anti-masculine ideology which we can improve society by correcting (i.e. a view that traits like a propensity towards fighting *necessarily* need *disciplinary correction* might be problematic).

On the other hand, some factors might be environmental: maybe the prevalence of problematic behavioral disorders is influenced by environmental pollutants, conditions during upbringing, poverty, neighborhood composition, etc.

e.g. we know that kids already predisposed to ADD/ADHD-style disorders have those disorders greatly amplified in many childcare/daycare type settings, for example: dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/hand…

The point is just that *even if* there are "deep roots" to current social differences, that doesn't necessarily mean we just need to throw up our hands.

If it turns out that male underperformance in school creates other bad social outcomes down the line, and that underperformance in school is related to, say, not enough physical activity in school.... that is solvable!

You can have more recess, move classes outside, do different schooling models, plan different kinds of lessons. Deep differences do not have to mean persistent inequalities.