Reply #5: *shrug* it's been true long before the war

[Recursion]

This goes back to the '90s: girls are doing better in high school and going to college much more than boys.

I've read some interesting suggestions about why; the one I like is a social one. In school, teachers tend to reward girls for being correct and stable while they reward boys for taking risks. This leads to more spectacular successes and failures for boys than for girls (that reminds me of Ashley Montague's argument in "The Natural Superiority of Women", though he is suggesting a genetic basis for essentially the same thing), since teachers expect girls to just get the answer right and keep quiet, rather than explore and experiment.

This is completely anecdotal, but in all of the high school graduations I can remember going to, the valedictorian was male and the next dozen or so students by academic rank were female; that may be why the explanation above resonates with me.

And anyways I don't think this is a GOP issue; people have been talking about it on all sides of the spectrum (even Naomi Wolf at one point) for about a decade now. A greater percentage of girls are graduating from high school and going to college than boys, and have been for some time. I agree with you that there's a danger this could undo Title IX, etc., but if we focus on better mentoring and outreach to boys rather than punishing girls for their hard-earned success, this can be a win-win situation.