Mary Pipher-"Academic Selves"

To be honest I did not enjoy Piphers article as much, though I thought it was an interesting topic, the way it was written pretty much bored me. I feel that she was mainly stating just facts, yet at the same time getting across her opinion , there was not really any emotion to appeal to the audience. However, I was never in a position were I felt that I was being "shortchanged". Obviously, in my classes there were always other students that were smarter than me, both boys and girls. Personally, I ex cell in reading and writing and I am not as proficient in math. But this article made me wonder, (and I relate this to sociology), that maybe women are steered to English subjects and boys are steered to technical subjects. With that said, the appraisal between the genders does amaze me. An accomplishment of any kind is nonetheless an accomplishment. There should not be a difference in the level of praise. Yet I can agree that girls tend to be more internal thinkers. "Because their success is is attributed to good luck or hard work and failure to lack of ability, with every failure, girls' confidence is eroded" (280). Not to say that girls are victims of their feelings, it is just that society has trained them to be more multi-taskers and not only do but think about many things at one time. Though, everyone is different; some people can multi-task and others can not. The main idea is that socialization does play a big part in how boys and girls are tracked into certain behaviors whether we realize it or not. At a young age boys are taught more technical career asprations some thet may not involve as much emotional connection and grils tend to be manuevered toward careers that deal with emotions, thoughts, and peer relationships, of course that is a generalization.

I also think the whole idea of being afraid to be successful is insulting. There are so many opportunities that can open because of success in academics whether they are big or small. I was very troubled when I read "'All I care about is my friends. grades don't matter to me' "(281). It bothered me, not the fact that a young girl said that but that any one could say that; education should not be taken for granted regardless of gender. No one should be afraid of academic achievement.