Are Girls Smarter
By George Anderson
The good news is that recent reports find “girls are graduating from high school and college and going into professions and businesses in record numbers.”
The bad news is boys appear to be lagging behind.
Dr. Michael Thompson, school psychologist and author of Raising Cain, spoke to 60 Minutes, “Girls are being told, ‘Go for it, you can do it. Go for it, you can
do it.’ They are getting an immense amount of support. Boys hear that the way to shine is athletically. And boys get a lot of mixed messages about what it means to be masculine
and what it means to be a student. Does being a good student make you a real man? I don’t think so… It is not cool.”
Business Week’s coverage, The New Gender Gap, reported “For 350 years, men outnumbered women on college campuses. Now, in every state, every income bracket, every
racial and ethnic group, and most industrialized Western nations, women reign, earning an average 57% of all BAs and 58% of all master’s degrees in the U.S. alone. There are 133
girls getting BAs for every 100 guys — a number that’s projected to grow to 142 women per 100 men by 2010, according to the U.S. Education Dept. If current trends continue, demographers
say, there will be 156 women per 100 men earning degrees by 2020.”
Moderator’s Comment: Will the 21st Century belong to women? What will current educational and business trends mean for retailers in the years ahead?
Its been said that retailers need to get in better touch with their consumers, predominantly women. Women marketing and selling to women – now that’s a
novel concept. [George
Anderson – Moderator]