Girls and Boys equal

Washington Post has a story about a study done that indicates that boys and girls have it about the same in the school years. Looking at individual areas, sometimes boys have the advantage, sometimes girls do, but as those things cancel each other out, both sexes fare pretty equally.

Although boys have the advantage in some areas and girls score better in others, they are doing about the same in a broad array of measures assessing essential dimensions of life, such as health, safety, economics and education, the researchers found.

However...

"If you're on one side or the other of the gender-wars debate, you could pick a specific indicator to buttress your case," said Kenneth C. Land, a professor of demographic studies and sociology at Duke University, senior author of the study.

Which, of course, happens.

"This reminds me of that saying, 'lies, damn lies and statistics," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "There's no question that boys and girls have disadvantages in different ways, but the variables they have chosen seem designed to show girls are doing better."

Oh, you mean like drug use, suicide, graduation rates, test scores? Variables like that? What do they want? I would think that any study proving the equality of the sexes would be what NOW people want! But apparenly a thriving female class might be dangerous to the cause. You can't protest high graduation rates and low drug use.