Males and Females in School and In the Office – Who’s Beating Whom?

A fascinating New York Times article came out February 7^th.  Written by clinical psychologist Lisa Damour, “Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office” contrasted men’s “95 percent of the top positions in the largest public companies” with females’ tendency to “study harder and get better grades.”  Damour cited research results citing women’s lack of confidence and suggesting that boys were much more likely to get that from their school experiences, even if they were less likely to show the competence of girls who “don’t stop until they’ve polished each assignment to a high shine and rewritten their notes with color-coded precision.”  She suggested that “parents and teachers can stop praising inefficient overwork,” such as students with top grades doing clearly unneeded extra credit assignments.  The best line was from an unnamed “colleague” of Damour’s saying that, if 90 was enough for an A, “the difference between a 91 and a 99 is a life.”

What I did and saw in school, though now 40 to 55 years ago, was right in line with this piece.  In my classes there were usually phalanxes of peers, almost all girls, who always seemed to be prepared, poised, and academically outstanding.  I was not.  I was one, per Damour, who did “just enough to keep the adults off their backs.”  My parents considered me an underworking underachiever who did not do enough for my future, and applied a great deal of pressure on me to do more and do better.  At times my sister, once found in the middle of the night making an unrequired large chart for a class in which she had a solid A average “just because she wanted it,” fit the girl’s grind stereotype – my mother, after opining that I had the opposite problem, said my sister, who after getting a top mark on a school project would have no interest in discussing its subject, would do well to enjoy present days more. 

What long-term effects did my school attitude ultimately have?  I don’t know how to evaluate the downside, with family financial problems also perhaps precluding a four-year Ivy League stay, but there has been one great advantage.  My most common reason for being apathetic about schoolwork was that I wanted to learn other things.  Since graduating from a good state university in 1979 at age 22 I have continued that, with both advanced degrees, a 6,000-book library, and a vast and unique set of knowledge-enhancing and teaching experiences.  I have converted many personal weaknesses, such as my atrocious grade-school organization ability, into strengths.  While my sister claimed a “very efficient mind,” mine is anything but, and I have taken enormous pleasure from that.  I have no answer for whether, for example, thirty years as a top physician would have been better for me. 

If I were advising students and teachers on how to help the former to get the most from their work efforts, some things would be clear.  Both grinds and slackers need to focus more on tactics, which Damour touched on but could have pursued further, and drop the incorrect assumption that more labor is always good.  All should encourage gaining information from tangents off school subjects, and from totally unrelated things, as well.  All students, especially in high school and college, should at least seriously consider participating in activities to which they will not later have access.  The 91%-and-99% insight above, along with the old line about what people call someone graduating last in their medical school class (the answer is “Doctor”), should be on the wall in every school if not every classroom. 

As for work settings, it is almost paradoxical that so many men and women change places.  While most people making financial sacrifices to preserve life balance are women, it is chiefly men who in pursuit of more money and success seem to lose perspective and forfeit everything else.  It would be hard for bosses to honestly stop loving workaholics, but could they more often value and reward the crucial but too often sadly undervalued virtues of preparation, planning, being on time, following instructions, making commitments, responding to messages, being generally and consistently reliable and dependable, and in general doing what the grind girls above have taught themselves to excel at?  Most cubicle workers and others with open-ended responsibilities could use more emphasis on tactics, especially in knowing what they do not need to do.  That, along with remembering that school grades by themselves have only small effects on workplace success, should keep everyone’s head screwed on more securely. 

So who is winning, the intense or the casual?  Neither.  Both are losing, as long as they fail to pay attention to their lives around them, to how such lives may later be, and to making the most of their work and study time.  As with other social problems, those of overwork and underwork are best solved by having, sharing, and using accurate information.  There need not be winners and losers in classrooms or on jobs, only people making personal choices suited best to them.  That is what we need.