Exciting news! Our Pendulum Effect podcast is in the top 10 social science shows on itunes, and listed under “New and Notable.” I think that’s quite something considering we have all of 1 episode up thus far. If you haven’t yet, visit Pendulum Effect where you can listen to the pilot episode and/or subscribe to the show. You can also find us on itunes and leave a review (good or bad).
One reason to subscribe would be the exciting guests we’ve lined up, which we could use your help with if you have any questions you would like us to ask. These include:
Christina Hoff Sommers, author, The War Against Boys. Our interview will focus on such areas as:
Education
In this book I try to correct the information and to give an accurate picture of “where the boys are.” A review of the facts shows boys, not girls, on the weaker side of an educational gender gap. Boys, on average, are a year and a half behind girls in reading and writing; they are less committed to school and less likely to go to college
Suicide
A look at the sex breakdown of the CDC[Centers for Disease Control]‘s suicide satistics reveals that for males aged ten to fourteen, the suicide rate increased 71 percent between 1979 and 1988. Girls attempt suicide more than boys, but it is boys who actually kill themselves more often. In a typical year (1997), there were 4,493 suicides of young people between the ages of five and twenty-four: 701 females, 3,792 males.
Unscientific studies and their effects
At the very time the AAUW [American Association of University Women] was advertising its discovery that girls were subordinates in the schools, the Department of Education published the results of a massive survey showing just the opposite…Girls read more books. They outperform males on tests of artistic and musical ability…Conversely, more boys than girls are suspended from school. More are held back and more drop out. Boys are three times as likely as girls to be enrolled in special education programs and four times as likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder…
Leo Braudy, author, From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity
The historian Lynn Hunt, reviewing a history of women in western Europe, once remarked that “no one would write such a book about ‘the history of men’” – because “women” is the anomalous historical category and men as such don’t have to be explained. But neither masculinity nor feminity exists as a concept in itself. Each society has had its own specific definitions of manhood and what cultural values masculinity symbolizes. The fortitute to withstand pain, the ability to interpret a sacred text, the prowess with a special weapon, the willingness to seek revenge for a slight to family:
each of these different local accents, often stressed in special rituals, constitues a particular culture’s style of masculinity. Social anthropologists try to define those styles and political activists often seek to change them. Defining masculinity itself, in other words, must interweave with defining masculinity in relation to a multitude of factors, including the context of war, which for so much of human history and in the vast majority of human cultures has been the prime place to fine oneself as a man
Ken Wiebe, fathers rights advocate with Fathers Canada: defending father’s rights, equal parenting and taking on a misandric family law system. When material from his website was used by the Status of Women’s Office as hate material, he initiated a suit against the government for defamation.
Dr. Charles Corry, President, Equal Justice Foundation, which deals with Families and Marriage, Domestic Violence against both men and women, the Courts & Civil Liberties, and Election issues.
If you have any questions you would like me to pose to these esteemed guests, send them to info@pendulumeffect.com. Also send ideas for topics or guests we might wish to contact.