Young Writers Society • View topic - Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys?

Agree that they are unintentional consequences, but disagree with most everything else.

His whole argument hinges on males pretty much developing these problems in gendered isolation. There is no acknowledgement of how females' actions and the opportunities that have only recently been afforded them have affected the statistics he tosses about. In my area, for instance, there's a 5:3 ratio of female to male students simply because there happen to be more females in my area than males (it makes dating... interesting). In addition, women are putting off marriage in favor of advancing their educations and careers rather than dropping out of high school/never entering college to marry and raise a family. That alone introduces a lot of women into the pool of students that would not have been present even a decade ago.

He also plays upon commonly- and strongly-held stereotypes, such as girls don't game or watch porn. Newsflash: they do. It's just not socially acceptable for them to be open about it, and so they aren't. Usually. If you look at the comments, you'll see these stereotypes running rampant and being further reinforced, such as in this one:

C.V. wrote:Why don't girls play video games? Any girls out there, can you answer? i mean I see them with their heads in their computer (shopping, messaging, checking out news about celebs), and in their smart phones (same), but they don't seem to get that intense absorption into games. I remember one time, when I was younger, playing Age of Empires... starting at 11 pm. The next thing I knew it was 6 am...

Just as there are different demographics among males (not all are gamers, after all), so too are there different demographics among females. If one were to clear theirself of all preconceptions about what a gamer "looks" or "acts" like and actually talk to some girls, I think one would find a surprising number of girls game more than casually, or else did in the past when they had the time to. The thing is, in public settings, these girls don't look or act like the stereotypical gamer. They can be pretty, fashionable, popular, socially adept, and extroverted, and they can also be the more typical introverted, plain, closed-circle of friends, and socially awkward types one expects.

As for his section on social awkwardness, I'm pretty sure men (and women) have been feeling that for decades, if not centuries. How to talk to members of the opposite sex/gender is something you have to be willing to learn for yourself, though it does help to have parents and other family members of the opposite sex/gender you can actually talk to.