Customer Reviews

The Miseducation of Women

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This book focuses on Education Policy and how feminism has shaped girls' education today. It is a book about life and choices, admittedly women's choices, but what's wrong with that? Women write about men all the time, so why shouldn't Tooley tread on some feminist toes, put himself into the lions den (or should that be lionesses den?) and write what indeed is a very well structured and argued book. It is interesting and a true pleasure to read from the point of view of both its style and content. The book will raise all kinds of emotions within the reader. It has humour as well as self confessional moments, it will provide you with an insight into the works of feminists, both past and present, as well to stimulate you into learning more about evolutionary psychology and how it shapes who we are. It will make you question your own schooling and whether you have been shaped by the equality feminists of the 70s and 80s, rightly or wrongly. Tooley wishes to celebrate the differences between women and men, it neither denigrates women, not talks about turning the clock back where women were denied choices. In fact Tooley does totally the opposite. He wishes to celebrate the beauty of women, their role in the family, and values those women who choose not only motherhood and family life, but those who choose to be Prime Ministers and speakers of the House.

This book focuses on Education Policy and how feminism has shaped girls' education today. It is a book about life and choices, admittedly women's choices, but what's wrong with that? Women write about men all the time, so why shouldn't Tooley tread on some feminist toes, put himself into the lions den (or should that be lionesses den?) and write what indeed is a very well structured and argued book. It is interesting and a true pleasure to read from the point of view of both its style and content. The book will raise all kinds of emotions within the reader. It has humour as well as self confessional moments, it will provide you with an insight into the works of feminists, both past and present, as well to stimulate you into learning more about evolutionary psychology and how it shapes who we are. It will make you question your own schooling and whether you have been shaped by the equality feminists of the 70s and 80s, rightly or wrongly. Tooley wishes to celebrate the differences between women and men, it neither denigrates women, not talks about turning the clock back where women were denied choices. In fact Tooley does totally the opposite. He wishes to celebrate the beauty of women, their role in the family, and values those women who choose not only motherhood and family life, but those who choose to be Prime Ministers and speakers of the House.

This book doesn't have a subtitle, which is a pity. It would go something like: The Totalitarian Rule of the Feminist Educators. James Tooley's story is that education has been utterly wrecked by ruthless and aggressive feminists who have stopped at nothing less than an education system utterly subservient to their agenda.

These "equity feminists" seem to think that the ideal life trajectory is that of a man: education followed by career. Why? They never seem to have thought of that. They (the Beaver, Friedan, etc.) just assumed that the grass was greener on the other side of the gender fence.

Now, you could say, why not? If women want to live the life of a man, why not?

Why not indeed? Tooley quotes Carolyn Graglia who was warmly encouraged by her teachers in the 1940s and 1950s, as a working-class girl, to go to college and become a lawyer. That was before the feminist revolution in education.

But why do feminists force every single boy and girl onto their Procrustean bed? In Britain girls and boys must take exactly the same subjects in school until age 16, Tooley writes. Then, as soon as there is choice, the girls veer towards languages and psych. and the boys start to choose hard science.

This book gave me something of an epiphany. I've been wondering for years: what is it that has wrecked the government education system of today? Surely we couldn't have have wrecked it merely with money and bureaucratic neglect?

Tooley gives us the answer. It is the hegemonic feminists who have ordered everything in government education, down to the smallest detail, to educate girls to their agenda and make them into "independent women," the ideal of Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex.

Their power, determination, and monomaniacal cruelty is breathtaking.

The author, an educator, blames equality feminism for the "Bridget Jones Syndrome", basically the angst of a professionally successful thirty-something woman, unable to find a mate. I agree with him that the interplay of workplace reality and education today, shortchages all those women who would be perfectly happy staying at home and raising a family. I disagree with him that it is due to schooling, or feminism. He has completely overlooked the role of the economy and the job market. In the "knowledge economy", where the bar is constantly raised, survival of a family, at least in the US, is seriously jeopardised without two earners. My perspective is that of a working married woman, juggling family and career. We do not work for luxuries, or vacations abroad, but for access to housing in better school districts, which will, hopefully, help our children's earning potential, and therefore, chances of survival. That is quite consistent with evolutionary psychology. Our husbands are glad we work, because if they lose their job, then the family can still have health benefits through us. It is the cut-throat, insecure reality of today's economy that keeps us in the marketplace, not any feminist ideas, or any education bias. And when our daughters graduate from college with huge debts, thanks to the ever-rising tertiary education costs, they will have no other option but to maximize their earning potential. I am surprised that the author did not bother to look at economic factors. I also kept wondering if he was married or not, if he had sons or daughters, or both. He seemed strangely out-of-touch with anything but his own academic reality.