Girls are better than boys at reading AND writing by age 10 because 'language is seen as a feminine skill', scientists claim

Politically correct rubbish! Girls have always shown up as better on verbal skills in IQ tests while boys are better at math.  It's innate

Girls are better than boys at both reading and writing as early as age 10 - a gap that only widens as they head towards adulthood, according to a new study.

Researchers came to their conclusion after reviewing the test scores of four-million American high school students, spanning a period of almost three decades.

They suggest reading and language are largely seen as feminine skills, meaning boys are less likely to work hard to improve them in a bid to conform to 'masculine ideals'.

Research shows that girls typically score better than boys in standardised literacy tests.

The trend is seen as early as age 10 and continues until the age of 18.

Previous research has shown women and men use their brains differently.  Girls use both brain hemispheres for reading and writing, while boys typically rely on just one.

Boys are also exhibit more disruptive behaviours than girls in the classroom. They are more likely to be inattentive and interrupt teachers.

Scientists also suggest that reading and language are seen as feminine skills, even from a young age.

This means boys are less likely than girls to push to improve these skills.

The finding also challenges the idea that boys and girls enter secondary school at roughly the same level, said the researchers, from Griffith University in Australia. 'It appears that the gender gap for writing tasks has been greatly underestimated,' said study lead author David Reilly. 'Despite our best efforts with changes in teaching methods, this gap does not appear to be reducing over time.' [Because it is innate]

Mr Reilly and his team crunched data on 3.9 million literacy test scores stored in the US National Assessment of Educational Progress database. Scores were from high school students in the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades - a period that spans ages 10 to 18.

Across 27 years of test scores, girls ranked significantly better in both reading and writing in the fourth grade, a gap that only widened in the eighth and twelfth grades.

'The common thinking is that boys and girls in grade school start with the same cognitive ability, but this research suggests otherwise,' Mr Reilly said. 'Our research found that girls generally exhibit better reading and writing ability than boys as early as the fourth grade.'

The team believes the shock discovery could be a result of boys being more likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability than girls.

Behavioural problems seen more commonly in boys, such as inattentiveness, may also contribute, as could the difference in the way the genders use their brains.

Girls use both brain hemispheres for reading and writing, while boys typically rely on just one, according to previous studies.

The authors also suggest the peer pressure boys face to follow 'masculine norms' could make reading less of a priority for some.

They argue that expressive writing exercises should be pushed on boys earlier to help them catch up with the other sex.

'The magnitude of the writing gender gap was really quite surprising,' Mr Reilly said. 'Many boys are highly proficient in reading, and yet really struggle when it comes to writing tasks.

'This study shows the need for a greater focus on writing beginning in primary continuing throughout high school.

'In an ever-crowded curriculum that is focusing more on STEM [Science Technology Engineering and Medicine], it highlights the increased need for further work.'

The study was published in the journal American Psychologist.

SOURCE






Feminist blogger's billboard defining 'woman' as 'adult human female' is removed after complaint from Twitter activist who claimed it would make transgender women feel unsafe

A billboard with the definition of a woman written on it has been removed after a Twitter activist complained it was 'transphobic.'

Feminist blogger Kellie-Jay Keen- Minshull raised £700 for the poster to be put up in Liverpool for a fortnight to coincide with the Labour Party conference, The Times reports.

The poster, on the side of the old Gaumont cinema on Gredington Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, bore the Google definition of a woman – 'adult human female.'

But it was removed after Dr Adrian Harrop, 31, who is not transgender, complained to billboard company Primesight that it would serve to make transgender women feel unsafe.

'This is a reminder to them that this transphobic hate group is observing them and scrutinising their presence in public life,' Dr Harrop, who lives with his husband in sunderland, told the newspaper.

'It creates an atmosphere that makes transgender citizens of Liverpool feel unsafe and unwelcome in their own city.'

In a tweet to Primesight CEO Naren Patel and other company executives on Saturday, he accused them of being complicit in 'the spread of transphobic hate speech.' He also alleged that the group behind the campaign is a 'transphobic hate group.' 

Standing for Women is a pressure group which maintains that only people born as women can be called women.

'Are you aware that 'Human Females' - aka 'Standing For Women' - is a transphobic hate group, disguising itself in an adulterated version of feminism in order to spread its propaganda & hate speech w/ impunity?' he wrote in another tweet to Primesight.

Hours later, Primesight confirmed the billboards would be taken down that evening. In a statement in response to Dr Harrop, Primesight said they were unware of the motive behind the campaign and said the order had been placed through their automated booking system. 'At first glance, this copy did not raise a red flag the way it should have done,' it added.

'Hands up, we have been misled by this campaign's messaging.

'Thanks to you, this campaign has been halted and the poster would be removed from our billboards as soon as possible.

'As you pointed out, we are proud to support the LGBTQ+ community and remain fully committed to equality for all.'

But Mrs Keen- Minshull, 44, who blogs under the name Posie Parker, blasted the decision as 'absurd' and 'Orwellian' and accused Primesight of breaching their contract with her.

'We're in a new realm of misogyny when the word 'woman' becomes hate speech,' she told The Times. 'I wanted it to be a conversation starter but this is a new level of absurd.'

SOURCE






New Research Confirms We Got Cholesterol All Wrong

A comprehensive new study on cholesterol, based on results from more than a million patients, could help upend decades of government advice about diet, nutrition, health, prevention, and medication. Just don't hold your breath.

The study, published in the Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology, centers on statins, a class of drugs used to lower levels of LDL-C, the so-called "bad" cholesterol, in the human body. According to the study, statins are pointless for most people.

"No evidence exists to prove that having high levels of bad cholesterol causes heart disease, leading physicians have claimed" in the study, reports the Daily Mail. The Express likewise says the new study finds "no evidence that high levels of 'bad' cholesterol cause heart disease."

The study also reports that "heart attack patients were shown to have lower than normal cholesterol levels of LDL-C" and that older people with higher levels of bad cholesterol tend to live longer than those with lower levels.

This is probably news to many in government. But it's not news to everyone.

"In fact researchers have known for decades from nutrition studies that LDL-C is not strongly correlated with cardiac risk," says Nina Teicholz, an investigative journalist and author of The New York Times bestseller The Big Fat Surprise (along with a great recent Wall St. Journal op-ed highlighting ongoing flaws in federal dietary advice). In an email to me this week, she pointed out that "physicians continue focusing on LDL-C in part because they have drugs to lower it. Doctors are driven by incentives to prescribe pills for nutrition-related diseases rather than better nutrition—a far healthier and more natural approach."

Cholesterol in our diets comes from animals and animal products—including eggs, meat, fish, and dairy. The government told us for decades that these foods were, to varying degrees, dangerous.

Federal dietary policy is shaped by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), which meets every five years to update its findings. The government touts the DGAC and the dietary guidelines it develops as "an important resource to help our Nation reach its highest standard of health."

The federal government's war on cholesterol, as early DGAC recommendations suggest, dates back decades. For example, the 1995 DGAC report stressed the dangers of dietary cholesterol.

"Most people are aware that high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet are linked to increased blood cholesterol levels and a greater risk for heart disease," it declares. "Choosing foods with less cholesterol and saturated fat will help lower your blood cholesterol levels."

Only in 2015 did federal dietary guidelines (mostly) halt the assault on cholesterol. Many hailed the news, while still stressing that high cholesterol levels in our bloodstreams is still a danger.

"There's a growing consensus among nutrition scientists that cholesterol in food has little effect on the amount of cholesterol in the bloodstream," a Harvard Medical School blog post noted that same year. "And that's the cholesterol that matters."

"The government's new stance on dietary cholesterol is in line with that of other nations, which do not single out cholesterol as an issue," the Washington Post reported following the release of the most recent dietary guidelines in 2016. "Yet it should not be confused with officials' continued warning about high levels of 'bad' cholesterol in the blood—something that has been clearly linked to heart disease."

But this most recent study is throwing cold water on many of those continued government warnings about blood cholesterol.

What's more, if bad cholesterol isn't so bad, then the benefits of so-called good cholesterol are also under assault. Recently, *HDL, the so-called "good" cholesterol, was itself deemed suspect in some cases.

Dietary fat also appears not to be the danger the government says it is. Another new study, reported on by Ron Bailey this week, suggests, as he writes, that the federal government's warnings to avoid dairy products that are high in fat "is bunk."

I'm not a nutritionist. I don't know if the science on cholesterol is settled. But the federal government has warned us for decades about cholesterol in our bodies and in our food. The fact those warnings are now changing means the government has, despite what I'm sure are the good intentions of everyone involved, been handing out poor dietary advice and developing regulations that reflect that poor advice.

I'm one of many who has called out the DGAC and the federal government for foisting "decades of confusing and often-contradictory dietary advice" upon the American public. I also suggested, in a column last year, that one way the government might back up its claims to possess invaluable and unparalleled expertise in the areas of food policy and nutrition would be stop regularly reversing or altering its recommendations.

"The reason that we don't know about these huge reversals in dietary advice is that the nutrition establishment is apparently loathe to make public their major reversals in policy," Teicholz says. "The low-fat diet is another example: neither the AHA or the dietary guidelines recommend a low-fat diet anymore. But they have yet to announce this to the American public. And some in the establishment are still fighting to retain the low-fat status quo."

I am not your doctor, nor your nutritionist. I have no idea what you should eat. Maybe the government should adopt that mantra, too.

SOURCE






OUCH! Michael Moore’s Anti-Trump Propaganda Film Absolutely TANKED On Opening Weekend

Early indications are that the new Michael Moore movie “Fahrenheit 11/9” may be a box office bomb of unmitigated proportions.

The leftist filmmaker who has become extremely wealthy from producing anti-capitalist propaganda has been in his heyday since President Trump unexpectedly won the last presidential election and has appointed himself as a leader of The Resistance.

But for all of Moore’s visibility and especially how heavily promoted that “Fahrenheit 11/9” has been on the late-night television circuit and cable “news” shows it has to be a stunner that opening weekend has so far been a mega-flop.

Unless traffic picks up, Fahrenheit 11/9 is headed for an eighth-place finish with only $3 million from 1,719 theaters (pre-release tracking had suggested at least $5 million-$6 million).

Moore’s satirical, anti-Trump film marks the first release from Tom Ortenberg’s new company, Briarcliff. (Ortenberg worked with Moore on Fahrenheit 9/11 while stationed at Lionsgate.) It earned just north of $1 million on Friday.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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