Compare Contrast, Kimmel and Garibaldi

Eng 120- 053
03/04/2012
Essay 1: Compare and Contrast
Two writers - Garibaldi, a high school teacher and Kimmel, a professor of sociology noted that consequences of feminism movement are harming boys in school and later in life. Kimmel and Garibaldi present their view on gender problem in their articles “How the school shortchange boys” and “A war against boys”. They both make passionate arguments and prove that boys became disadvantaged in modern feminized classrooms. Kimmel’s arguments about boys’ problems in the American educational system are more convincing than Girrabaldi’s, because his style of argumentation is more objective.
Garibaldi shares his professional experience in order to prove that boys are the ones who are being short changed in schools today. He states that the female elementary teachers do not understand boys, they can’t accept that “boys don’t want to be girls” (536). Garibaldi tells story about his special education student Brandon to show how boys can became a victim of unfair educational system. He emphasizes that most of special education students are boys, and this means schools are shortchanging boys.
Garibaldi has many flaws in his arguments. There is a lack of evidence that “boys will more often than not be shunted to the background in photos or be absent entirely or appear sitting on wheelchairs” (540). Author fails to provide any statistics to support his point. He uses hasty generalization to show that “a female teacher, especially if she has no male children of her own…will tend to view boys’ penchant for challenging classroom assignment as disruptive, disrespectful- rude” (537). Garibaldi conducts that more girls earned high school diplomas than boys and he utilizes percentages to show this, but actual numbers of boys and girls will likely uneven, which could lead to improper results.
Garibaldi’s language is extreme, which makes his writing less persuasive. For example, he says, ”females diagnosed with learning disabilities simply don’t exist” (538). Even if number of girls in special education programs is smaller in comparison with boys, Garibaldi is not embarrassed to reduce it to zero. He is more emotionally attached than Kimmel, aggressive and outraged.
Kimmel in his article “A war against boys” indicates boys’ problems such as lower grades, lower class rank, fewer honors, but unlike Garibaldi he does not take boys’ side. He discusses differences between boys’ and girls’ behavior in academic environment “girls suppress ambition, boys inflate it” (547). Kimmel believes that girls do better in some academic areas and males do better in others. He provides logical explanation for girls' rising test scores compared to boys. Kimmel clarifies, “Girls are more likely to undervalue their abilities, especially in the more traditionally “masculine” educational arenas such as math and science. Only the most able and most secure girls take courses in those field. Thus, their numbers tend to be few, and their mean scores high” (547).
Kimmel supports his arguments with strong evidence by using different resources such as “Raising Cain” Michael Thomson and Dan Kindlon, “The wonder of Boys” Michael Gurian and others. Kimmel not only gives statistics, but also analyses and interprets it. For instance, he indicates that increasing number of girls’ enrollment to college can be just result of rising overall number of college students.
Kimmel is more objective. Kimmel recognizes that boys, on many levels, are not doing as well as girls in school, but broader factors, involving race, political environment and, most significantly, cultural forces have great influence. Kimmel uses statistic data to prove that, “The numerical imbalance turns out to be more a problem of race and class than gender”. He more deeply than Garibaldi investigates disadvantaged boys’ position. Hence, Kimmel provides more evidence, strongly support his arguments, uses more formal language than Garibaldi’s. His style of argumentation is more persuasive and objective.