One proposed solution is to form all-boys schools. For the better part of the history of Western culture, all-male formal education was the rule for centuries. Co-education is a rather recent development.
In all-male formal education in Western culture, which was for centuries carried on in Latin, contests and competitiveness in formal learning activities were encouraged and recognized in the classroom, not just in extracurricular sports activities.
However, many male educators over the centuries also practiced corporal punishment in ways and to degrees that would not be acceptable in the United States today.
Oddly enough, not only the practice of corporal punishment in formal education fell by the wayside as girls were admitted more and more to formal education, but so did the emphasis on classroom contests and competitiveness in formal education.
However, as I write, girls and women in the United States are engaging in extracurricular sports activities on an unprecedented scale. Look at how many consecutive basketball games the women's basketball team at the University of Connecticut has won without a defeat!
Nevertheless, everybody who has ever played an organized sport knows that the joys of winning are usually balanced out by defeats. Oftentimes, defeats outnumber victories. In any event, American boys and men glory in athletic contests. Have you heard the expression "March Madness"?
But the point of sports competition is to learn to enjoy the thrill of the game, the contest.
Now, Lawrence Summers famously lost his job as president of Harvard University for discussing why women scientists do not often rise to the highest ranks among scientists. After watching the blow-up about his deliberately provocative comments about women scientists, I nevertheless want to venture walking where angels might fear to tread.
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