Getting Schooled: How Help Is Given To Latinas Versus Latinos
23 October 2009, 4:13 PM. By Alex Alvarez
You might recall a recent study we looked at on the site that suggested economic hardship - and, thus, the need to work - was the leading reason young Latinos drop out of high school, with pregnancy being among the major reasons for Latinas to do the same. These studies are particularly worrisome to us in light of the “negative PR” Latinos, Inc. has been garnering as of late due to CNN’s flawed Latino in America series, which focused its lens not so much on the success and achievements of Latinos in this country, but primarily on the negative aspects of this particular identity and on the stereotype-bolstering among us.
So it was particularly interesting to us to learn of yet another study which suggests that the discrepancy between the graduation rates of Latinos versus Latinas might be due to the fact that the plight of Latinas in the U.S. has often been highlighted and has inspired a lot of hand-wringing that eventually led to action, while young Latinos are more or less being left high and dry:
A new Pew Hispanic Center study found that while young Latinas still lag behind their female peers and fare worse than young black males when it comes to school or workforce issues, they still do better than young Latinos. The study found that 44% of Latinas with a high school degree enrolled in college vs. 34% of Hispanic boys, and that of those Latinas between the ages of 16-25 who were not mothers, almost 60% were enrolled in college or school. These modest milestones can be attributed to a number of programs created to help Latinas boost their self-esteem, resist early sex and stay in school.
This reminds us quite a bit of former First Lady Laura Bush’s initiative to help what she believed was one of the country’s most neglected resources - young men. In 2005, Mrs. Bush spoke to NPR about reaching out to boys and making sure they weren’t excluded from programs aimed at helping young people achieve:
I feel like, in the United States, that we’ve sort of shifted our gaze away from boys for the last several decades, and that we’ve neglected boys.
We believe the stereotypes that boys can be self-reliant, that boys don’t cry. And the fact is, all young children — boys or girls — and all adolescents do need a lot of support and a lot of nurturing from their parents and their teachers and the whole community.
Is this focus on Latinas - however insufficient it might currently be - the result of sexism? Machismo? Have we forgotten about Latino students?
While Latinas gain, Latino boys languish [USA Today]
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The same dynamic applies to African-Americans as well–notice the higher rate of education and employment among Black women as compared to Black men. Educated, successful Black women greatly outnumber Black men, to the point that many of them just never find other educated Black men to marry and start a family.
There’s so much to explore here with regards to Black and Latino male subjectivities and how larger cultural stereotypes mold their life expectancies and outcomes. Sexism does play a big role here. Women of color are looked at as long-suffering natural victims or at least not as threatening as their male counterparts. The whole “White men saving Brown women from Brown men” Gayatry Spivak thing applies here as well. Women, by virtue of being more passive and less threatening than men are given opportunities by mainstream society that are rarely extended to men of color, who often find themselves irredeemably demonized by mainstream society, lost in the criminal justice system or existing outside of acceptable norms, without a basic level of education and lacking basic work skills.
Blah blah I’m just spouting nonsense here, probably. But my point is that this is by no means a “Latino” thing. And if you look at the higher rates of graduation and employment for ALL women in the USA across ethnic and racial lines, you will see the same dynamic playing itself out. I’m not sure that the “hand wringing” you point out here as a result of the media representations of the plight of Latina women is really that important, or even an actual phenomenon. Women are often seen as easier to work with, less competitive and more passive, more likely to follow rules. These negative stereotypes definitely play a role in women’s success when compared to men’s success in education and the workplace, and can help to explain the seemingly disparate phenomenon of women graduating school and entering professions in greater numbers than men all while not being proportionally represented in executive and leadership roles. The aggression and competition that is needed to fulfill those roles are often not part of women’s professional development, or something.
End of half baked blog comment!
that was awesome.
This gap in achievement academically is pretty much seen all across the board, not just Latinos:
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/addressing-the-gender-gap-in-colleges/
Reading the comments from that article, one theme is common: Girls (regardless of race/ethnicity) are being taught that it is ladylike to be studious while boys are being taught that it is masculine to act rebellious and prolong adolescence, hence the “man child” phenomenon in this country.