Man this was so far the craziest story I have read. I really want to see this ladies (Mary Pipher) proof of everything she has said, because to me it sounds like she talked to a couple girls and made generalizations for the whole female race. WOW.

Okay so some points that drove me berserk were on the first page, the last sentence, "I know one teacher who, when she reads to her class, routinely changes the sex of the character so the girls will have stronger role models."
Well my dilemma is not the fact that it might be true that story characters are more likely to be male than female, I really have no idea what my elementary school teachers read to me, or what they read now, but in my opinion girls do not usually have short story characters as role models. It's possible for a chapter book to have a character that the students might really look up to, because I really used to like reading Amber Brown because she was a girl who was in the same grade as me, and her parents had just recently divorced and mine had also so I guess in a way I was able to see her reactions and it helped with mine but when I read that comment it made me think of like a colorful fish "who could"or something like that and i was just like who cares about the stupid fish and if its a boy or a girl.... okay.. wow....that was so stream of consciousness!!!
Anyways, for that comment, If she meant it in a way like my Amber brown experience i can see her point.

Alright so the next thing i really didn't care for...
"Boys are more likely to be praised for academics and intellectual work, while girls are more likely to be praised for their clothing, behaving properly and obeying rules."
What I do not like about this, is that in my life, and my experiences, this is not true. Girls, boys, me as a girl, we were both treated the same, praised the same, encouraged the same, the only difference was that we (girls) got to go to the bathroom a whole heck of lot more! And I'm sure girls boo-hoo their way out of assignments more than guys, because that's just how it was at my school and for me.

And the last thing that pushed my button was the section on page 280, in the 1st paragraph where the message to boys was that they are smart if they fail, its just that they need to focus more, and the message to girls when they failed was well, maybe sure just not good at this, you've already given it you're best shot maybe give up and go have babies.. well i added the last part but.. man, that is not true for everyone. I know some guys that have low self esteems and when they fail they feel like it's the end of the world, and I know some cocky girls who when they mess up, they blame it on other things because they think in their heads there is no way that their perfect self could have messed up. It is totally a self esteem thing, and is dependant of how you were raised and what examples you have had in your life.

I didn't even want to write this much.. but i did so ehh.
This lady... Mary Pipher... is a generalizationister!