Word: esteeming
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More interesting still, after months halfway down the best-seller list, Faludi moves to No. 2 this week -- right behind a new book by Gloria Steinem. Many critics dismissed Revolution from Within, Steinem's treatise on the political implications of the self-esteem movement, as an exercise in squishy new-age thumb-sucking. But as she tours shopping malls, Steinem is being mobbed by crowds that, according to one bookstore owner, exceed those of Oliver North and Vanna White, the backlash icons of American manhood and womanhood. Something must have happened in the climate of relations between men and women...
Harvard took a couple of broadsides to its self-esteem this weekend. Its 74-62 loss to Pennsylvania hurt, but came nowhere near to the pain inflicted by Princeton's 87-50 demolition of the Crimson...
Seeking to explain these patterns, the report states that school gradually undermines girls' self-esteem. In a 1990 survey, 3,000 youngsters were asked such questions as whether they were "happy the way I am." Predictably, everyone's self-confidence declined during adolescence, but the self-esteem of girls suffered deeper wounds. The pivotal factor in low self-esteem and performance, and the most intriguing aspect of the research, is what actually occurs in the classroom...
Americans can still take courage from their example. Cultural separatism within this republic is more a fad than a serious proposal; it is not likely to hold. If it did, it would be a disaster for those it claims to help: the young, the poor and the black. Self-esteem comes from doing things well, from discovering how to tell a truth from a lie and from finding out what unites us as well as what separates us. The posturing of the politically correct is no more a guide to such matters than the opinions of Simon Legree...
Then there is the problem that haunts all studies of "innate" sex differences: the possibility that the observed differences are really the result of lingering cultural factors. Girls' academic achievement, for example, as well as apparent aptitude and self-esteem, usually takes a nose dive at puberty. Unless nature has selected for smart girls and dumb women, something is going very wrong at about the middle-school level. Part of the problem may be that males, having been the dominant sex for a few millenniums, still tend to prefer females who make them feel stronger and smarter. Any girl...