Morality is pretty clear-cut in German classrooms. There’s an approved list of evil, which includes racism, xenophobia, right-wing politics, sexism (i.e. sexism against women), pollution, and climate change. There’s an approved list of good, which includes egalitarianism, democracy, tolerance (except for support of anything in the above list or criticism of anything in this list), moderate left-wing politics, and environmentalism.
And now, increasingly, pupils are taught to associate men with the first list and women with the second. The latest in a long list of attempts to demonize men is an article by Barbara Morawec entitled “Ist der Klimawandel ein Mann?” (“Is Climate Change a Man?”)[1]. Responsible for this text is the German State Institute for School Quality and Education Research. The text is not intended for critical discussion, but is just supposed to be used to test reading comprehension. Pupils read the text and then have to answer questions about it[2].
Steaks and cars, both as large as possible. That is – you guessed it – typically male. “That’s why climate change is a man.” This is the provocative thesis advanced in a study by Ines Weller, a professor in Bremen. Her arguments: men eat more meat on average and drive showy, gas-guzzling cars, preferably fast. Both increase the world-wide CO2 emission. According to Weller, this is further exacerbated by the fact that men do not want to change their behaviour. Thus, the Professor argues, they contribute more to global climate change than women.
This is how the article opens and it doesn’t get better after that. Using Ines Weller’s aforementioned study, as well as “research” done by environmental expert and physicist Gotelind Alber, the article asserts that women are affected more severely by climate change and that meat consumption “is another area where man seems to be the climate sinner.”
After briefly considering that “women also contribute their mite to climate change” through consuming more dairy products, cosmetics, and clothing, the article concludes as follows:
Nevertheless, the climate calculation seems to favour woman. Besides: women think differently about climate change than men; they are more willing to do something for the public good. “Women, who are usually more involved with children and family than men, are used to thinking of others,” Alber says. Men, on the other hand, are obviously only ecology-minded when they don’t have to pay for it.
The intent of this monstrosity is quite clear. Men are collectively at fault for climate change (which is evil and any opinion that questions this must therefore also be evil), of which women are the innocent victims. Once again, the evil men are oppressing the poor, helpless women. The text is quite remarkable in its consistent collectivism. It’s not just men who drive SUVs and eat steak every other day who are causing global warming. No, the clearly identified villain is man, and woman is his victim.
There is no differentiation between individuals, no acknowledgement that there are also many men who don’t have a large carbon footprint and women who do. All that is conveniently ignored to better construct a threat narrative. Man is out to get you! He’ll melt the polar icecaps if you don’t stop him!
At the Schiller Gymnasium in Hof (a town in the North East of Bavaria), this text was served up to 8th grade pupils[3]. What message does this send to 13 or 14-year-old boys? They are quite openly told that they are lesser, that they share the collective guilt of their gender. They are taught to be ashamed of being male. They are taught to hate themselves. This is today’s version of original sin.
It’s no accident that the article talks about climate sinners. This type of language is quite common in public discourse in Germany. Everything must be sorted neatly into good and evil; good must only be associated with women, evil only with men. Individual men may occasionally be praised, but that is the one time they are treated as individuals. At best, individual men are praiseworthy and good in spite of their sex.
Given all this, it’s no wonder that boys are doing much worse than girls in school. While every new generation of women in Germany does better in schools and universities than the previous generation, for men the reverse is true[4]. With the school system becoming ever more feminist, boys are increasingly unmotivated to do well in school. A 2007 study by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research shows that boys and girls do about equally well given the same degree of interest[5]. But seeing how hostile schools have become toward boys, their lower level of interest is hardly surprising.
More damningly, the same study also revealed that given the same degree of competency, boys received worse grades than girls. Over five years have passed since this study, and nothing has been done about it. Tellingly, the Education Ministry released the embarrassing study without any press release and without drawing any attention to it. During the 2007 Christmas season, they even tried taking down the study from their webpage, hoping that nobody would notice. Thanks to some inquiring German Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), this attempt at censorship failed and they had to put up the study once again[6].
But even though the education deck is so stacked against them, men still do better on the job market. But for how long? Nowadays the internet can make up for much of the flaws in the state-run education system, but it is usually only those who are already intelligent and educated who make full use of this resource. Immigrant and lower class men are becoming increasingly marginalized. How long the German society can keep this up is anyone’s guess. No society that wastes male potential to such a degree can sustain itself in the long run. For all of our sakes, let’s hope that Germany—along with all of Western civilization—reverses its course before it is too late.
This article is also available in German and Romanian.
References:
[1] http://sciencefiles.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/klimawandel-ein-mann.pdf, quoted excerpts are my translation
[2] http://sciencefiles.org/2013/07/19/bedeutet-weiblicher-professor-gleich-depp/
[5] http://www.bmbf.de/pubRD/Bildungsmisserfolg.pdf, page 16
[6] http://www.wgvdl.com/forum2/Info/Politik/BMBF/StudieBildungsmisserfolg.htm
