Thank you for the Illana Horwitz column of 1/1/26 (Page 18). It was most enlightening; I think I might classify it as an epiphany!
She concludes, from her highly rigorous observational analysis, that females (especially those in the 12th grade) are less confident than boys in the 7th grade. This was taken from a meta-data,statistical analysis of over 3,000 students at 96 Jewish day schools.
Apparently, this study is conclusive, newsworthy and…baffling, as to why girls are less confident than boys, even though the girls are older and — I would assume — more sophisticated in their viewpoints.
As mentioned, Horwtiz confirms the conclusion, as she is a first-hand witness of this phenomenon. Of course, she is a college professor and draws her conclusion from teenage high school students.
She doesn’t reconcile how her observations could cross the college/high school line, but so what! STATISTICS are involved!
However, disregarding that conflict, she — as I understand her densely packed column — attributes the female/male divergence as being due to…Sexism? Ageism? Anti-Semitism (unintentionally practiced by the boys against the girls — all of the girls being Jewish).
But since the boys are also Jewish, this presents a problem that is never fully answered. Could this be a case of self-loathing Jews? However, since the boys are more confident than the girls, perhaps those who took their Jewish-loathing out on the girls.
It would have been a more intriguing article if the author of the column had gone into, for instance, the hair color/or appearance of the hair? Would including these 2 factors have made any difference?
For instance, would a bald boy be as likely to be confident as a hirsute one. Also, what about the length of the hair: females have more hair on top than males — is there a conclusion to be drawn from this?
Also, though I’m near 80, I recall red-headed girls always had minds of their own. Were they more or less confident than boys without hair at all?
These unanswered questions are the kinds of inquiries that keep me up at night — not to mention make fertile statistical grounds to delve into — and analyze.
As far as the original question is concerned, perhaps 12th grade girls are less confident because they are not as interested in Israeli politics as 7th grade boys are. Perhaps, if the study included clothes, the females would have made a more confident presentation — and the boys wouldn’t.
I remember when I was in the 7th grade. What I wore didn’t matter to me too much (I am a straight male and I’m assuming all the 7th grade boys and 12th grade girls were also straight) — and I probably wouldn’t have had too much to say on the subject. I think this would have been due to — not a lack of confidence — but to a lack of interest and authority on the subject.
Bryan Taplits
Cincinnati, OH
