Scholar: ‘Victimhood Narrative’ Taught in Schools Fuels Anxiety in Young Girls

The “victimhood narrative” taught in schools fuels anxiety in young girls, says Dr. Joanna Williams, a lecturer at the University of Kent.

Williams argues that the concepts of “everyday sexism” and “rape culture” are having a “debilitating” effect on female confidence. In her newly released book, Women vs Feminism: Why We All Need Liberating from the Gender Wars, Williams argues that modern feminism’s suggestion that the world is rife with misogyny and sexual harassment only causes a paralysis of sorts in young women.

She suggests that the better women’s lives become, “the harder it seems that a new generation of feminists must try to justify their purpose through uncovering ever more obscure problems.”

“But it is increasingly out of touch with reality. Girls are doing so much better at school than boys, and yet we are having people like The Everyday Sexism Project are coming into schools sends out a message of: ‘just you wait, there are real difficulties ahead,'” Williams argues.

“If you go back 25 or 30 years ago it really was the case that girls were not doing as well as boys and didn’t have the same educational opportunities,” she said. “You had very good reasons for wanting to challenge gender stereotypes in schools.”

In the United States, young women are wildly outperforming men with regards to the number of college and advanced degrees received. Writing in a blog post for the American Enterprise Institute, scholar Mark J. Perry explains that women earn 141 college degrees for every 100 earned by men.

Overall, women in the Class of 2017 will earn 141 college degrees at all levels for every 100 men (up from 139 last year), and there will be a 659,000 college degree gap (up from 610,000 last year) in favor of women for this year’s college graduates (2.26 million total degrees for women vs. 1.6 million total degrees for men). By level of degree, women will earn: a) 164 associate’s degrees for every 100 men, up from 154:100 last year (female majority in every year since 1978), b) 135 bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1982), c) 140 master’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1987) and d) 109 doctoral degrees for every 100 men, up from 106:100 last year (female majority since 2007).

In addition to these figures, American women now make up the majority of law school students. “Currently, 55,766 women nationwide are studying for a juris doctor degree, compared with 55,059 men, according to the bar association,” the New York Times reported in December. “First-year students are more than 51 percent women, or 19,032, and 48.6 percent men, or 18,058.”

Perry predicted that no graduation commencement speaker would mention the tremendous strides that women have made in academia.

Williams expressed concern that these advances are being intentionally downplayed. “It is very difficult for women to present themselves as powerful, strong and capable if they think they need to be wary and anxious,” she added. “When you teach girls they are victims they believe it. But this is not in keeping with reality and it can become quite debilitating.”