The Globe this morning carries the sad story of Milton High School senior Doug Anglin, who is suing the school because of what he claims is a de facto policy of anti-male discrimination.
Or at least his father is.

Anglin — whose complaint was written by his father, who is a lawyer in Boston — is looking for broader changes. He says that teachers must change their attitudes toward boys and look past boys' poor work habits or rule-breaking to find ways to encourage them academically…
He also wants the school to abolish its community service requirement, saying it's another burden that will just set off resistance from boys, who may skip it and fail to graduate as a result.

Now, I know what you're thinking: big-shot attorney daddy is displeased that his strapping soccer- and basketball-playing star-child only has a 2.88 GPA and is only in one Advanced Placement class and thinks women are to blame. At least, that's what I'm thinking. Oh yeah, and teachers should "look past boys' poor work habits or rule-breaking." The 50s were awesome, weren't they?

Maybe both the big and little Anglin's are a bit mysogonistic… We couldn't find Doug's MySpace page, nor anything else about his father Gerry Anglin, so we can't find evidence to support that hypothesis, but the Globe article does drop a few hints:

Little, the student body president, said she disagrees with students who think Anglin is chauvinistic.

So we're not the only ones that think that, huh?

Most disturbing about this suit and the attitudes of its supporters is the hetero-normative gender sterotypying that underlies their position. A few highlights:

''The system is designed to the disadvantage of males," [Doug] Anglin said. ''From the elementary level, they establish a philosophy that if you sit down, follow orders, and listen to what they say, you'll do well and get good grades. Men naturally rebel against this."…

As for assignments, she said, one teacher expects students to type up class notes and decorate their notebooks with glitter and feathers.
''You can't expect a boy to buy pink paper and frills to decorate their notebooks," [Keli] Little said…

And what to do about all of this anti-maleness? Daddy Anglin has a solution:

Gerry Anglin, Doug Anglin's father, said the school system should compensate boys for the discrimination by boosting their grades retroactively [So that his son can get into The College of the Holy Cross, a presitgious Catholic Jesuit private school].

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