Exam pressure and alcohol

Audience of One is the weblog of Matthew Weston, a UK student, Christian, technophile and musician.

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This morning a woman wrote into the Independent:

Sir: The same week which brings news of higher than ever exam performance by teenagers, particularly girls, also brings us news of higher than ever alcohol consumption by teenagers, particularly girls. Is it possible to conclude that this generation of young women is under rather too much pressure?

At first I thought “yes, they are”, but realised that I went to school across the road from an all-girls school where a fail at A level meant you didn’t get an A, so might be slightly biased. Still, exam stress was most noticable in the girls of my year. Is there more pressure on girls? That’s the first question. The second is whether or not this is leading to an increase in drinking. Well, among my contemporaries, whichever school they went to, the girls who didn’t drink a lot got the best grades.

My feeling, based on talking to boys and girls from mixed and single-sex schools, is that girls get better grades because they work harder. Boys don’t do as well because they don’t. There are exceptions to the rule, most noticably among those boys at private schools. A friend of a friend got seven A grades at a local private boys school – others in his year were disappointed that they’d only got five, or four. I’d have been ecstatic with two As and a B. Maybe it’s the environment – if everyone’s getting those kind of grades, you work your backside off to make sure you compare to your contemporaries. Maybe that shows why girls get better results – there’s more competition between them, whereas guys don’t care as much. I’m not sure that’s the case all the time though.

As for alcohol, maybe it’s down to a distortion of feminism. Feminism initially said “men and women are equal, so give women more rights”. Now I admit gender equality isn’t quite there in some areas, but there are some areas it shouldn’t be, for example places where the male stereotype has got the wrong idea. What I mean is, women trying to emulate men by drinking too much (so called “ladette” culture) is not a good thing. There are some areas that women should not seek to be like men. (There are also areas where men should not seek to be like women. These issues are probably too complex to be developed here.)

So, is there more pressure on girls to succeed? Is this a result of the feministic drive for equality – that women can be “as good if not better” than men? Is more pressure leading to an increase in drinking among young women, or is this based on a misplaced desire to emulate men? Do girls work harder than boys at school? Is it based on competition among the sexes? What has single-sex or private education got to do with it all?

Your thoughts, please.

Currently listening to Video Killed The Radio Star – The Buggles

Matthew @ 10:04, August 30, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Comments (15)

Comments:

Cat

As a private-school girlie, I have another hypothesis… for some reason, the richer Daddy is, the less inclined to work my classmates were and the more they tended to drink. From this I conclude three things:

If the whole private school thing doesn’t work out, they can always fall back on a well-ff family.
They can afford to drink that much.
They want to be rebellious in some small way and don’t have the imagination to do so in any other way.

Sorry, five years of girls school life has made me a bit cynical.

Comment added at 20:39, August 30, 2005

Verity

Females seem less inclined to view being a no good slacker as something worth bragging about to all and sundry, so it is quite difficult to judge whether or not they actually work harder than males. However, I suppose the fact that girls get marginally better results at school and there is no reason to believe either sex is naturally more intelligent, I suppose it is reasonable to assume this to be the case.

Comment added at 20:58, August 30, 2005

Rory

More pressure leads to more drinking, which in turn leads to more pressure.

I have to agree with you on feminism – women should strive to be men’s equal, not to be men.

I don’t know why they’re drinking more than men, however.

Comment added at 22:45, August 30, 2005

Benjamin

You ask so many questions here Matthew… however the answer to the original question “Is it possible to conclude that this generation of young women is under rather too much pressure?” … depends on what sort of pressure you mean. Pressure from teachers… no, pressure from the media to look fantastic and be the perfect woman… yes, maybe that in turn affects their academic work/trying to find a way out via drink.

And the reason that more alcahol is being consumed “particularly by girls” is because they want to be the same as males, which they shouldn’t. “Equal but different” says the Bible!

Comment added at 00:03, August 31, 2005

Rory

Where does the bible say men and women are equal? I don’t think it does.

Comment added at 22:43, August 31, 2005

Matthew

Galatians 3:28 and the creation story spring to mind immediately, and I’m sure there’s other places. Then of course it’s implied in a lot of other passages, such as Luke 8:1-3.

Comment added at 11:40, September 1, 2005

Matthew

Sorry, I forgot comments don’t automatically link Bible references:

Cat: it’s very interesting to hear about a different private girls school to the one I’m familiar with, but perhaps I’m only familiar with the more civilised side. How have your A levels gone by the way?

Comment added at 11:44, September 1, 2005

Pez Verde

Yes, I can leave my real email. Just because I’m charming and lovely.

From personal experience, a bloke’s suggestion that females in any way aspire to be like men usually results in a slap. :)

If you’ll excuse the wide sweeping generalisations, girls are self-motivated. They’ll put more effort in because they care about the results themselves. They see them as a indication of their intelligence whereas guys tend to slack off especially on ongoing pieces of work (i.e. coursework) because they don’t see the point in it, unless they have an interest in the subject.

Now, about how that all links to alcohol, if it does at all… I think excessive consumption of alcohol’s related more to peer than exam pressure. Girls don’t necessarily want to emulate men, but finding ways to relate to them is something quite different; a girl probably thinks she’ll seem uptight if she refuses to drink like everyone else, and besides, what better way is there of forming a friendship with the opposite sex than communal drinking? (That was ironic, just to avoid any misunderstanding.) I really wouldn’t know. I suppose single-sex education would just intensify that as girls would be less sure how to relate to guys and vica versa. Which would make them more nervous and therefore more prone to drinking. If that makes any sense. Which it probably doesn’t, knowing me.

Comment added at 15:56, September 1, 2005

Sheepie

At GCSE I slacked because I knew I didn’t have to work hard to get top grades… A level might be a little different.

Comment added at 17:03, September 1, 2005

Matthew

No, that makes sense. It’s unfortunate that that’s the way of things but there you go. I think you’re right about looking at the results themselves – again it’s a generalisation, but is usually true. I was talking to (male) friends about my A level results and said that I wished I’d worked harder and got three As. Their reply was “what is the point? You got into the uni you wanted, so why work any harder than necessary?” The same logic astounds and disgusts the girlfriend of one of these guys, who lived it out during his sixth form years.

As for aspiring to be like men, it’s reasonably obvious why saying it to a girl’s face is offensive – and as a whole I don’t think it’s the case. Could it be in some cases though? I guess that’s what I was asking.

Comment added at 17:50, September 1, 2005

Rory

I wouldn’t say that women deliberately and consciously aspire to be like men – however, a lot of popular culture and media is pushing them in that direction, so doubtless some do (but many do not). Some wouldn’t want to be like men but they are probably trying to absorb some of the aspects of manliness – for example, girls going out binge drinking: they don’t act like men when they do it, but the very idea of binge-drinking is originally a male idea (you can tell, as it’s so mind-numbingly stupid).

On the subject of working hard for exams… I worked hard for my Standard Grades and got top results. I worked hard for my Highers and got average results. I slacked off on my Advanced Highers and got top results. Anyone else think that’s weird?

Comment added at 12:35, September 2, 2005

Becca

I go to a pretty uptight all girls school and there is massive pressure to get top grades, most of our teachers are feminists though who are all for the whole “we are better than men lets show it” malarkey. The “ladettes” that I know drink because it’s a form of rebellion and/or because it’s the social thing to do – you go for a drink (or two or five…), I wouldn’t say, from my experience, that there is a link. But that could just be me.

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