My buddy, Suze, has done a mid-career shift and gone back to school for a degree in education. As part of the program, she has been observing classes in city schools and helping out in the classroom. She’s full of good stories. Yesterday, she called after I came home from teaching and gave me about the latest installment in the saga.

In a high school English class, the teacher gave the kids the 5 paragraph essay lesson. To get them going, he assigned the topic "It is Better to Be …", pick a gender, and explain why. The students were mostly Latinos from poor to working class backgrounds.

All the boys said that it was better to be a man. That’s probably not surprising. But all the girls also said that it was better to be a man. The consensus was that men have less responsibilities, they don’t have to clean the house or do the dishes, and they can hang out with their friends. The girls also said that they had to spend more time on their hair and their clothes.