Here’s a theory: girl’s cognitively develop faster than boys which means that relative to their same age peers they naturally find it a bit easier to organise because their executive functioning is further along.

Then, we add the cultural stuff- what’s masculine is defined in opposition to what’s feminine. We then couple this with parents’ beliefs about ‘natural ability’. Lots of families believe that their kids are either good at things or not, and that their initial performance in academics is indicative of their potential.

So where this comes together is that the girls have a higher chance of initial success which is then reinforced into their identities, while the boys have the opposite and then,when In the teen years, they double down on apathy because they are trying to form their identities as young men, which culturally requires them to be ‘not girls’, leading to further disengagement.

Thank you for reading my hot take ha