Action Needed: Demand that CBS and 60 Minutes Provide Responsible Reporting and Commentary

What's up with the folks at 60 Minutes? Has the show been taken over by the Fox News Channel? Is its management completely dominated by old white men quaking in their boots because they fear women are taking over the world? And what's with Leslie Stahl? Surely, having worked in the "old boys club" world of network news for years, she should know better.

On Sunday, Oct. 20, CBS's 60 Minutes was watched by more that 14 million viewers (according to Nielsen estimates). These viewers witnessed co-host Stahl's woefully unbalanced report that boys are falling dangerously behind girls in schools nationwide. The report used inflammatory language, scare tactics and shaky evidence of a crisis afoot.

Not bothering to offer any alternate explanation as to why college campuses are "now nearly 60 percent female, with women earning 170,000 more bachelor degrees each year than men," the piece fixated on the theory that feminists and their "gender bias industry" are at fault. Didn't it occur to anyone that women -- who are still underrepresented in traditionally male occupations like plumbing, electrician, carpentry, etc. -- might need a college degree in order to get a job with decent pay, benefits and opportunities for promotion? Or did that obvious explanation just not fit the producers' preconceived agenda?

Stahl interviewed four educators who supported the theory that boys are being pushed aside because of the "special attention" paid to girls, and made it obvious that she couldn't agree more. When one interviewee, Dr. Michael Thompson, warned that "at the present trend, the last man to get his bachelor's degree will do so in 2068," Stahl replied: "Even if that never happens, the trend is ominous."

Throughout the report, Stahl encouraged interview subjects like ultra-conservative Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute, as in this exchange:

Stahl: "Sommers says the efforts on behalf of girls turned into what she calls a war against boys. When you say 'war,' you suggest that they're out there to hurt boys."

Sommers: "They have hurt boys, because the AAUW, for example, did not only ignore boys' problems, they tried to cover them up."

In reality, the highly respected AAUW [American Association of University Women] has published leading research studies on educational equality for girls and women. But instead of giving the AAUW a fair opportunity to rebut Sommers' attack, Stahl treated Jacqueline Woods, AAUW President, to a combative session in which she interrupted Woods repeatedly while offering no hard data to back up her charges against the organization's work.

Stahl also repeated Sommers' accusation that women teachers favor girls over boys, even allowing Sommers to speak for these teachers, claiming they punish boys for being boys because they see boys' behavior as "an expression of toxic masculinity."

Franklin Goodman, a high school teacher and coach, also got away with promoting this ancient stereotype: "If we're going to dissect a frog, no, girls don't want to do that."

In the final exchange of the segment, Dr. Thompson appeared to get slightly off the feminist-bashing track, conceding that regardless of how boys perform in school, they still go out into the world and make more money than girls.

Stahl kindly nudged him back on track with this: "There's going to be a cold shower when we realize that women are completely dominating the numbers in medical school . . . law school, business school . . . because what you're saying isn't going to be true."

Closing out this edition of 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney revisited comments he made on a sports show about women reporters not belonging on the sidelines of football games. He refused to apologize for his comments and would only acknowledge he would have been better off not having made them! Rooney said: "I am not sexist, and it is a mystery to me why so many women are less satisfied being women, than men are satisfied being men. I find it unbecoming when they try to be like men, too, on the sidelines or anywhere else."

Write to the executives at 60 Minutes and CBS and demand that they provide a follow-up segment that offers alternative viewpoints and hard data on the issue of boys supposedly "falling behind" at school. Please also suggest that Andy Rooney and his outdated opinions may be long overdue for retirement. Connect to our media action center to send your letter.