I've only read through this thread in the last hour and I have to agree to a lot of things that have already been said.
The PE thing is one I've debated with a lot of people.
It's the same here in Germany, mostly just rotating different sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball etc.). I think
@Riley O'Neill 's suggestion is very good. Kids who leave school should be able to do a certain amount of physical things like x amount of pullups, y time for a 5k run etc. It doesn't have to be too crazy, just make them physically capable human beings.
Too support the bad PE thing I have 3 examples for you:
1) My cousin is a PE teacher and she once told me about her new class (7th grade) where 15 out of 30 pupils could not stand on one leg for more than 3seconds. It shows you how "unphysical" the lifestyle of todays kids can be.
2) Me and my 2 best friends excelled at every of the sports we played in PE and we wouldn't be allowed to play on the same team, because the teacher deemed it to be unfair for the others. During the actual game (e.g. basketball) we were scolded if we didn't pass the ball to the other kids more often. And we talk about kids that would go 0 out of 10 in uncontested shots 1-2yards away from the hoop...Competitiveness was suppressed so everyone would feel good...
3) Once we did a few weeks of barren gymnastics. At the end we had to perform a little routine (the same for everyone). One part of it was sitting on the barren in a v-sit style then roll onto the shoulders with legs pointing to the ceiling (think start of handstand pushup), hold this position for a count of 3 and then roll forward into the v-sit again.
My teacher wanted me to perform an actual HSPU instead of the hold, because he felt like the normal routine was to easy for me. I failed the HSPU and got an B+. I'm not too upset about not getting an A, but what really made me furious was that the same teacher gave 2 fat kids (1 girl, 1 boy) who miserably failed at the routine a C, because "they at least tried" as he would say...Instead of getting an F and maybe think about losing weight and getting fitter, those kids were rewarded a C, because they tried...
I, too, think a lot of the equality movement is going in the wrong direction.
Yes, please pay a woman the same amount as a man if they do the same job and yes if a woman is the best for a certain job give it to her, but don't give it to a her just to boost the female rate in your company if there are better male applicants.
(I known "better" can be vague, but you get what I'm saying)
Please honor the diversity between the genders and instead of trying to make them equal, improve their natural strengths.
Men tend to go for the "risky play" a lot more than women, so make more women CEO or CFO of big banks to minimise the risks of another financial crisis.
Women are naturally weaker than men, so don't let them into certain jobs. I'm talking about jobs like firefighter, military or things like that. I don't say they should be completely removed from those jobs, but give them jobs suited for them e.g. because they are naturally smaller than men they would be well suited to serve in a tank instead of a special forces strike unit.
I got critized for saying things like that, but please imagine yourself in a burning house, trapped under something heavy. Which firefighter would you rather have to get you out of there, the 5'5 135lbs woman or the 6' 200lbs man? Or the same question if you lie wounded on the battlefield and someone needs to drag you to safety.
And before someone comes in and says that the mentioned woman is physically trained. Yes she is, but so is the man, therefore he's still going to be much stronger.
In the Army PFT women have to do a lot less pushups than men and can go slower on the run. The smaller, lighter woman has to do less pushups than the taller, heavier man, so the man has to move more weight through a greater ROM more times. Where's the equality in that?
I think I got a bit off topic, but still think it's relevant, because IMO the equality movement is one of the things that are responsible for the "feminized" men.