The real question should be: why does a class respond proportionately badly to the 'helpful jerk'?
We can't reasonably say this is a female specific phenomenon when our only point of reference is a female-only class. Send the guy to a bunch of different classes (of mixed and single gender, and of mixed skill-level) and see how they all respond.
If one guy is monopolising the time and help available in the class, it stands to reason that everyone else will lose interest, because there is no longer time and attention available to them.
And if this guy is asking questions that far exceed the average skill level of the class, it also stands to reason that the class will lose interest because they can't understand any of it.
I'd like to know why the volunteers were accepting of this guy when at least one of them (the OP) was well aware of how detrimental his presence was to the class as a whole. And I'd like to know this guy's motivations for joining a class to wave his intellectual dick about.
We can't reasonably say this is a female specific phenomenon when our only point of reference is a female-only class.
I assumed the point of the author was that this was a female-specific phenomenon, since the theme of his post was gender. Also, because the author said so:
"To me, and I suspect most men, we’d see Dave’s behavior as a call to arms."
The author volunteers for female-only class (which he makes sure to highlight), and thus assumes his whole experience is down to the fact the class is all female.
Remove all references to gender and there is no significant change to the story. I think that reveals the complete irrelevance of gender.
My original point, which I guess wasn't worded very well, was that we're told about one experience in one classroom, and that has been blown up to account for the entirety of female-kind.
But then the suggestion remains that only a man can be a "helpful jerk" (because the author comes out in favour of single sex education because of this incident).
