This Times article, titled Affirmative Action for Boys, takes a look at what colleges are doing during the admissions process to make up for the fact that there are more qualified women applying to college than qualified men, and that the women who do apply have more diverse interests and are more likely to be involved in leadership/service activities.
There are a lot of interesting questions that are brought up by this article:
1) The article says that college-aged men are now a “minority”: while this might be statistically true, is this an appropriate term, given that men are still more likely to receive higher-paying jobs after graduation?
2) In the conclusion, the article states that, perhaps because women have had to “prove themselves” in earlier generations in order to succeed, we have had to become stronger as a result. Does this seem like a valid explanation for the larger number of smart, involved college-aged women?
3) The article also mentions that college-aged men might not be as involved as women because of low cultural expectations. Stereotypes like “boys will be boys” or “sowing wild oats” or perhaps an out-of-control drinking culture might be encouraging young men to remain immature for a longer period of time. (This reminds me of other recent news stories/op-eds about how men are going through a longer “incubation period” between adolescence and adulthood, in which men act like teenagers until the age of 25 or even later. Check out this op-ed, for example–it’s problematic in terms of its overgeneralizing, but also makes some good points that seem to be backed up by my own personal experience.)
This is disturbing to me because I would much rather be in a college environment in which both men and women were working hard in order to learn and gain valuable life experiences. While I am very pleased that more and more women are finding ways to succeed in the education system, I do not want men to be raised in a culture that says it is okay for them to not take responsibility for their lives. (Especially since the workplace is still such an imbalanced environment.) I am also bothered by the fact that racial inequity is also playing a big role here. Men who are members of minority groups are more likely to be left behind, and the article states that African-American males are outnumbered by African-American females 2:1.
4) Is this creating a culture in which women are forced to work harder than men in order to keep up? Are women expected to devote more time/energy to extracurriculars just to ensure that they get into college, when men can get in without as much “work”? Might this turn out to be just as oppressive an environment for women as, say, the pressure both to work full-time at a high-power job AND to work full-time as a mother? (Why don’t we get some leisure time?!?!?!) Or, does it mean that women are FINALLY getting a chance to prove themselves capable of leadership roles? Perhaps the pressure on women to succeed early on is EXACTLY what we need in order to engender political/social/economic parity, which will then allow women to make their own choices in life?
Well, there are about 40 more questions to ask, so I’ll just shut up and let you guys share your thoughts!
Filed under: discrimination, education
Dashaway
femmemeister
Bento
I think the statistic that is not so often mentioned in this argument is the fact that both the percentage of women who go to college and the percentage of men who go to college have been increasing. In other words, more women are attending college than ever before and more men are attending college than ever before. The number disparities today are a result of a faster growing population of women attending college. The numbers for men in college have not decreased. They simply are being outrun by women.
When girls were behind boys in almost every measure of educational achievement, we said there’s a problem with the schools. But now that boys have fallen behind girls, we say there’s a problem with the boys. People who suggest this latest gender gap requires attention, just like the last one did, are painted as somehow opposing female empowerment.
Reverse the genders and imagine the outcry if Ms. Gibbs had written, “I wonder if there’s a price [girls] pay for the ’soft bigotry of low expectations.’”
Attributing the education gender gap to some male-wide deficiency borders on misandry. Why is it so difficult to believe that the same sorts of constricting gender stereotypes that held girls back for so long now may be hurting boys in different ways? And why are people such as Ms. Gibbs so reluctant to acknowledge that when either gender falls behind, it’s a problem for all of us?
Kirkpatrick,
I don’t think we’re saying at all that men are inferior to women, nor are we saying that people who are examining the issue of women taking more leadership positions than men are anti-women. (And, if you read the article, the article certainly does not say that either.)
In fact, I think that stereotypes about men ARE hurting them–and hurting women too. For example, the stereotype that men are only “masculine” if they binge drink, or that men involved in student government are “feminine” is harmful to everyone on college campuses.
However, even while we acknowledge that men’s achievement in education is not growing at the same rate as women’s (as Dash points out in her comment), we also have to look at what is going on in the rest of society. For example, even though women are more likely to be in leadership positions in student activities, women still make up fewer than 1/4 of all the members in public office. Why are women expected to be superwomen in college, but are not encouraged to use their experience elsewhere?
We also have to look at how women are harmed by the pressure to overachieve. If men can skate into college, but women are expected to be team captains, newspaper editors, musicians, athletes, and still get good grades in order to be accepted somewhere, then I think that is still indicative of what women had to go through before there was more equity in education, and demonstrates the persistence of the notion that any man is worthy of going to college, but only the “special” women can compete with them. (Before I hear someone shout, “But that is why affirmative action in other situations is so bad!”, I just want to point out that the disparity between men’s and women’s scholastic achievement is not due to the lack of opportunities with which they are presented, which is unlike programs that encourage racial diversity, for example.)
In any case, I am very happy that more and more women are achieving great things in school. However, I will not be content until this achievement is also translated to success in the world of politics and employment. And, I would like to see men and women working together in leadership positions to ensure a truly equitable society in the future.
Yes, yes, you are happy about women achieving. I am unhappy that boys are not. Any fair-minded reader would agree that the article blamed boys for falling behind in education. Boys are coddled, we are too soft on them, etc. I ask you, would we say that if any other class is underachieving across the board, it must be because they are coddled, or we are too sof on them? Or is there not something else going on here? When girls were underachieving, we spent a lot of taxpayer money to convince girls they can achieve in school — that they should feel good about themselves. For boys, we are blaming them, telling them they need to toughen up, work harder — BE A MAN.
When an entire class is falling behind, there’s is something going on, but sadly, our culture thinks that when boys fall behind girls, that is acceptable because it empowers women. Bullshit!
“. . . women still make up fewer than 1/4 of all the members in public office. Why are women expected to be superwomen in college, but are not encouraged to use their experience elsewhere?”
Why must we always assume that OUR notions about what women should do are best for them? Why must we presume to make choices for women? Women have every right to run for politicial office — and with women comprising the majority of the voters, women could rule America if they chose. The fact is, women have far more choices than me. They really can have it all. They can choose a career AND be the primary parent (every father in a custody battle will tell you that this is how the courts view women — as the primary parent, and men are only good for one thing: their money). Men are constrained, as they always have been — by society, by women — to be the breadwinner. We need to stop assuming that women are somehow oppressed because of choices they make.
The same is true in employment situations. No board of directors would retain a company’s management if, in fact, the company was choosing to hire one class of people over another class when the latter could be hired to do EXACTLY the same work as the former for just 77 percent of what the former class is being paid. The fact is, women make less money and attain fewer managerial positions almost entirely largely because it is their choice to drop out of the workforce to have children, and it is their choice to select jobs that will accomodate the lifestyle they want to lead. Again, most men truly don’t have that choice, and most men understand that if they told their fiances they wanted to be a stay-at-home dad, their fiances would dump him — because he lacks manly ambition. It would be nice if it were otherwise, but it’s not. Men can’t have it all, and the feminist revolution did not include breaking down gender constrictions for men.
I think Kirkpatrick brings up some very interesting points about rights and choices. However, I think that he might be missing some key points about the difference btn. de facto and de jure freedoms, and the difference between oppressive and non-oppressive limitations.
Now, it is true that men are often limited by cultural pressures to not stay at home with children. That is certainly unfortunate, and I do not like it when stay-at-home dads are emasculated–that is very sad to me, especially since I know of many happy families where the father is the primary caregiver. However, we need to look at the reasons behind this particular limitation.
Kirkpatrick mentions that working hard is a “manly” or “masculine” trait in society’s eyes. Staying at home is not viewed as “working hard” even though the same amount of time/effort/energy is often devoted to domestic tasks as many full-time jobs require. One of the main reasons that staying at home is not seen as “real work” is because it has been associated historically with women’s work. It is true that men might be laughed at for taking part in “women’s work,” and that is very sad to me (and must change–and many, many other feminists would agree and are working to alter that perception, so your accusation to the feminist movement is not quite fair). However, the reason these men are laughed it is because to stay at home is to be “womanly” or “feminine,” and to be “womanly” or “feminine” is automatically bad. So, to say that men are the only ones oppressed by this particular binary is ignoring a lot of the cultural history that has led to our current state of affairs.
Now, your argument about how women “choose” to drop out of the workforce is again not quite getting the whole picture. If men feel as if they cannot stay home with children, then wouldn’t you think that women would feel even more pressure to stay home? If, as you say, men are seen as the “breadwinners,” then aren’t women almost necessarily seen as the “non-breadwinners?”
It is true that many women “choose” jobs to accommodate their lifestyles–however, many of these jobs are ones that have been historically associated with “women’s work,” and these are also jobs that are not well-paid (teachers, nurses, etc.) It is true that women are legally “free” to choose their careers, but societal pressures might make certain choices (entering politics, for example) infeasible.
I would agree that men’s choices are also limited by society. However, I would say that their choice-limitations are not as oppressive as the lack of choices that women have. The reason I say this is because the choices that men are limited to are exactly those choices that give men more money and more power. Although men might feel undue pressure to keep those positions of power, and that IS unfair, men still carry the bulk of the economic and political capital in this nation and have more control over society. (In my opinion, it is much easier to give up power in the face of societal pressure than to attain it.)
This, of course, is not to say that women who choose to care for children are not making a worthwhile choice–they are. The problem is that society does not reward that particular choice with the amount of financial and social benefits it deserves. Thus, women who choose to stay at home are denied the same amount of participation in society that people who work jobs get. (As you mentioned, men also notice that staying at home deprives them of their power.) And, the reason appropriate compensation is denied them is because “women’s work” is always inferior to “men’s work.” Whenever women enter into a profession, that profession loses financial and social standing–so how much choice do women really have?