Men's lack of representation in University/College. Choice or less opportunity?

tallwheel · 2014-05-21T01:59:21+00:00

Both. Men are choosing different paths, and there is also more financial assistance available to women. There is also sometimes preferential admissions treatment for women who want to study in certain traditionally male-dominated fields.

8jh · 2014-05-21T02:03:57+00:00

My college campus in south florida is 66% female and there are eight different women-only scholarships to men's zero. I know it's not worth the energy but I really do get angry when I hear women around me bullshitting about how much harder their lives are because of their gender, because to be quite honest with you I don't feel very good about myself as a man. I feel like the cards are stacked against me in life. I'm young but I feel like our generation has reached the point where we are as equal as we will ever be in terms of gender. But how can you blame me for thinking we are headed in the wrong direction when on an hourly basis I see propaganda telling me how women are still disadvantaged and still need more. 66% is enough.

mean0dean0 · 2014-05-21T02:37:49+00:00

Not only do men have fewer educational opportunities than women, but men and boys are receiving lower grades and lower performance reviews than girls at ALL levels of education, something that literally cannot be caused by anything other than institutional bias. If we agree that all things being equal, men and women are more alike than they are different, then why the big disparity in education? Obviously, "equal opportunity" is the fundamental problem.

Education is designed for passive, conversational, non-confrontational, non-competitive busywork (homework, writing assignments, tests, projects--i.e., nothing needing building, designing, or individual inspiration). This education system was designed during the heyday of industrialism in the US, when all people needed to know was how to be good factory laborers and thus each year a "model" of students was produced with a basic grasp of skills such that they could all equally perform in the basic factory labor job without much psychological manipulation. They would have had the individuality figuratively (and sometimes literally) beaten out of them by years and years of indoctrination to sit down, shut up, and do what they were told. It just so happens that women were better suited, either by biology or socialization to homemaking, to this sort of arrangement, so women's current dominance in factory-style education is patently obvious.

If you altered the education system to more closely approximate entrepreneurship, with a short apprenticeship to learn skills and then a highly individualized and competitive environment where only a few star students' ideas would be picked and only THOSE few students would get a degree, then you would see women dropping out and falling by the wayside just the way men do in our education system. Women are not socialized to be peak performers; maybe they should be, maybe not. I'm not interested in defining women for them; but at least the conversation should include reference to the fact that our current education system is as toxic to creativity and competitive enterprise as it is to boyhood and social dominance.

DocWookieChris · 2014-05-21T02:26:19+00:00

Anecdotal evidence- but in my area most men go straight into the career fields after high school. I think a major contributor is the large percentage of men in the trade/vocational path.

leva549 · 2014-05-21T07:41:15+00:00

Choice and opportunity are not separate categories. Opportunity informs choice and vis versa. Because men are culturally pushed toward making career focused decisions at the sacrifice of other life outcomes, and because university is increasingly more of a luxury about personal and social experience than strictly career focused. And so women are the majority in university enrolments now. Like the wage gap it is not due to opportunity or choice alone. But the cultural bias that people's opportunities and choices are filtered through.

While you might see the number of female only scholarships for example as opportunities special to women they aren't significant in the scheme of things.

MRSPArchiver · 2014-05-21T00:57:00+00:00

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2014-05-21T16:43:16+00:00

I think it's both, I also think there is some pressure there too. I was always told college was going to be too hard for me and just get to work and start making money for 4 years instead of not (ya know, because I was a boy and obtaining money was my claim to any kind of recognition).

I am actually the first male in my family to go to college (out of 5 uncles and 21 other male cousins) and it still took me 12 years after HS to go to college.

Title	Men's lack of representation in University/College. Choice or less opportunity?
Author	JudDredd
Upvotes	6
Comments	10
Date	May 21, 2014 12:56 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/262wap/mens_lack_of_representation_in_universitycollege/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/mens-lack-of-representation-in-universitycollege.1000456 https://theredarchive.com/post/1000456

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