Historically, the average dude likely never found academics easy

BobtheArcher2018 · 2025-06-06T15:24:23+00:00

You can't conflate schooling and elite academics. Girls always outperformed boys in grade school. As for actual elite academics, depends where you want to draw that line.

YetAnotherCommenter · 2025-06-07T07:19:04+00:00

You make a very good point. I think a big problem in gender discussions is "nerd normativity." The kind of guys on Reddit assume they're representative of the "average" man. Hence they come to conclusions like men are on-average more rational and cerebral than women. NO, the cohort of men on Reddit skews more rational and cerebral than the average woman.

But that's not an excuse for the education system favoring the propensities over the average young female over the average young male.

bluestjuice · 2025-06-06T17:44:00+00:00

There was a significant shift with the change to universal primary (and eventually secondary) education, which coincided with the workplace shifting from resources and manufacturing towards services and information sectors. Historically formal education was loosely linked to employment for average people: most occupations required specific training in relevant skills, which wasn’t being offered through school. As the workplace has transitioned to be increasingly dominated by information management and analysis, formal education has become increasingly necessary as a preamble to even basic business roles.

It’s complicated, because life itself has grown more complex and information-inundated over the last hundred years. It’s not enough to just say, ‘well, not everyone needs college, send more people into trades,’ because the sophisticated ability to read and analyze information, compile data and interpret it, and generally reason about and keep up with complex ideas is necessary for all aspects of adult life, regardless of career.

Ruztomski · 2025-06-06T15:44:24+00:00

I think on average women's language skills are better than men's. Those language skills are building blocks for most academic subjects.

I believe the studies showing boys are more active than girls in infancy before parental bias would influence it still hold up. Those studies showed that the higher activity level and greater motor involvement in dealing with things lasted into childhood. We don't want to sit still.

I think those things may have a greater influence on how men learn and maybe what they're interested in learning, more than setting a cap on how cerebral they can be.

MidoriEgg · 2025-06-06T16:16:58+00:00

I’m not 100% sure on the overall point of this, but it seems to be ‘boys are falling behind academically because they’re innately less academic, not because of systemic educational issues’.

I dont think the average man or average women is meant to partake in ‘elite’ levels of academia. but that doesn’t mean academia can’t be made more accessible to the average person (or child).

It also doesn’t mean the issues in education that may more adversely impact boys aren’t also negative for both genders and (ie, the reduction in unstructured playtime, unrealistic behaviour expectations, prioritising meeting arbitrary standards rather than a nebulous progression of education and development). These are issues that should be addressed.

Men and women, boys and girls both benefit from a mixture of hands on learning and academic work. Girls may find repetitive, unengaging tasks more tolerable (on average) but it that doesn’t mean its an optimal way to learn even for them.

I understand that school will always have some boring tasks and learning to complete these is also a part of education, but again, there are absolutely issues with the education system that go beyond just ‘boys aren’t academic’ and impact children of both genders.

Born-Future8878 · 2025-06-06T17:00:26+00:00

Everyone needs to start putting their age. I swear Gen z is dumber than ever. We millennials all felt entitled to go to college and come out making a fortune.

Gen Z is weirdly ok with doing blue collar shit work

Eaglone · 2025-06-06T15:59:49+00:00

Grade school isn't the same as 'elite academia,' and has been progressively simplified to accommodate average students. People have raised valid concerns about how the school environment can be inimical to boys and their natural behaviour, and most teachers are women who will find it difficult to understand what's wrong. You're assuming that the public school system is primarily about identifying members of an 'intellectual elite,' when that's simply not how it's designed and education is no longer meant exclusively for people with intellectual talents. It's well-known that having a degree is often considered less valuable than before, because of over-saturation. That's because the education system has been adjusted to its current purpose.

Further, things like the US public school system are mostly known for being strained and often low-quality, so it's not worth comparing it to the education of aristocrats and princes in the past. Very few people, relatively, go to private schools, or to places like Eton or Oxbridge, and most of those are still upper-class. That's the kind of 'education' you mean, but that's not how most of modern education works. Instead, people enter an education system which fails at basic things, and we don't need hifalutin historical explanations to understand that it might have limitations which can hold boys back. The emphasis of modern schooling is more likely to be on things like rote learning, standardised testing (eg. No Child Left Behind), and conformity with the teachers' expectations, and the culture around this can be inimical to boys who tend to learn more efficiently in other environments.

A-Queef-In-The-Night · 2025-06-06T15:39:31+00:00

When you say academia, are you referring exclusively to college and beyond?

abaxeron · 2025-06-06T16:02:41+00:00

"Historical average person" barely exists anymore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ourworldindata_wisc-iq-gains-over-time-flynn-2007.png

Here's the abstract of the original article on Flynn effect from 1984:

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1984-11828-001

"The obvious interpretation of this pattern is that representative samples of Americans did better and better on IQ tests over a period of 46 yrs, the total gain amounting to a rise in mean IQ of 13.8 points."

Translation: a slightly-below-average person at the beginning of this time span would have been considered unfit to be a soldier at the end of it.

Please note that this paper comes from the time before ban on tetraethyl lead gasoline.

Today's "average dude" is absolutely "intellectual", "cerebral", and generally speaking "rich" compared to his counterpart from 100-120 years ago.

As for "guys v gals", https://np.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/u8ok2w/oc_the_gender_gap_in_us_sat_scores_over_the_years/

it very much depends how you define "performance".

DiligentRope · 2025-06-06T15:36:22+00:00

I made a recent post basically how there's overwhelming evidence that despite women outperforming men in education, they fail in white collar careers. In pretty much every professional field you'll see that there is a crisis of women quitting their practice and retiring early and only a minority of top level being women.

When I point this out, people are quick to hit the sexism and gender bias button, yet when it comes to education their explanation is just that "women are better".

ReindeerFirm1157 · 2025-06-06T15:37:15+00:00

Why do gals perform comparatively better than guys in school?

In what fields? All the most difficult fields (STEM, philosophy, law, finance, academia) are dominated by men. Not even talking about genius/elite level performance, which is all men. At that level, literally every single advance, discovery, or theory in every single field has been by a man. You have to squint really hard to look for one or two things by women.

Girls get more BS college degrees in worthless fields, but why does that matter? It's just about getting gold stars from teachers, not about learning or contributing to the body of knowledge.

attendquoi · 2025-06-06T16:42:19+00:00

Speaking as a former adjunct faculty (I taught history and religious studies courses), I observed that men were less likely to follow basic directions and keep on top of their assigned work. They needed a lot more hand-holding, which I was not going to do because it's college. They just seemed developmentally delayed in comparison to the women.

BichonFriseLover · 2025-06-06T16:05:43+00:00

Historically the “average dude” wasn’t let into the building.

I think firstly you have to explain what “historically” means. Are you talking about the last 200 years or even earlier than that? The vast majority of people couldn’t even read 250+ years ago, let alone study complex calculus.

Secondly I want you to clarify what you mean by academia? There is a vast difference between studying physics and sociology. The “average dude” has a way higher likelihood of finishing the latter rather than the former.

DGenerationMC · 2025-06-06T16:40:25+00:00

Welp, that's one less "privilege" to throw in men's face, yay?

UndeniablyGone · 2025-06-06T16:58:21+00:00

If one of these 'average,' dudes worked hard enough to get into one of these elite schools, then he ain't average.

Outside_Memory5703 · 2025-06-06T18:30:31+00:00

Performing well in basic education is not the same as high performance academics

anewlookav · 2025-06-06T19:47:33+00:00

Sure. this makes sense. Tangentially, I've never been the BEST looking guy, but I'm often the best looking guy in a room full of smart people.

Which, apropos this group, has really helped me find quite a bit of dating success.

km87505 · 2025-06-10T07:34:33+00:00

Sure, school is stacked against you, it's not set up for you! That's why when playing fields are leveled, you don't measure up. Definitely the reason. It couldn't possibly be that the girls are home studying while you are preoccupied with and posting to Reddit about your anger at your virginity.

RichyRoo2002 · 2025-06-06T15:56:39+00:00

As a STEM graduate its important to remember that most non-stem courses are essentially baby talk nonsense.

If you adjust for the difficulty and usefulness of the degree (eg. Engineering vs Gender Studies), men obviously dominate in everything which is necessary for civilization, women mostly do "garden party" type subjects which are only relevant when all physical requirements are already taken care of.

But basically yeah you're right that university should only be for people with high IQs, but now it is very dumbed down, except for STEM which is difficult to dumb down

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-Shes-A-Carnival · 2025-06-06T17:50:13+00:00

what does this post have to do with anything at ppd tho?

2025-06-07T03:10:19+00:00

There is significant discrimintation against boys from kindergarten all the way to post secondary. There is documented evidence that boys are both punished more harshly than girls for the same bad behaviour and graded worse for the same level of work. Not only that, there are numerous programs intended to advantage girls and women in post secondary admittance. Until this discrimination is eliminated you cant claim women are "more cerebral" than men. To do so is equivalent to those who said men were smarter than women back in the say when women were disadvantaged in education.

50pciggy · 2025-06-07T07:49:29+00:00

I mean the obvious answer to that is. For most of human history you had to be very careful about what stuff you pursued because the vast majority of people had to keep their work going to stop their families from starving, in order to study academic level things you need to have a certain level of stability so you can spend time away from whatever essential activities you perform in order to study, the vast majority of men throughout history did not have that or they were not allowed that.

That’s why being educated is a mark of status, because it shows you don’t have to toil like everyone else and you can focus on something that won’t get you the nessesitiws easily enough

It’s not necessarily about high intelligence, we should know from the modern day that lots of schlubs can get a degree, it has always been about access and necessity

When you consider this of course educational institutions were built for the rich, mister John peasent has too much on his plate.

RadiantRadicalist · 2025-06-08T16:30:16+00:00

The military found out years ago that soldiers that knew basic mathematics were superior to ones that do not in modern militaries you cannot get to a higher rank without achieving a bachelor degree so you're quite literally stuck at the rank you're currently at.

However to make the argument that the poorer denizens of men in society would benefit more from joining the military is bad as making the argument that due to women's higher "agreeableness" they should be pre-destined to be the wives of said soldiers.

(Also such a thing would end up creating a new pro militarist soldier-class that would demand things like "citizenship in exchange for service" and be pro aggressive-expansionism longer story short Super-Earth doesn't sound too fun)

Furthermore higher academia is not engaging just as its lower class counterparts.

The problem is how the current educational system is not engaging to students in any way and is outdated as it was born during a time of mass industrialization intended to create as many people that could sit down and listen turns out humanity was born to run and question this is why students have been cheating on their tests for God knows how long the system is quite literally just not engaging that they don't bother and give up and in modern day they are openly using AI (yes even in the high-end colleges intended for the Elite) because it is not interesting.i

No interest = No commitment

The educational system is not beneficial to women nor is it to men as the only reason women do better than their male counterparts is because they are socialized differently.

TLDR: Public education is a outdated institution that needs radical reform each nation that utilizes education as a means of barring members of society from the workforce is destined to die.

Also higher academia was and still is equally divided between male and female since time immemorial the king's little princess had just as much right if not more than her male counterparts to attend education as all proper ladies and queens-without-kings do.

(it was primarily the upper merchant classes and above who's daughters went to academia as it was basically a prerequisite for upper-class women to be seen as proper).

Secret_Worlder1992 · 2025-06-26T05:28:34+00:00

Let's get the obvious out of the way first - your base premise is unfalsifiable. Like you yourself pointed out, academia has historically been the purview of the elites. It's only recently that it's made accessible to the everyman.

You are right that the average man is not an intellectual, but then neither is the average woman. Most people are not intellectuals, they are the exception rather than the norm. If your claim is that women are somehow more naturally predisposed towards academia than men are then, well... in the words of the late Christopher Hitchens; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Boys outperform girls in SATs in all areas except language - and even that could be chalked up to girls' brains, including the language centres, maturing faster than boys'. Now, SATs aren't everything, and indeed girls do have higher GPAs than boys on average, but surely they're a better barometer for intelligence than the ability to sit still, perform mindless busywork, or being liked by teacher?

Bewiz_Lisa · 2025-06-06T16:03:57+00:00

This reminds me of an argument I had once with someone about how "women just aren't as good as men at STEM" and I was all like "well first let's calibrate our argument, with the starting point that 'PEOPLE just aren't good at STEM, in the overwhelming majority'" and you know, that's reeeeally true. My mom, who was wrong about *countless* things she told me growing up, was actually right about the part where she said since I was good at it, I would never lack employment because everybody always desperately needed people who were good at math and related subjects. 😊

ResponsibilityAny217 · 2025-06-06T15:44:13+00:00

So do u think that the average man will do better at academic if he has more money ?

Admirable-Crab1651 · 2025-06-06T16:59:37+00:00

Women perform better than men because academia in its current form is a factory for nihilists, Marxists, and feminists that despise the American mythology of hard work and individualism embodied in folk heroes like Paul Bunyan and John Henry.

Men are generally right-leaning and don’t take to this indoctrination as well as women. They find these philosophies abhorrent.

But the idea that academia is producing “cerebral” women is a joke. I can’t remember the last time a woman with a college degree didn’t make a logical fallacy within 20 seconds of initiating an argument with me. They’re hollow status chasers, not intelligent.

make_da_stand · 2025-06-08T03:36:12+00:00

Is this Stomp men day?

Title	Historically, the average dude likely never found academics easy
Author	GridReXX
Upvotes	32
Comments	245
Date	June 6, 2025 3:18 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1l4v1sc/historically_the_average_dude_likely_never_found/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/historically-the-average-dude-likely-never-found.1554065 https://theredarchive.com/post/1554065

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