Why men don't go to college

[hasikelee]

I don’t know the answer to your question, but they are certainly good questions. Much of what I have written is anecdotal thus far. I do want to learn from research. Why don’t we both do some more research?

CDL

Well, from what I’ve found, I don’t think research on this has been done. Of course, I can’t know that for sure.

Basically I was just wondering aloud.

One thing, if it really is a case of more women than men attending college and getting bachelor’s degrees when compared to a controlled number, what are the implications of this?

I see this already, working for a company that employees lower-wage and even hourly associates. There will be a part-time Mr. Daddy married to a very educated Dr. Mommy.

 

[Kaninchen]

Capitalism has always had a tendency to leave high and dry those groups with obsolete skills and working practices, especially (one might argue) where members of those groups had completely unrealistic views of the value of those skills and practices.

The last half-century has seen a huge change in the nature of capitalism in industrialized countries, not the least of those reasons being the industrialization of those societies that realized that they better get a brand new way of looking at the world.

If boys are being left behind, if those aptitudes that boys (statistically-speaking) tend to have are undervalued, then the answer might well be to find ways of channelling those into activities that might one day have economic value. ‘The Market’ is not known for its altruism and labor is in a buyers’ market.

 

[mlchance]

I’m not certain how much freedom the pill offers women. Sometimes the pill seems to benefit men more then women.

Precisely. Anything that a giant of the women’s rights movement like Susan B. Anthony thought was degrading to women should be looked at with suspicion. Anthony and others viewed contraception as immoral and degrading to women because it reduced women to the level of prostitutes, women who could be used for sex by men without consequence.

As to the topic question: Who knows? I, for one, would love to have the time and money to go back to school.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[deb1]

“On an unseasonably cold day last November in Foley, Ala., Colby Royster and Michael Peterson, two students in William Bender’s fourth-grade public-school class, informed me that the class corn snake could eat a rat faster than the class boa constrictor. Bender teaches 26 fourth graders, all boys. Down the hall and around the corner, Michelle Gay teaches 26 fourth-grade girls. The boys like being on their own, they say, because girls don’t appreciate their jokes and think boys are too messy, and are also scared of snakes. The walls of the boys’ classroom are painted blue, the light bulbs emit a cool white light and the thermostat is set to 69 degrees. In the girls’ room, by contrast, the walls are yellow, the light bulbs emit a warm yellow light and the temperature is kept six degrees warmer, as per the instructions of Leonard Sax, a family physician turned author and advocate who this May will quit his medical practice to devote himself full time to promoting single-sex public education.”

My nine year old daughter Sarah loves snakes-we had a corn snake- and she is impressed that her best friend can fart on cue. But then she is the youngest and my oldest two are boys. Maybe that has influenced her. She would probably not fit in with a class of girls though.

She is probably the exception that proves the rule as she is a bit more comfortable with guys then girls precisely because of the differences in gender.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

Capitalism has always had a tendency to leave high and dry those groups with obsolete skills and working practices, especially (one might argue) where members of those groups had completely unrealistic views of the value of those skills and practices.

The last half-century has seen a huge change in the nature of capitalism in industrialized countries, not the least of those reasons being the industrialization of those societies that realized that they better get a brand new way of looking at the world.

If boys are being left behind, if those aptitudes that boys (statistically-speaking) tend to have are undervalued, then the answer might well be to find ways of channelling those into activities that might one day have economic value. ‘The Market’ is not known for its altruism and labor is in a buyers’ market.

Thank you for a thoughtful post. You may well have a point here. I am concerned that the US is turning into a service economy for a majority of people. But then fortunes of countries ebb and flow. I’m not sure that is a major reason why men are avoiding college and I do see many men who are abandoning their responsibilities at home because they have low paying jobs. Again this is mostly anecdotal on my part.

CDL

 

[Kaninchen]

Thank you for a thoughtful post. You may well have a point here. I am concerned that the US is turning into a service economy for a majority of people. But then fortunes of countries ebb and flow. I’m not sure that is a major reason why men are avoiding college and I do see many men who are abandoning their responsibilities at home because they have low paying jobs. Again this is mostly anecdotal on my part.

CDL

I think it can be argued with some success is that the relative success of women in the last 40 years was not the product of just one force but two - there were seismic changes in the nature of capitalism at the same time as a cultural shift (partly but not entirely the result of feminism) in how women viewed participation in work and society in general. Careers were what women decided we wanted just at the point where opportunities were mushrooming.

The question arises about whether such a cultural shift happened for men and I don’t think that it really ever has. It used to be that, for a woman to succeed, she had to be a success in a world that was molded around a male ‘model’ (a traditional ‘model’, not necessarily really male, just what males were used to and had adapted to over time - a cultural artifact rather than a mirror of ‘maleness’) and, to a considerable extent, that’s still the case at middle and higher levels but not earlier, education and early career formation levels.

If young males are having problems with the current, more female-oriented, ‘model’, then the answer would not be to attempt to return to a traditional ‘model’ that’s well past its sell-by date but, rather, to look at the whole world of ‘models’ itself.

 

[strngrnrth]

My utopian educational vision:
Before age seven, day care is available but a child must test unusually high in reading and logic to be admitted to school per se.
7-15: Schools compete for students. Classes are offered in various sizes of time blocks. Students may take any trimester off in the year for any reason. Classes come in three types: academic (History of American Literature, Laws of Nature), apprenticeship (web design, boatbuilding, homemaking), and project (let’s make a mural, tree planting, field trip). Students may take any number of any combination of classes but may not graduate until they have passed at least ten of each type at some level. Classes compete for students as well.
15 and older: College is available to those who meet the admission requirements.
At all ages, partial to full subsidies are available based on a combination of need and aptitude. Students of any age may earn part of their tuition by working at schools if there is work to be done.
If all the boys take rodeo and fencing and all the girls take doll design, fine. I say power to them. But they wouldn’t. There would be both boys and girls in almost all the classes.
Academic classes would take different forms. Some would include good books, storytelling and the right to work with a teammate. Many girls would come alive in such a class. Others would involve rote memorization and high-speed drills. Some boys would discover the fun of learning there. But those wouldn’t be the only forms.
Project classes would retain girls by focusing on quality as much as speed and allowing time for a quality job.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

The online version of Atlantic Monthly published this in 2000 by Christina Hoff Sommers, “The War Against Boys” which contains some useful stats and this quote.

“The generally larger numbers of males who perform near the bottom of the distribution in reading comprehension and writing also have policy implications. It seems likely that individuals with such poor literacy skills will have difficulty finding employment in an increasingly information-driven economy. Thus, some intervention may be required to enable them to participate constructively.”

It is projected that by 2007 girls will outnumber boys in college by 9.2 to 6.9. Sommers puts much of the blame for this not on macro economics but on the radical feminists.

I’ll keep researching.

CDL

 

[Al_Masetti]

Christina Hoff Sommers has written some excellent books on this subject.

Another consistently excellent writer about the discrimination against men is … believe it or not … Camille Paglia.

dir.salon.com/topics/camille_paglia/index.html

And then there’s Warren Farrell:

warrenfarrell.com/

And finally, get this book for your boys … make sure they know all the stuff in there:

amazon.com/Dangerous-Book-Boys-Conn-Iggulden/dp/0061243582/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204951868&sr=1-1

 

[GregoryPalamas]

Christina Hoff Sommers has written some excellent books on this subject.

Another consistently excellent writer about the discrimination against men is … believe it or not … Camille Paglia.

dir.salon.com/topics/camille_paglia/index.html

And then there’s Warren Farrell:

warrenfarrell.com/

And finally, get this book for your boys … make sure they know all the stuff in there:

amazon.com/Dangerous-Book-Boys-Conn-Iggulden/dp/0061243582/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204951868&sr=1-1

Al,

Thanks for these links. I have a few questions. Could you guide me to the articles by Paglia that are on target? I note that Farrell has pictures with the Clintons. Given his titles that seems a strange mixture. The Dangerous Boys book looks like a wonder. I was active with my sons in scouting a commitment for which I will always be grateful. How successful have the feminist and homosexualtsts been in their attempts to destroy the Scouting program in recent years? That has been very distessing to me.

CDL

 

[strngrnrth]

Christina Hoff Sommers has written some excellent books on this subject.

Another consistently excellent writer about the discrimination against men is … believe it or not … Camille Paglia.

dir.salon.com/topics/camille_paglia/index.html

And then there’s Warren Farrell:

warrenfarrell.com/

And finally, get this book for your boys … make sure they know all the stuff in there:

amazon.com/Dangerous-Book-Boys-Conn-Iggulden/dp/0061243582/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204951868&sr=1-1

I’m unfamiliar with Sommers, but Farrell has come out in favor of incest in Penthouse and Paglia is also in favor of many deviant practices. Farrell’s research is very slapdash and Paglia never claimed to be doing research as far as i know. Bell hooks has some funny comments on Paglia vis-a-vis race and culture BTW.

 

[DrPiano]

I see this already, working for a company that employees lower-wage and even hourly associates. There will be a part-time Mr. Daddy married to a very educated Dr. Mommy.

I know this isn’t entirely on topic, but perhaps it is. My fiance and I will be exactly this kind of couple, and it all has to do with our dreams. I’ve always dreamed of being a doctor (for as far back as I can remember), while he’s always really wanted to be a dad (and never been all that interested in having a career). Right now he works while I attend school to get my MD, but one day he’ll be a stay-at-home dad and a writer (when he gets the chance) and I’ll be the Mommy, MD. For us it works. I’m happy that our kids will have a parent at home and our sons will have an excellent, loving father as a role model for them. We’re both educated (right now we both have Bachelors Degrees) and will be in a position to encourage our children to pursue their dreams regardless of society’s stand on whether that is “ok” for their gender.

I think someone brought up a good point. There aren’t a lot of decent-paying jobs for women to do without getting a college degree while until recently men could get a job in manufacturing (or other blue collar work) fairly easily. Now, times are changing. I think we might see more men going to college again as the only jobs being left in-country are going to be service jobs and “thought-jobs” that can’t yet be shipped overseas.

I think its also notable that while some professions (and therefore some college classes) such as nursing and education are flooded with women, others are still male-dominated. At the college where my honey and I both got our degrees, the enrollment was about 50-50 but the engineering courses (and a lot of the high-level science courses) were mostly male-dominated while the education and nursing courses were female-dominated. Other areas had a decent mix.

As for the use of “psychotropic drugs” I can only speak from personal experience. My father and brother both have ADHD. My brother is a smart kid (currently at the college I went to, trying to get a degree so he can teach special education) but the only way he can get any work done is with his ADHD medication. Without it he is easily distracted and can’t focus on getting full thoughts down on paper (much less making them coherent). When my parents and his doctors started him on the medications many years ago, it made it infinitely easier for him to succeed in school. It has helped him realize his potential rather than stifling it. My dad struggled through school back in the 60s and has struggled through job-after-job ever since - until he started taking similar ADD medications (prescribed by his doctor). Since then I’ve seen him be able to stay at the same company for MUCH longer than he ever could in the past and really do well at his job. I also saw a dramatic improvement in the way he interacted with the family. Life got so much better for all of us - and we communicate so much better than we ever did. Are drugs like this overprescribed? Its possible. But for those who need them, they really do make a huge difference.

 

[Naztakuan]

Women outnumber men in the United States. 51% and I think only 30% of the US population even attends/graduates college.
College is not for everyone and yes it requires you to sit still and study, that’s what college is, tons of lectures. Many guys can’t do that, but most of the guys I know like that simply don’t like university or classroom settings but they’ve been doing that for centuries. Back when school was only available to the priveledge few, boys were regularly beaten if they fell asleep in class or did anything they weren’t supposed to. The teachers themselves are just to lazy to actually teach children who act like children not miniature adults. So they drug them. When I was in elemenatry ,school, none of the boys I knew were on drugs but they weren’t always quiet either and neither were the girls.
Alot of men don’t go to college because they don’t feel like they need to go. All they want is a good job. The more ambitious one’s go to college to be doctors or lawyers. But you don’t have to go to college if you already have a trade.

 

[Kaninchen]

The online version of Atlantic Monthly published this in 2000 by Christina Hoff Sommers, “The War Against Boys” which contains some useful stats and this quote.

Congratulations, you’ve brought up a something that verges on a conversation stopper for me! I’m afraid that several years ago I spent more time discussing Hoff Sommers, Cathy Young et al than anybody needs in a lifetime - if believers in reincarnation turn out to be right, that goes for any more lifetimes I may have to come!

Of course Hoff Sommers blamed ‘radical feminists’, she made a whole career out of it (there were/are advantages for some conservative women who had benefited from greater opportunities for women in making a profession out of being anti-feminist), meanwhile, admittedly speaking as a European - though I have lived in the US - liberal (and ‘liberal feminist’), one of the things I love about conservatives is that they worship The Market when it suits their purposes and rush to find various kinds of ‘demons’ to blame for any collateral damage!

I’d be the first to agree that there are serious problems (nothing I’ve said here could be seen as disagreeing with that) but blaming ‘radical feminists’ or whoever is the route to discussion degenerating into a mutual “ain’t it awful” lovefest amongst devotees of that particular perspective.

The thing is that change can only be change in existing circumstances and with a population that is what it is and not what one may wish it to be - a population, moreover, that is unlikely to be swayed by protagonists of one point of view discussing just how awful everything is.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

Congratulations, you’ve brought up a something that verges on a conversation stopper for me! I’m afraid that several years ago I spent more time discussing Hoff Sommers, Cathy Young et al than anybody needs in a lifetime - if believers in reincarnation turn out to be right, that goes for any more lifetimes I may have to come!

Of course Hoff Sommers blamed ‘radical feminists’, she made a whole career out of it (there were/are advantages for some conservative women who had benefited from greater opportunities for women in making a profession out of being anti-feminist), meanwhile, admittedly speaking as a European - though I have lived in the US - liberal (and ‘liberal feminist’), one of the things I love about conservatives is that they worship The Market when it suits their purposes and rush to find various kinds of ‘demons’ to blame for any collateral damage!

I’d be the first to agree that there are serious problems (nothing I’ve said here could be seen as disagreeing with that) but blaming ‘radical feminists’ or whoever is the route to discussion degenerating into a mutual “ain’t it awful” lovefest amongst devotees of that particular perspective.

The thing is that change can only be change in existing circumstances and with a population that is what it is and not what one may wish it to be - a population, moreover, that is unlikely to be swayed by protagonists of one point of view discussing just how awful everything is.

I guess it should be obvious by now that I think the changes in the economy answer that you have suggested may be part of the situation but only a minor part. You are way ahead of me in your understanding of Sommers but until I see a more balanced number of men and women in college I will hold your observations as simply one perspective among many.

CDL

 

[Kaninchen]

I guess it should be obvious by now that I think the changes in the economy answer that you have suggested may be part of the situation but only a minor part. You are way ahead of me in your understanding of Sommers but until I see a more balanced number of men and women in college I will hold your observations as simply one perspective among many.

CDL

Of course it’s just one perspective amongst many, I’d be the first to agree with that. The odd thing is that your view of the effect of feminism is one you share (though for opposite reasons and opposite views on outcomes) with very, very many of my feminist friends in the past, while my view that change was more economy-driven is one that I share with a lot of opponents of feminism!

Politics can create strange (for want of a better cliché) bedfellows.

 

[Al_Masetti]

I’m unfamiliar with Sommers, but Farrell has come out in favor of incest in Penthouse and Paglia is also in favor of many deviant practices. Farrell’s research is very slapdash and Paglia never claimed to be doing research as far as i know. Bell hooks has some funny comments on Paglia vis-a-vis race and culture BTW.

Farrell and Paglia have sterling credentials as ardent feminists. Yet, both have defended men.

So, their arguments that defend men and maleness gain extra credibility … given their support for what we would consider the radical feminist agenda.

Here’s the link to Farrell’s page on Wiki:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Farrell

Farrell has written that women are not superior to men, and that use of the “woman as victim” role in much of mainstream feminism has essentially stifled debate.

He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science (UCLA; New York University (NYU)). He taught at the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and at Georgetown University, Rutgers, Brooklyn College, and American University.

Farrell wrote “The Myth of Male Power” rejecting the sexism displayed against men by women.

As a champion of feminism, he served on the board of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

However, he was asked to leave NOW as his views diverged from those generally held in the organization. He was critical of what he saw as female exclusiveness and disregard for men’s issues. His early books The Liberated Man and Why Men Are the Way They Are were more in the vein of a type of men’s liberation – an approach to men’s issues similar to that of feminism to women’s issues.

Here is Paglia’s Wiki page:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Paglia

Paglia is a strong critic of much of the feminism that began with Betty Friedan’s 1962 The Feminine Mystique.

At the same time Paglia’s embrace of fetishism, pornography, prostitution and, most prominently, male homosexuality, puts her at odds with the “family values” of American social conservatives. I have heard her claim to have come from a Catholic family but now embraces wicca and has a lesbian “partner” with whom she has a child.

Meanwhile, Paglia is critical of the influence certain French philosophers and theorists (including Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Helene Cixous and Michel Foucault) have had on the humanities in the U.S. and favors a curriculum grounded in comparative religion, art history and the literary canon, with a greater emphasis on facts in the teaching of history.

Any critic of Foucault and his philosophy of “deconstructionism” is a friend of mine, frankly.

Since many of her debating points are so close to traditional Catholicism, we should pray for her to revert to Catholicism.

Her supporters (for different reasons) include Andrew Sullivan, Christina Hoff Sommers, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, Matt Drudge and her Yale mentor Harold Bloom.

 

[strngrnrth]

Women outnumber men in the United States. 51% and I think only 30% of the US population even attends/graduates college.
Actually, about 90% attend, about 55% get a degree of some kind and about 27 or 28% get a four-year degree or more. People quit at every step of the way in college.

Back when school was only available to the priveledge few, boys were regularly beaten if they fell asleep in class or did anything they weren’t supposed to. The teachers themselves are just to lazy to actually teach children who act like children not miniature adults. So they drug them. When I was in elemenatry ,school, none of the boys I knew were on drugs but they weren’t always quiet either and neither were the girls.
In fact that was true even into the days when almost every American went to school. Corporal punishment in public school continued into the 1970’s. I remember the day it was outlawed.
Alot of men don’t go to college because they don’t feel like they need to go. All they want is a good job. The more ambitious one’s go to college to be doctors or lawyers. But you don’t have to go to college if you already have a trade.

And some trades pay better then some careers that require college credentials too. Excellent points.

 

[Kaninchen]

Any critic of Foucault and his philosophy of “deconstructionism” is a friend of mine, frankly.

You cannot imagine how happy I am to find an expert on deconstruction at CAF, perhaps you could start a thread on the ‘Philosophy’ board on the topic? The treatment on websites is just too confusing and I’m sure that it would be wonderful for somebody who really understood the subject to explain it all, personally, to us in words we might understand.

I do hope you can find the time to do this.

 

[Al_Masetti]

You cannot imagine how happy I am to find an expert on deconstruction at CAF, perhaps you could start a thread on the ‘Philosophy’ board on the topic? The treatment on websites is just too confusing and I’m sure that it would be wonderful for somebody who really understood the subject to explain it all, personally, to us in words we might understand.

I do hope you can find the time to do this.

I do not have the time.

The problem is that the lexicon of post-modernism and deconstructionism shares some characteristics with the lexicon of Marxism and Leninism … for example, their words have unique meanings.

To most folks it is all nonsense.

Just read the bio of Foucault … read all of it. See if it makes any real sense.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

What all of it comes down to is that the proponents sit around intellectualizing and not actually producing anything useful. In their envy of those who can change a light bulb, they propose that the structure of society be changed to give these alleged intellectuals power over the “light bulb changers”.

Many of these so-called intellectuals have eloquent and powerful persuasive skills … which on close study and analysis are empty rhetoric. So when they do achieve political power, they end up perpetrating things such as deliberately or accidentally “under educating” the children in government schools [also known as “dumbing down”] … [Read Chapter 6 of “None Dare Call It Treason” by John A. Stormer] and being demonstrably unable to produce, they do things such as ban parents from home-schooling their children … or end up ranking 49th in education … or they end up perpetrating the Pol Pot slaughters and they embrace crazy ideas that just don’t work without physical coercion … such as Marxist economics. And everybody wants to flee [also known as voting with their feet … which is why New York and Ohio and a few other states are losing population and numbers of Congressional representatives]. Because they don’t actually know anything about the physical world … the real world, … which they reject … as if they could.

They don’t study applied science.

Anyway, folks can read the Foucault bio and if they still are interested, they can read some of the other post-modernists.

If someone really gets interested, they can start a thread, but in my opinion, it’s just a bunch of people who sit around and hatch plots because they succumb to sins of envy, sloth, greed, lust and a few others … but in a gignormous way that outdoes everyone else.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

And then go here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

And then try the bios of Derrida and the rest.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida

And if anyone actually reads all this, you’d probably have a good explanation why “men don’t go to college”. Who wants to study this stuff?