@hawkeye10,
Quote:that clearly does not explain it, because it does not for instance explain why males are not applying themselves to education. There is no doubt but that education is a pathway to success, but increasingly men are not trying. Universities have been talking for 20 years about their difficulty in getting enough men to apply so that they could get the mix that they wanted in the student body, and the problem has steadily gotten worse. Males could successfully navigate HS and put in an application to collage as well as women can, but dont.
That's a slight exaggeration of the problem. Men are still going to college. But, when they get there, they may spend more of their free time playing video games, or tracking fantasy football league scores, while the women are hitting the books and studying hard. The women tend to be more focused and self disciplined. They are also more goal oriented long range, in terms of future careers, and have a better idea what career they want. And that's also why they've been going on to graduate schools in larger numbers.
Quote:
We’ve all heard about the collegiate gender gap. But the implications of that gap have not yet been fully digested. Women now earn 60 percent of master’s degrees, about half of all law and medical degrees, and 42 percent of all M.B.A.s. Most important, women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees—the minimum requirement, in most cases, for an affluent life. In a stark reversal since the 1970s, men are now more likely than women to hold only a high-school diploma. “One would think that if men were acting in a rational way, they would be getting the education they need to get along out there,” says Tom Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. “But they are just failing to adapt.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/
So, why aren't men acting in a more rational way, and taking education more seriously, and putting more effort into it? Why are they failing to adapt to reality?
Is it because they no longer anticipate being the main breadwinners in the family, so they have no incentive to succeed? Because they are suffering from the effects of losing their traditional gender role as head of the family?
Oh dear, that would make them
victims of the changing culture. Even worse,
victims, of a labor marketplace culture that is increasingly working in the favor of women.
VICTIMS, Hawkeye, that word you detest. You get livid when groups play the victim card.
Are you backing yourself into a corner with your views that men are becoming marginalized, and (shudder)
victimized? And, because women have pulled the rug out from under these poor benighted
victims, we have to worry they will be loveless, sexless, family-less, and might turn to violence and burn down cities.
Sure, the times are changing. Women are out of the home and in the workforce. And they are succeeding fairly well, except for lingering pay inequities, and that rigid glass ceiling blocking the way to the top echelons of corporate power. But that shouldn't stop the men from stepping along beside them, should it? There are no educational or employment obstacles or barriers in their way, are they?
I think failures art has made some good points.
failures art said:
Quote:If men have done less well, perhaps it is because the era of entitlement is evaporating
Maybe men have coasted along on their sense of entitlement for far too long. They had their traditional masculine roles, and masculine prerogatives, handed to them, and obediently turned over to them by the women. And now that gravy train of automatic entitlement may be drying up. Maybe now they'll have to start working really hard to gain all that respect and status. Maybe they'll have to settle for equal footing rather than being the one in charge. Maybe they'll have to get their satisfactions from something other than having power.
Unless there is some permanent defect on the Y chromosome that would prevent them from adapting, I think they'll figure it out. Your dire predictions about The End of Men (thunder clap in background), are unlikely to happen. In fact, many men have been making these adaptations in gender-role for decades now. They've been sharing many more tasks with the women in their lives, the sorts of things she did before she went to work. They consider their wife's career as important as their own, and they still want to succeed on their own too. And they haven't been afraid to get in touch with the more feminine, emotional side of their nature either, while still remaining decidedly masculine. And those are the ones the women still love, and still love to marry. These guys won't be wandering the streets, lovelorn and disgruntled. And their sons, and grandsons won't either, if they adapt, and don't act like either
victims or macho losers.
But, for starters, they've got to buckle down and start working hard...in school. And go after their careers with the same determination and drive that the women are now showing. They've got to start growing up a little faster and put down that video game controller and focus on real life challenges. The days of easy entitlement are over. They are going to have to prove themselves worthy of that accomplished woman if they want her in their life.
