Yet More Proof that Young Men are in Big Trouble

Code of silent?

I had read any numbers of magazine articles over the last few years on the subject.

Yet very few people want to think or talk about it. Code of silence? Guilt because this result was totally predictable when we went on our massive push to advantage women in this society over men so now we don't want to face up to what we have done?

You are obsessed with gender. The greater rates of staying at home has a hell of a lot more to do with the economic climate than gender.

It's more expensive to move out. You generally need a job. That you don't connect the dots (especially when the article talks about it right before the quote you mined) and jump to your gender obsession is quite telling. This isn't "proof" that young men are in "big trouble" it's just a predictable consequence of the economy that you are insisting on viewing through the lens of a troglodyte

EDIT: this much difference can on lead to the conclusion that men are not successfully competing with women.

We need to know why, why are men losing so badly, an what do we intend to do about it?

As colleges nationwide review freshman applications over the next several weeks, many will face lopsided numbers of male and female candidates. Some colleges maintain a gender balance, but national data in recent years show a 57%-43% split favoring women, both in enrollments and graduation rates. Richard Whitmire, author of Why Boys Fail and a former USA TODAY editorial writer, talks to reporter Mary Beth Marklein about how we got there, why we should care, and what should be done about it.

Q: Why do boys fail, and how do we turn that around?

A: The reforms launched by the nation's governors more than 20 years ago to get more students college-ready had an unintended consequence: Most girls adjusted nicely to the intensified verbal skills demanded in the early grades; most boys didn't. We have to figure out a way to keep boys on track with reading and writing skills. Boys are failing because the world has gotten more verbal and they haven't.


Q: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating whethercolleges discriminate against girlsby giving boys a break in admissions, but you support affirmative action for male students for "just a little longer." How long is that?

A: I would like to get (college graduation rates) at a 55-45 split. We need to wait until corrections are made in elementary and high school that put boys on a better path toward college readiness. Improving verbal skills would be 90% of that task. The first measurement of success would be a drop in the number of boys in the ninth-grade "bulge" — the boys held back for another year because they are not prepared to start high school.

Q: Some data suggest minority and low-income boys are struggling the most. Are white boys from middle- or upper-income families not in crisis?

A: You can't look at the "affirmative action" in admissions for white males practiced at some elite private colleges and conclude there's no problem among middle-class white males. Black and Latino boys have the flu; white middle-class boys have a mild cold.

Q: There are economic consequences for men who don't pursue college, but you cite social implications as well.

A: The most striking was at James Madison University (where the ratio was about 60% female, 40% male). Some women there (said) it was not uncommon to see these parties where girls would get into this bizarre competition to win a guy who maybe even wasn't worth winning. And these guys were total players. The minority sex sets the rules, animal house rules, and these women would do very demeaning things just for the competition. They'd be embarrassed about that (but) they'd do it anyway. I'm really glad my daughters went to colleges where the genders were evenly balanced. But if I had a son, I wouldn't want him to develop these warped relationships, either.

The marriageable-mate dilemma, whether white women decide to "marry down" to less-educated males, will be a long-term impact of these gender gaps, and probably the biggest impact. Black women have long faced the marriageable-mate dilemma, and college-educated black women have low marriage rates and high out-of-wedlock birth rates. The question is whether more white women will start making similar choices.

Q: Do you worry, as some argue, that gains made by women come at the expense of men?

A: I do not think the gains of girls have come at the expense of boys. And interventions aimed at boys will not hurt girls — contrary to the fears of feminist groups.

Q: You want the U.S. Education Department to take action. How?

A: Many other countries have the same problems. The Education Department should do what the Australians did more than seven years ago, which was launch a national investigation into why boys are losing interest in school. Next, it needs to correct the mistake made in 2006, which was authorizing single-sex public schools but not offering school districts research on how to do it. Australia has not solved the problem, but at least they've created an intelligence pathway for schools interested in working on the gender gaps.

Q: How can a parent of a boy help him, here and now?

A: Don't believe your teacher when they say boys start out slowly but will catch up. That used to be true, but it's not now. Parents need to have a more liberal attitude about literacy. If your young son likes "goofy" books such as Captain Underpants, that's OK. Just keep him reading. The largest gender gaps are found in writing skills. Schools may overlook that — part of the 'boys will be boys' attitude — which means parents have to compensate. Writing matters.

It's really silly to argue by stating that no other conclusion is possible

Q: Do you worry, as some argue, that gains made by women come at the expense of men?

A: I do not think the gains of girls have come at the expense of boys.

Pay attention Robert, you clearly have some ignorance to overcome...

Why don't you pay attention hawkeye, you just quoted someone directly contradicting you as your substantiation

My main position is that men are failing to compete, which this expert agrees with, that we got there in part by prioritizing women is a separate issue.

Male Vulnerability - All the Way Back to the Womb :
Gender equality aside, it turns out that baby boys and girls have very distinct responses to stress in the womb, much like grown men and women respond so very differently to stress, out here in the cold, cruel world.

According to Health Day News, Australian researchers studied fetal response to maternal stressors such as poor health and psychological struggle. Vicki Clifton, an associate professor in the pregnancy and development group of the Robinson Institute at the University of Adelaide, said in a news release: "The male, when mum is stressed, pretends it's not happening and keeps growing, so he can be as big as he possibly can be. The female, in response to mum's stress, will reduce her growth rate a little bit; not too much so she becomes growth restricted, but just dropping a bit below average." So let me get this straight — the male pretends he doesn’t know what is going on while he continues to consume all available resources without regard to future scarcity or danger. The female plans ahead, scales back, prepares herself for survival no matter what may be in store. Sounds about right.

I know I sound flip, but it’s just so spot-on. Maybe this biological strategy is one of the reasons there are so many more boys conceived than girls, and yet the live birth rate remains relatively even. Pulling back on resource consumption pays off.
Clifton goes on to explain why: "When there is another complication in the pregnancy — either a different stress or the same one again — the female will continue to grow on that same pathway and do OK, but the male baby doesn't do so well and is at greater risk of pre-term delivery, stopping growing or dying in the uterus."
This male vulnerability doesn’t end at birth. After announcing the results of a 2009 study on pregnancy complications with a male fetus, Professor Marek Glezerman, obstetrician, gynecologist, and expert in gender-based medicine at the TAU School of Medicine, called men biologically weak: "In general, boys are more vulnerable in their life in utero, and this vulnerability continues to exist throughout their lives.
It is a known fact that men have a shorter lifespan, compared to women; they are also more susceptible to different kinds of infections, and do not have such a good chance to withstand disease as women do.

Whether boys are more vulnerable than girls to reading disabilities (RD) is controversial. We review studies that were designed to minimize ascertainment bias in the selection of individuals with RD. These include population-based studies that identified children with RD by objective, unbiased methods and studies that examined the gender ratios among the affected relatives of those diagnosed with RD. We conclude that even when ascertainment biases are minimized, there is still a significant preponderance of boys with RD, although the gender ratio of the affected relatives of those with RD manifests the weakest male bias. Furthermore, we demonstrate that potentially confounding factors such as attentional or neurological problems, race, IQ, and severity of RD cannot account for the observed gender bias. We end with a clarion call to future researchers to (a) consider analyzing gender differences by means of more than one definition of RD, (b) compare gender ratios when boys and girls are ranked against the performance of their own gender as opposed to an average across genders, and (c) report group differences in variability and effect sizes of obtained gender ratios.

In 2011, 19% of men aged 25 to 34 shacked up with mom and dad, up from 14% in 2005, according to figures released by the US Census bureau. For women the number is 10%, up from 8%

How come their adult sons are so much more dependent & helpless, compared to their daughters?
In my humble opinion, the lot of them should grow up & stop sponging off their parents.

Hawkeye, what are you doing in your neighbourhood and local school system to address your issue? Are you making people aware? Have you done studies in your area? What are the facts where you live? And what are you doing about it?

It's all very well to keep flogging the same horse, but at some point that horse is going to die. I'd like to know, aside from bleating about it here, what you're actually doing about this issue you're so concerned about.

In 2011, 19% of men aged 25 to 34 shacked up with mom and dad, up from 14% in 2005, according to figures released by the US Census bureau. For women the number is 10%, up from 8%