The feminisation of education or are boys getting dumber?

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I can and already have. Improving the quality of education for female children is not a "conspiracy". If the way they do it has an unintended consequence of putting boys at a disadvantage, that is not a "conspiracy". The only person in thread who said there was a "conspiracy" is you.



The fallacy of your argument is that it assumes that children will give a toss that great grandma might not of had the opportunity to go to school 100 years ago. If they have never experienced it themselves, then those will be nothing more than anecdotal stories to them. It's not as if girls were ever denied an education within the lifetimes of the current generation of children. The girls, of course, might of experienced sexism but that's kind of not what we are talking about.



Well, the thing is that there is not really any reason that boys should not do as well as girls in literature if they were required to write essays and stuff on topics they find interesting, rather than topics that require them to write about emotions. Which by the way, appeals to girls but are not exactly the strong point of boys. That's why boys often achieve better in an all boys school than co-ed, because they usually get reading material as well essay topics that appeal more to them.

What I have been told is that men, in general, are encouraged to pursue "higher" education, regardless of the time it takes for them to get there. I am unsure regarding women, it was advanced that pregnancy would delay access to higher education, but I'm not so sure anymore and I doubt that this possibility is still valid. -.- It could explain why they don't waste time with their studies (as in, fool around) and want to perform? =/

This contradicts the article you so proudly-linked. It claims that boys are just stronger at math and memorizing facts and that the current curricula is more about topics different than those than it used to be. It mentions nothing about how boys being forced to talk about emotions (I don't think this is even true) are making them be afraid of the cooties and in their pursuit of not becoming gay they start downperforming at school. Your own article claims that boys should do worse in literature.

I mean, really.

true, i did not read the articles and i mistook the tone of what she quoted. i noticed that you skipped over everything that i said except for this part.

so what if males are fewer in number in universoty? they don't need as much education as women do to get the same jobs for the same pay. no point in superfluous education.

Getting a job is not supposed to be the only reason for a university education.

It should also be for "passing on knowledge and savoir-faire" but it seems the market doesn't care about such things. It benefits more from universities which operate as a "diploma factory". -.- Sorry if this is off the topic.

of course, but if they don't want to go, why push them? they are happy fulfilling their dreams without the postecondary education. is there a shortage of qualified people in some area that we need more men in university?

in my province, we have an extremely strong economy and a world-renowned education system. still, boys drop out of school at very high rates because they simply don't need the education to do what they want with their lives. it would not be advantageous in their view to waste time in university when they can make massive money on the oil rigs with grade 9 education. and there is a chronic shortage of people to fill that gap, so unskilled workers are brought in from all over. it would not do the economy any good to encourage those men to get postsecondary education, and it in their eyes it would not do them any good either. someone needs to do the dangerous grunt work where physical strength is required.

If a man can get a job that pays as well as the job a woman needs a batchelor's degree for, without any college at all, why should he go tens of thousands of dollars into debt if he's happy with that level of pay?

I agree that there is a marked difference in the numbers of boys vs. girls being accepted to university; I'm just not sure that it's as much of a problem as has been claimed. Certainly it's not some sort of feminist conspiracy to 'feminize' the curriculum at lower levels.

Hey Vexcaliber, please look at this Wikipedia article under the subtitle literacy specific issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_and_education

Specifically it says this:



What exactly about that contradicts what is written in that other article. It is simply a matter utilizing relative strengths to succeed in education. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever, that I have said that I haven't read somewhere else.

"... are making them be afraid of the cooties and in their pursuit of not becoming gay ...", really?! Where are you getting that nonsense from? It would actually be more productive if you looked up this stuff yourself instead spewing this condescending crap at every point I make.

I skipped over the other stuff because I didn't think that there was anything else to reply. Now, I don't know how it is in Canada but here in South Africa, the mainstream, rather remedial, schools have larger classes and so it becomes difficult for a teacher to pay more attention to each child differently. Yes, I'm aware that individual children are different but the ones who are in the minority also tend suffer in terms of academic achievement while in the mainstream schools.

Now with respect to your second statement, I highly doubt that a job that requires minimum level of qualification would lower the standards for men compared to women, that would be completely silly. You're saying that employers would hire incompetent men who don't have the qualifications to the job while asking for higher standards from women? I just don't see how it can be true that men don't need higher education to enter into skilled labour because then they can't do the work.

I wish I had a facepalm emoticon just for that exact post. Have you completely missed the point of this entire thread? Gee, boys are often not doing well in school. For a number of reasons, they have been put off education at school, yet what a surprise it is that they don't want to apply for university.

Also, there may a shortage unskilled workers but there is also a shortage of people going into the science, technology and engineering type fields. I'm not saying that women don't pursue those fields but I can assure you that it is not sexist to point out that less women than men have interest in pursuing them. An increase in female students has not done much to get more women into those fields either, which are still dominated by men.

Oh, one more thing. I think you have forgotten that the reason those unskilled jobs that you mentioned often pay more is because they are more dangerous and people are therefore less likely to do them. The majority of workplace deaths are actually men who work in those kinds of jobs.

Last edited by Jono on 23 Sep 2011, 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

we have large classesas well. it's up to each teacher as to how they will approach their teaching assignment. i think that in any teaching situation, using a variety of teaching methods will assist students, but gender needn't have anything to do with it. offering variety and options serves the same purpose.

i don't belive that there are lowered standards for men, but rather... for some reason women on average have higher levels of education in those same jobs.

it is unnecessary for men to have higher education prior to doing unkilled labour, and in fact it would be detrimental to their careers if they got postecondary such as auniversity program prior to working on jobs such as the oil rigs for a few reasons.

first of all, their peak working years (when they are strongest and healthiest start when they in their late teens). if they spend that time in school, they've lost their advantage. there are a limited number of years that *most* people can do heavy-duty hard labour. the clock is ticking, so 4 years in university is not advantageous to that end.

also a person with a degree is actually less desirable in those unskilled jobs. it is a big joke in my area that a good way to become unemployed is to get a liberal arts degree. sure you may gain certain skills that could be argued are desirable as a person, but in terms of supporting yourself or a family, it is not the best plan in an industrial city. some types of further education are very desirable, such as apprenticeship trades and engineering, and in those areas men form a massive majority.

they can always go BACK to school later on if they feel a career change or skills upgrade is necessary, and some men do that.

most of the time when there is a shortage of educated people in one area, the industries advertise for more post-secondary slots in that area (even funding new professors and buildings). when there are fewer people required in that area, the vacancies decrease in those institutions. there is an ebb and flow.

men are not excluded from entering into university programs, and they are employed at roughly equal rates as women in my country (at a slight majority), so i do not see how they are missing out in some way. equally employed, at an average of higher wages, with less education... i'm still not seeing a problem.

Citing oil-rigs as a plus doesn't help you. Women can, with little to no education, become strippers and make very high wages. If I cited this as a justification for the idea that "women don't need to improve themselves with education, since they have this lucrative unskilled job opportunity, so it doesn't matter if universities are unfair to women" would you not have a problem with this?

If there is unfairness, then it ought to be fixed. It doesn't matter which direction the unfairness happens to be in.

there is less demand for strippers, so it's not a good counterpoint. and *someone* needs to work the rigs to keep the economy strong. strippers are not necessary in this way. strippers also don't usually make much money. you need a better example.

i really don't see why i would be deciding how otehr women need to improve themselves with some for of education... i'm not promoting that more women should become welders or engineers even though they are underrepresented in those areas, so i wouldn't push men to enter certain industries or get a certain education either. i think people can decide for themselves.

universities *aren't* unfair to men. men not signing up for university =/= universities excluding them.

I'm going to go with what hyperlexian is saying. It's also interesting because in Quebec, some effort has been made to encourage forward professional formation (such as nursering, plumbering, etc.) rather than university formation, which had been given a pretty bad image.

The point is that there is good-paying work that has significant drawbacks. Demand doesn't have anything to do with it.


Necessity is also beside the point.