12.17.06
Response to a Limbaugh fan, I presume
Cleaning out the comment box…(from Craig)
Reading Tamim Ansary’s recent article in Encarta “The Rise of the College Woman” would initially strike fear into the hearts of many a Male Chauvinist…
I read the article earlier, but it doesn’t seem to be available online anymore. I recall at the time that it was rather cursory and missed some important points.
…but you know something? Reading the Holy Bible for many years, I have yet to read anything depicting or predicting the overtaking of Western civilized males, i.e. men becoming the new INFERIOR SEX (or as more politically correct, the SECOND SEX)!
I am missing your point. Are you saying that if something was not predicted by the bible, it will not happen? I am presuming that the bible failed to predict with certainty both your birth and mine.
Why is the phrase “SECOND SEX” a ‘politically correct’ way to describe men in your mind?
It’s really weird to even perceive such a thing in our American culture, given the objective of achieving egalitarianism and not out and out role reversal. I personally believe that, for the moment, men are “letting” women win, or the situation makes it appear to be so.
There’s certainly plenty of that. Men do still have almost all the power, inferior education or not.
Let me argue my point:
a) HELLO —
Now there’s an effective way to start a discussion and let the other party realize you think they’re an idiiot.
THERE IS WAR GOING ON IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN! After “911″, many young men opted to serve their country in the war on terror. The bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon inspired many men (more men than women) to put college on the back burner, seeing they could go back to school funded by taxpayer dollars, after their tour of duty had ended. In World War II, women outnumbered men on campuses all across the country, but that ended when the war ended, as the GI Bill helped many men to enter campuses to better themselves.
This is a trend that has been snowballing since long before the World Trade Center bombing. Young men who chose to join the military are those who were not planning on going to college the first time around anyway. Keep in mind that the “GI Bill” has been gutted, and the only way to get a good education from being in the service is to stay in the service as your career.
b) The pressure put on men to be the primary breadwinners in a family will always cause most men to GET THE JOB FIRST — GET THE EDUCATION LATER!
Ah, you’re stuck in the 40’s. Absolutely nobody gets married right out of high school nowadays. A guy who decides not to attend college and work instead is not doing it because he has a stay-at-home wife and little mouths to feed.
It is, and probably always will be, easier for men to exercise the option of learning a high paying trade outside of college, like plumbing, construction, electrical, interstate tractor-trailer driving, auto mechanics, than it will be for women. Most of the occupations that pay comparable to (or less than comparable to) the above mentioned positions, say, elementary school teaching, nursing, bank customer service, retail business management, child development, etc. will require further formal education in college. See a pattern here?
I absolutely see a pattern here. Men can get still a decent job right out of high school with no experience or skill. Traditional “Women’s” work requires an advanced education for the same pay level – an education that she probably must acquire at her own expense, meaning she starts her working life four years later and with a heavy debt load…
c) I argue that the surplus of women on campus these days are:
1. Married, widowed, or divorced women living in “empty nest” situations. Many of these women grew up believing that they had to give up college in order to marry and raise families. Nothing wrong with this, but you can see the growing number of women in this category flocking back to finish their education nowadays (My sister received her bachelors degree at age 51!) I say good for them! They should!
Most of the older women I know going back to school are there because they are unable to find employment any longer. They have been laid off, while their male co-workers continue to be employed. They look for a change in career that may be less unstable, which often means they are back to school getting a second degree. But regarding your previous comment about men planning on getting their degree later…there are very few men doing this in colleges, compared with the number of women doing so.
2. Part-time enrollees (note the Encarta article)
I really can’t comment on this in the sense that the article is unavailable. But working people must attend school part-time, unless they are so wealthy that they don’t need to work. The reality of student aid is that a self-supporting full-time student is expected to work a full-time job in order to qualify for aid, which means they don’t have the time to take a full course load. Student aid is intended for new high school graduates with parents who contribute to their support.
3. Online enrollees
This section doesn’t say anything about online education. Did you forget your point?
I think that when the going gets rough, the natural fragility of the male ego (trust me, the female ego is not exactly a stone wall either) will be motivation enough to get men going in the direction of further formal classroom education.
Fragility of the ego is not usually a motivating force for enrolling in college or registering for classes. In fact, probably the opposite is true: fear of failure may keep away potential students who worry also about losing money for classes they may not be able to pass.
No way the normal male is going to let women take over, especially when we have the potential to go further, if we want to.
In what way do males have the potential to go further than females? Because they’ve decided in advance not to let females succeed?
It’s clearly a myth that a higher level of education is the only indicator of intelligence.
So who said it was? It’s also clearly a myth that monetary success is the only indicator of intelligence.
You only need a GPA of 2.0 to get anything from an Associates to a Master’s Degree…
Actually, you probably are not going to be able to graduate from any but a community college with a GPA of 2.0. Most colleges will allow such a low grade for elective courses, but you would be on academic probation if you got such a low grade in your major required courses. Advanced degree students with such low grades don’t graduate. They are dropped from the program.
…and who in their right mind is going to show their GPA on a resume’??? Isn’t the degree listed on the resume’ more than enough?
In fact, there are plenty of jobs that require you to submit your college transcripts as part of the application process. All education jobs require this.
Anyone with an average intelligence and the drive to succeed, even with the desire to go frequently to the teachers for extra help, can and WILL get a degree.
Few students are able to go to their professors for help, thanks to a variety of issues. Scheduling means that the teachers have infrequent office hours that only day students can access. The majority of undergraduate courses nowadays are taught by “adjunct faculty” – part-timers who are not even given access to an office, should the student wish to go for assistance.
The controlling factor in whether an adult student completes a degree is generally money.
However, a degree doesn’t necessarily mean you are automatically an “Einstein”!
That’s pretty clear.
Naturally, you need high school to get ahead in life, but many people, men especially, became successful financially, and have even proven themselves giants in the “mental Olympics”, without finishing college. Take for example Bill Gates, a billionaire, and Rush Limbaugh, a millionaire.
What has being wealthy got to do with being a “giant in the ‘mental Olympics’”. whatever that is supposed to mean? And how can you compare Bill Gates, a genius at computers and business (though clearly with Asperger’s) with Rush Limbaugh, a class A hypocrite who buys his way out of repeated convictions thanks to his money and his influential friends, while still claiming moral superiority?
Rush admits on the air that he never set foot in college.There are perhaps more male MENSA members than there are female members (geniuses). My guess is that some of these men probably didn’t go to college either.
You utterly made that up from the whole cloth. You speculated that there might be more male than female Mensa members, and then you made comments about this as though it were true. Mensa is a social organization. Membership is based not only on the level at which you score on an IQ test, but also on whether you feel like spending your time in a group that likes to talk about how smart they are.
Perhaps Rush Limbaugh should set foot on a college campus once in his life. He seems to talk an awful lot about something he has no personal experience with or knowledge about.
Personally, I am getting sick and tired of all the male bashing, especially on the college campuses (women’s studies and everyday interpersonal dynamics). I experienced some of that when I attended college in Central New York way back in 1975. I was constantly debating in the cafeteria with the “feminazis”…
Now there’s a word that didn’t exist back when you were in college in 1975. Did you get it from Rush Limbaugh? When was the last time you set foot on a college campus and visited the Women’s Studies Department?
…and I think it’s only gotten worse.
Based on…? In fact, nowadays there are few women who consider themselves to be “feminists”. The neocon backlash against this has reached the point where people have forgotten that the purpose of the movement was to encourage women to reach their potential, and stop social institutions from actively preventing that from happening.
I have one thing to say to young men who are considering going to college: GET TOUGH, AND GET SOME INITIATIVE! Men may have to swim against the current nowadays, and yes, nowadays IT MAY TAKE SOME MEN TWICE AS MUCH WORK TO GET HALF AS MUCH CREDIT AND RECOGNITION. This was not unlike the motto of many women in earlier days (substitute the word “women” for men above), and guess what guys — FORTUNATELY IT’S NOT THAT DIFFICULT!!!!! TOUCHE’ !
Unfortunately much of your “get tough” advice would need to be taken when these “young men” were in middle and high school. Thanks to the fact that they aren’t cracking the books in preparation for college, it really may be twice as hard to get the same degree as for a girl who worked hard in high school and is well prepared.
With all the talk about “affirmative action for men” (see Encarta article), one area that college promoters can start improving on is the billboard ads and ads on the internet. I made an informal study as I drove down many a highway and surfed many times on the web and found something really startling, and this could affect young children’s minds: NOT ONCE DID I SEE MALES IN THE COLLEGE ADS — ALWAYS A FEMALE — ALWAYS A FEMALE!!!!!! What’s a little boy going to think? (Mommy, do boys count anymore?) SUNY (State University of New York) is a real sexist pig in their billboard advertising.
You’re looking for colleges to use their marketing departments for affirmative action, to attract boys who aren’t otherwise qualified to attend by making the college environment appear predominantly male? That would be a bad business practice. Like any business, colleges target potential customers. Boys don’t choose to go to college like girls do. They are pushed by their families or they don’t go.
Not to mention the fact that colleges are predominantly female. That’s the reality nowadays.
Boys and girls have different educational needs. Boys often need help with language and writing skills, but rarely do they seek this out. Girls often are allowed to fall by the wayside in math and math-based subjects. Read Failing at Fairness by Sadker and Sadker.
But really, I do love and appreciate women. I’ve been married to one for almost twenty years now. Would you stay married to someone you hate for twenty years???
But do you respect women you have never met as individuals? Would you ask them about their lives, or do you prefer the information you get from Rush Limbaugh, lumping them together into an anonymous homogenous group, unrelated to reality?
Would you stay married to a woman for 20 years although you think they only achieve anything because men “let” them and allow them unfair advantages? Clearly you have.
Please don’t misunderstand. My aim is not misogyny — just simple fairness and justice, that’s all.
Ok, “fairness” and “justice”. Please define what you mean by these, it’s not clear from reading what you’ve written.
Is that asking too much? Or should we “new men” just tend to baking cookies and attempt to get in touch with our “feelings” (the new buzz word for “FEMININE SIDE” — AARRGGHHHH!)
Cookies are good. Making homemade cookies is not a sign of emasculation or feminization. Does thinking about making cookies make you go “argh” because you consider baking cookies to be “women’s work”? Lots of guys bake them, some even for a living. Try it, you may like it.
