What a load of garbage! Sure, there are more women at university and in professional programs, but the majority of senior positions in companies, universities and other organizations are held by men.
I am not worried about the men. They catch up just fine and continue to dominate and earn more $$ than women.

I think the answer to your question is obvious.

If the gender imbalance was a bad thing before, then it must be a bad thing now.

"But it's hard for me to be as concerned with this trend as others appear to be."

I'm not surprised. Since when has feminism been about equality rather than privilege for women?

"Females excelling males in academic fields constitutes the natural order as far as I understand it. Since my first day of elementary school, I've noticed that the part of the class with XX chromosome has always been the one to take the lead.."

You must either be young or have a selective memory. This is a recent phenomenom.

I think I'll point out that all of feminism's gains have been made with the consent of men. The right to vote, abortion, family law, all of it. If you want to turn feminism into a campaign for (1) revenge and (2) female superiority, you'll find us turning upon you in a breathtaking hurry.

Oh, great thinking - for generations, men had the advantage over women in many fields, so let's tip the scales the other way so a generation or two of men can be ruined for the sake of their female counterparts. Sounds "fair" to me.

All so you can finally get a date at school? Puhleese.

Men should get back to being aggressive and take the bull by the horns.

Thanks for writing on a topic in which you clearly have no expertise. Your general observations will go a long way towards advancing this important debate.

I'm not sure how this article fits in with your mandate of blogging about your life as a freshman at UBC.

The purpose of balancing gender gaps is get rid of unfair advantages, not to penalize whoever was in the advantageous position before. If the situation is unbalanced, that's a bad thing, otherwise you are presumably advocating the same thing you claim to be against. Better think on this a little harder Bryce.

Given the quality of the article, i too am wondering wether a gender disparity in education attainment is pertinent when university graduates in the liberal arts appear to be illiterate anyway.

Mass university education supported by public policy largely came about as a way to provide support for second world war veterans. The governments of social democracies wanted to avoid having war veterans (young men) resort to the extremism of communism and facism after the war, and found a liberal education to be effective.

Not educating males is fine as long as you don't mind watching the far right and far left gain support. The message of a political movement like the British National Party is more easily accepted by an uneducated underclass.

Bryce is writing about his impressions. They are just as valid as any of you who comment to his blog.

Beth

If your view of feminism is synonymous with hypocrisy, so be it.

I prefer to be concerned about the plight of males in today's educational environment.

Just look at Jane and Finch - not working out too well, huh.

Exactly why should boys and young men of today pay for the sins of their grandfathers? Letting down a generation of boys is not something to be laid back about.

Unfortunately, as an article I read about 15 years ago stated, too many young males are withdrawing into a Beavis and Butthead existance. They're content with their mommy's basement, their parent provided cell phones and computers and 3 meals a day. To actually apply a real dose of work ethic, planning future-oriented behaviour would be too demanding. This is not to condemn all young males, but our culture is doing them a real disservice in what it rewards and encourages in them.

Another good article is entitled "Childman in the Promised Land" and can be read at http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_single_young_men.html

University of Waterloo balances the increased female:male gender ratio for the rest of Canada...

This phenomenon may be interpreted as evidence of increasing meritocracy - the normal distribution curves for males and females look different - mens' being wider and females' being narrower, but with the females' with a slightly higher mean.

If so, to those who worry about societal equality, this is worrying, though it would also give them a system with which to perpetually tinker.

For those who worry less about societal equality, the message for men is simple - just make sure you're among the top 10%.

UBC publishes enrollment statistics by sex, in their calendar (which can be found here http://ubcpubs.library.ubc.ca/?db=calendars2), the latest stats from November 2007 show a total winter enrollment of 20,601 males and 24,869 females (45% vs. 55%). The stats from 1997 show a total winter enrollment of 15,111 males and 18,363 females (45% vs. 55%). Things haven't changed in 10 years, except the fees which have gone up from $76.50 to $141.91.

Oh well, in a world where electricians and pressure pipe welders can earn more annually than an engineer, and certainly more than the average BA grad who works in retail or the fast-food industry...

Just dream of this university students: Debt free at 25 and earning $100k+ annually.

The 'smart' boys (& girls) will be just fine!

JJ, your posts are DYN-A-MITE! Your characterization of Bryce is spot on. I have found his blog to be insufferable at the best of times.

You Sir, are a mangina, and a traitor to your gender.

Women outnumber men on the planet, so there is an assumed validity to the notion that they will (if all else were in fact equal)outnumber men in universities.

Though university is great, for most people it is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. To wit, employment should be the real concern.

If you refer to the Globe's article last Friday (April 30, Life section)on women increasing in "non-traditional" fields (basically everything other than teaching and nursing from the sounds of it), old patterns still persist. In medicine, architecture, urban planning, engineering, law, etc., despite increases, in no field do women make up the majority of practitioners. Some (like architecture/planning) were as low as 25% women practicing.

I just finished school and am now an urban planner in the public sector. Yet my office is still well over 80% male (young and old, so it's not just a generational issue of male dominated sectors).

To make a short story long, there is no need to be concerned about boys and university.

The author of this piece of 'milk-toast' journalism is an A.S.S. (arts and social sciences) student, a 'liberated' male, and bonafide goof-ball. It's not uncommon to find such sexist, misandrist and banal drivel published in the Globe.

all this disgruntled "woe is me" and divisiveness is, quite frankly, just Loser Talk by those of you who haven't taken advantage of the privileges (albeit tacit and generally unspoken ones for fear of being labeled political incorrect) that we have in society as men...

"But after centuries of Western academics being dominated by men, if the school system really does give girls an extra boost over boys, I don't begrudge them the leg up. Eventually the scales will balance."

Feminist pedagogy certainly has normalized sexist discrimination. What a sad example of a lost generation indoctrinated by school, but with no life experience.

If such an imbalance were happening to women, there would be alarm bells going off everywhere and politicians would be clamouring to offer assistence.

Look forward to a future demographic where the gender roles are completely reversed and there is a severe lack of educated males with employment prospects.

...and when women complain about the lack of educated / employed men...blame your sisters for being so sexist and selfish.

...degree in Religion, Literature and the Arts.

He'll make a good wife to some woman who has a real job.

To all those who claim that the senior positions being filled largely by men is a sign of problems:

Think about what you are saying. The senior positions are those that require a large amount of experience, meaning that those qualify would have received their education several decades ago. At that time it was men who dominated the academic circles, so this makes sense.

Current trends such as the ones mentioned in this article can reasonably be used to envision a future where the reverse is true. If 60 - 70% of grads are women, it stands to reaosn taht 60-70% of the senior positions in a couple of decades will be filled by women. As well, given that women still receive preferrred treatment in hiring and retention, that number will likely be higher still.

The pendulum has swung too far, but some of the effects are still coming.

Um... while there might be more women in universities all statistics show that MEN and not women continue to take up the overwhelming majority of the positions of power in our society and in high paying jobs. This despite the fact that women have been the majority at universities for at least the last ten years.

I think a lot of this panic over boys is fear mongering. Boys and men do fine in life (if not in school) and still do far better than girls and women in earning capacity and in holding power. It hasn't changed in 10 years and it probably won't change in another ten. The fact that women are on average better educated (or perhaps educated in different fields) might suggest a persistence in discrimination and informal gender networks. The world still needs to become fairer for girls and you guys are talking as though the EVIL feminists have taken over and are consigning boys to a terrible fate!

Excuse me while I laugh hysterically at your misplaced panic.

While I believe that the goal of educational systems should be to search every individual better and in ways that support their learning best, and I encourage any attempts to make it easier for boys to engage with their studies, I really am more concerned about the young women who are graduating university and still don't have the same opportunities that the men do.

In sum: Women aren't anywhere near equality with men. Who is in university does not matter - its who is in power and who earns more after university (or without it) that does. University is a means to an end and that end is not rosy for girls. In our panic over boy's lack of scholastic achievement, we can't forget that women still face terrible inequalities. And gender equality should not be at the expense of either sex. As a feminist, I believe in a world where both sexes are schooled in appropriate ways and are able to take advantage of that schooling afterwards (as well as share responsibility for chores and child rearing).

It's not a gender war - it should be a collaboration. But let's give things some perspective and look at them holistically instead of panicking over 10 year old's grades instead of 25 year old's job prospects.

I look forward to edumacated wimmin provided for me while wearing tight form fitting clothing and being sexually liberated!

There's really only up side fellas.

Feminists will continue to complain about inequality at the extremes of power and wealth, yet continue to ignore the realities of the vast majority of normal people. The result is discriminatory special treatment for all women because of a perceived inequality representing a tiny fraction of society.

Men are more represented at the extremes of accomplishment and suffering.

The gender gap:
-Higher male unemployment
-Higher male workplace accidents
-Higher male victims of violent crime
-Higher male homelessness
-Lower male enrollment in post secondary education.
-Lower male life span.
-Less (none) male services for victims domestic violence (nearly equal rates)
-Less government funding for prostate cancer than breast cancer (similar incidence and mortality rates)
-Worse outcomes for fathers in family court (gender prejudice)
-Less(none?) government funding for helping men with the gender gap.
-Less government representation for men's issues (minister for the status of men?)
-Less media representation of men’s issues

How often do women's groups complain about equal representation in the military, construction or mining?

Amanda writes:
(a scornful dismissal of the concerns expressed in other comments)

It's not a panick over a 10 year old's grades. That is just your attempt to trivialize the issue. Boys are being left behind at all stages of the educational system.

Some reasons for this might be:

1) The removal of hands-on, doing kind of learning that benefit boys in favor of the brainloading kind of knowledge (e.g. the difference between reading about a place and being able to answer questions about it, from actually visiting the place).

2) The moving ahead of what used to be the grade 1 curriculum (learning to read and write) into kindergarten, when the minds of boys mostly aren't ready at that age. Some parents have taken to enrolling their sons a year later because its makes such a difference in the boys' initial experiences and thus in their whole attitude toward school.

3) The suppression of individual competition, which activates boys, in favor of collaborative work and an "everyone is special and no one loses" environment.

4) The total absence of male teachers in public school (driven out by fears of accusations of pedophilia).

5) A vast reduction in the availability of sports to boys (limited school resources now diverted into leagues for girls rather than increased to accomodate both).

6) A general anti-male, "it's bad to be a boy" attitude, with feminist literature being brought into the classroom for reading in place of the action and adventure stories and histories of the past accomplishments of men that would engage boys. What boy is going to want to write a book report on how evil his gender is? No wonder some of them can't be bothered to try.

So now we have a huge trend of boys that are disengaged from school and can't be bother to try to excel, either dropping out or graduating into an economic system that offers little opportunity to those educated merely to the high school level. It's turning into a generation of lost boys and young men with a horrible impact both on themselves and society as a whole.

Maybe that's enough to make Amanda rethink her position?

The treatment of Boys in Canada's education system at all levels is a national tragedy. As others have noted, if genders were reversed the current trends would be addressed with the utmost of urgency.

But since it's only boys we're talking about, who cares, eh?

The feminists will continue to stamp their little feet, insist that boys and men face no discrimination and that the current achievement rates for boys in our schools is just fine.

Hell, I work in an office where the majority are women, even in management and yet there are still "employment equity" campaigns in place to bring on and fast track more women.

Sadder yet is the fact that the feminist led discrimination campaign against boys and men has been so successful, that the young man who wrote this article sees no problem with it.

The author of this article should be thrown in jail.

While there is a discussion to be had about whether certain aspects of the education system could be improved such that the needs of both sexes are taken into consideration, personal attacks and sexist remarks do not further the debate.

Don't mind the haters and the trolls, Bryce. I actually find that, although I don't always agree with what you say, that you write very well.

Every person should have the opportunity to maximize their human potential.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to graduate with an Honours BSc. during the 80's but it is obvious that the school system is not willing to provide my sons the same opportunity. My boys are guilty of arriving with XY chromosomes in an era of education favoring XX students. If graduation rates may be used as evidence, it is fact that girls are finding far greater success at every level of the educational system. Great for the girls, but with the boys' potential squandered I fear for our future as a society, and that is not in anyone's best interest.

I challenge fem-boy to write a blog about ANY perceived feminist imbalance with the same tagline "Is gender imbalance a bad thing?"...and recognize your own sexist hypocrisy.

MJ wrote: "Great for the girls, but with the boys' potential squandered I fear for our future as a society, and that is not in anyone's best interest."

Happy Mothers Day, you deserve it because you care about your sons future, over and above the system of female privilege that is in your favour.
More women need to speak out against discriminatory feminist social policies. You are the only hope for the future.

If girls naturally excel in the education system we have in place why are all the programs to equal the playing field still in place. I think it is time we made it equal and fair on all account. The girls of today are smart enough not to need a helping hand from society.

But just what are all of these girls studying at university? From what I have seen the vast majority are taking general BA programs with the dim hope of becoming a school teacher. After graduation too many of them find out the hard way that a degree in "Religion, Literature and the Arts" (or whatever) is about as useful as the teats on a bull and that there are no jobs for teachers. Then of course they end up in retail or waitressing and wonder why they don't make as much as their brother the plumber.

Two points.

First: If you want to see a gender imbalance, come to one of my mechanical engineering classes. In a class of about 150 we have about 10 girls.

Second: I wonder what the magic number is when we will stop caring about the gender ratio. I know there isn't currently equality for the genders but when will we be happy with the numbers of men and women in all of the education fields?

This article did not once question the gender roles we so take for granted. The "natural" way in which girls do better in school? Sorry but these roles are socially constructed. Why is it that there are still hardly any women in engineering? Why is it that men still dominate in politics and business? The programs that boys generally enter into are the ones that society values more, in terms of prestige and monetary compensation. Everyone is freaking out that boys are "falling behind" but girls have hardly "caught up".

Having just graduated a year ago, I can say I only saw this in some arts faculty courses. My program was 95% males, however, and my faculty was something like 85-90% male (math and computer science). Engineering was similarly skewed. It seemed to me like there were overall more females, but only in the less rigorous programs and general education courses.

I who am also in university in Canada have also noticed this gender disparity consistantly inschool and university am far more dismayed by the process and by the apathy it produces. Although I think that some of the commenters are quite correct in saying that femlaes are underrepresented in the boardroom, this merely represents the older genreation. One does not expect 22 year olds to be C.E.O.'s regardless of gender. One can hardly miss however the rates of females to males enrolling in such high careers as medicine and law as being one sided in recent years. The fact is that inequality in all forms is unexceptable in society and although I don't think appealing to tired stereotypes (blood and guts education) is the best way to go something must be done t oshow people that this is both a serious problem and a fixable one.

"In the early 90's, the roles were reversed."

Were they, Bryce? I remember writing a letter to the Toronto Star in 1989, responding to a news article about the growing gender imbalance at universities, where female students were starting to outnumber male students by ratios as high as 60 - 40% in favour of women.

I hope I don't need to remind you, Bryce, that 1989 was more than 20 years ago.

But the title of you blog entry says it all: "Is campus gender imbalance a bad thing?" I dunno Bryce - for practically a century women in general and feminists in particular thought that a campus gender imbalance was indeed a BAD thing, when the enrollment imbalance was skewed the other way.

I ask you this simple question: If it was a bad thing then, why wouldn't it be a bad thing now? Shouldn't there be the same education opportunities for males that there are for females?

Bryce, you've been brain-washed. You've been raised and eduacated inside of the feminized education system. You've become the typical end result of the system; a self-loathing male who can't think think outside of the box he's been placed in.

Another posted said it quite well - try asking whether a gender imbalance in, say, engineering or math class is really a bad thing, and see how much support you get from your female colleagues.

Here's a link for you from the NY Times on this very issue. quite revealing, really. Seems the "girl crisis" was founded on cooked stats and analyses.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sommers-war.html?_r=1

Women are still being disadvantaged. Although they outnumber men at university they aren't represented in top management and the most senior positions - which are still very much dominated by men.

Women aren't represented in top managment, but neither are 99% of men. Be patient, work hard at 80 hour weeks and you too can enjoy the privilege of being a highly paid wage slave with responsibility for a large organization.

"The contemporary feminist discourse tends to focus exclusively on the fact that important and influential roles in society are filled by men in a patriarchy, and use this observation to conclude that patriarchy is about male dominance and male power. Through this generalization, the power of a small subset of men, is taken to represent all men, without investigating whether other men really have any power. Another factor that also isn’t investigated is whether the small subset of men with power use their power to help other men. If not, it cannot really be said to be a male power.

Today’s feminists therefore misinterpret patriarchal societies in a number of ways:

-The power of a tiny subset of men is taken to represent all men, instead of seeing the powerlessness of most men.

-It is assumed that the men at the top helped other men, but in reality they used other men for wars, mining, construction, etc. There is no evidence that the men in power were reluctant to use other men to build society, regardless of the hardships, injuries and deaths that were required.

-So called male networks were really networks for the rich and powerful. Women didn’t ask to be part of these networks, since gender roles were still fused with biological sex in the cultural awareness.

www.pellebilling.com

From the tones of their posts, it sounds like a lot of the men here would prefer the social system to be reverted to the old one of male advantage, not a new one of gender equality.
We're in the middle of a system change, here, and a system change does not happen perfectly. After a shift, it takes time for a system to reach equilibrium.

I really agree with Jeff's 2nd point: "I wonder what the magic number is when we will stop caring about the gender ratio. I know there isn't currently equality for the genders but when will we be happy with the numbers of men and women in all of the education fields?"

On Karl Weiss' post: "Maybe that's enough to make Amanda rethink her position?"
I highly doubt it. None of your points were particularly enlightening. Most were speculation that could be easily disagreed with.

Ex: "5) A vast reduction in the availability of sports to boys (limited school resources now diverted into leagues for girls rather than increased to accomodate both)"
Limited school resources is the reality. The issue there, then, is one of budgets, not of gender. Go fight for more school funding, instead of fighting feminism.

Uh, no, feminism is not about equality, it is about empowering women and giving taxdollars to womyn's studies feminist political activists. Feminism is women's power, not equality.

There is much controversy over many aspects of sociology, psychology and womyn's studies (sometimes gender studies). For a good introduction...

What's Wrong and What Right with Contemporary Feminism?

By Christina Hoff Sommers.

A worthy read for anyone who cares about justice and equality.

www.aei.org/.../20090108_ContemporaryFeminism.pdf

“gender feminists tend to see conventional masculinity as a pathology and the source of much of what is wrong in the world”

As I pointed out earlier, the stats for UBC are 55% female to 45% male, which is extremely close to balanced. The enrollment stats from November 2009 are posted here:http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?page=appendix1

Interestingly Engineering is 81% male, nursing 7% males, Arts 37% male, Dentistry 52% male, Dental Science (hygienists) 5% male, forestry 60% male, Medicine 44% male, Law 50% male, Science 48% male.

From a close analysis of these easily available statistics at the authors own university its clear that gender roles are still important in important fields like nursing and engineering, but the bulk of "extra" women enrolled at UBC are studying Arts which is not likely to lead to high pay or high power. People know that when they sign up for the program in the first place.

Another interest UBC stat is here:https://you.ubc.ca/ubc/counsellors/averages.ezc?pageID=1352

Engineering and forestry (both predominantly male) have the lowest entrance requirements, meaning that students with worse high school grades might end up in a nice career like engineering instead of serving coffee with a BA.

Almost all these senior management positions are held by people over 50. Among those over 55, they started to get their post secondary education in the 60s or early 70s. At that time, few women then took courses leading to these management positions. My classes were generally at least 90% male and often 100%. Nothing was stopping women from taking them,at that time but they were not interested.

Among those under 40, women predominate in many if not most organizations. In government, this applies to those under 50. Most companies are afraid to not bend over backwards to hire as many women as possible and promote them quickly. With these trends, women in management will likely exceed 2/3 within 20 years.

This is discrimination against men that was as bad or worse than anything that existed against women prior to 1965.

Katie writes:
"On Karl Weiss' post: "Maybe that's enough to make Amanda rethink her position?"
"I highly doubt it. None of your points were particularly enlightening. Most were speculation that could be easily disagreed with."

What you mean is that they were not particularly enlightening to -you-, probably because they're inconvenient to the sort of pro-women opinions you'd prefer to hold.

But if you need more academic vigor, try reading "Boys Adrift" by Leonard Sax, for starters.

"The issue there, then, is one of budgets, not of gender. Go fight for more school funding, instead of fighting feminism."

Has it occured to you that that is what the Vancouver father who has filed a complaint is trying to do?

With plenty of resistance and dismissal from feminists, it seems, starting with the blog post. You'd figure feminists would be in the front ranks since they're putatively so pro-equality but instead we see the hypocrisy here.

Great comments!
A few interesting google searches:

War against boys

The pay gap myth

Feminism house work myth

Equal Shared Parenting

Gender paradigm in domestic violence research and practice
(Good work by Dr. Dutton at UBC)

Feminism is a hate movement

Those statistics about student % is only at undergraduate level.
At grad level, men dominate.
At post-grad level, men dominate.
At faculty level, men dominate.
At high admin level, men dominate.

And, FWIW, pay gaps between male and female faculty at the same level in the same dept. still exist. Check Waterloo's review of gender pay equity last year, where the admin had to adjust a number of female faculty pay to equal the men's. So please, stop saying it's a myth and there's no glass ceiling. It's just not true.

The “pay gap” is probably the most widely-cited example of supposed disadvantages faced by women today. It is also totally misleading, as it is only a snapshot of average yearly full-time incomes that does not account for overtime (about 90% male), type of work, or other non-discriminatory, voluntary factors. The reason for the disparity at the top of society is that women have more options than men to be primary parents. The Department of Labor recently funded a study that proved this and found the pay gap is caused by choices, not discrimination.

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf

Pay gap analysis for University faculty has typically excluded comparisons within discipline and field of study, instead concentrating on experience.

As has been noted, there are more men in science, math and engineering and more women in liberal arts and humanities. Faculty in science, math and engineering have the ability to command higher wages from the private sector as well as attract private sector research and investment. Yet the pay gap analysis neglects this important difference in male-dominiated faculty.

Perhaps the most contentious issue to discuss is why there are more men in science, math and engineering and at highest levels of society. Yet, it is equally worth noting that men also dominate in mining, construction, the military and at the lowest depths of society.

How to start feminist riots on campus:

Is a campus gender imbalance a bad thing?

“For not only is the average man more intelligent than the average woman but also a clear and rather startling imbalance emerges between the sexes at the high levels of intelligence that the most demanding jobs require. “

“For instance, at the near-genius level (an IQ of 145), brilliant men outnumber brilliant women by 8 to one. That's statistics, not sexism.”

“Instead, he went with what the science is clearly telling us - that at the really top level in maths and science, when we're not dealing with average intelligence but near genius, there are simply more men around who can do the job.”

“But what if he and I are right - as I am 100 per cent convinced we are? If men are innately better at certain subjects than women, then why should society struggle so hard - and so expensively - to try to engineer a perfect balance between the sexes? “

“But I say to the social engineers who dream up ever-more-ingenious ways of getting more women into top positions; don't be surprised if you find your nobly motivated ambitions foundering on the immovable rock of human nature.“

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1274952/Men-ARE-brainy-women-says-scientist-Professor-Richard-Lynn.html#ixzz0nMmzFOOt

ah, denis is madly at work. what do you do in real life, mr. pakkala? Not a lot of 'work' by the looks of it.

the 'higher number of women in university' idea is frequently touted by those arguing that women are 'taking over' and that 'feminazis' (snort) have 'won' the 'gender war'. what is less known is that women generally take longer to complete their degrees (both undergraduate and graduate) because of issues like caregiving responsibilities. it stands to reason, then, that there would be more women in university: the university doesn't usually differentiate between those who have taken a more circuitous route (4 courses per term instead of 5, some terms off for caregiving, etc)...it would be very useful to know what the balance is when those factors are taken into account.

second point: construction jobs and other trades type jobs pay well but are generally unfriendly places for women. women are also less likely to become employed ni those areas due to perceptions about size/strength whatever stuff. for women to get high paying jobs, the safe option is for them to go to university. men can get these jobs without that. that's a larger structural issue that has yet to be effectively resolved, but it may be worth asking yourself why it is that childcare workers, who need a two year early childhood education diploma (mostly women do this) get paid half of what construction workers get paid (and not all of those have any professional training at all). For all of those people who will point to mothering as the best thing that a woman - indeed anyone - can do, most of those same people aren't particularly interested in supporting that work when it's done professionally...

If it wasn't clear already, I'm a staunch feminist. and I'm worried - about the continued mischaracterisations of women AND men, and about damaging gender stereotypes that harm all of our children. why are we promoting a cult of hyper masculinity that emphasises men's 'brutishness' and their need for s3x and grunting, while discouraging them from taking learning - of an intellectual sort - seriously? why are we sexualizing our young daughters to believe that they can get what they want with their bodies and not with their brains? And that their value rests entirely in their capacity for reproduction? how does this help anyone?

How odd. The classroom of the past was no more accepting of disruptive behaviour than the classroom of the present, yet we’re chastised for not accommodating boys’ energy, since it’s obviously the source of the problem. We’re told that the emphasis on verbal learning is the problem, because it feminizes learning and discriminates against boys. Surely, then, the classroom of the past, where everything was learned through reading and writing and computers were conspicuously absent, must have been even more feminized. Not enough guts and explosions in the reading material? Seriously?

Do yourself a favour and check out this thoughtful exploration of the subject by the author of Manhood in America: A Cultural History (1996) and The Gendered Society (2003).

A War Against Boys? by Michael Kimmel
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=700

Michael Kimmel is a gay rights activist connected to the feminist movement.

Note to the SOC Cyber Stalkers, I'm available for public debates.

When girls had problems in math or science, and were underrepresented in law and medicine, we asked parents, schools and political leaders to take responsibility. Now boys have problems. We need to take responsibility.

One study, compiling the data from student satisfaction surveys which collected information about all aspects of student life including non school related experiences was particularly interesting. Male students always had longer work weeks in addition to being full time students. Male students also routinely reported higher levels of stress and lack of time for study. Female students rarely had such problems. Here is the real kicker: a higher percentage of male students regularly indicated that they felt discriminated against by administration and faculty.

The scope of student support services available exclusively to female students in Higher Education ensures there is no shortage of crisis centers, hotlines, advocacy and student aid offices set aside exclusively for female students. If you are a female you can always find a shoulder to cry on if you are stressed, an administrator to help you out with your academic problems and, most importantly, a monetary handout from some grant organization set up specifically for female students if they need it. Male students get none of these things

There’s a new viewpoint on what’s driving the half century old gender gap in high school graduation and college enrollment rates. Instead of just lining up the usual suspects–lazy boys, feminist teachers favoring girls and discouraging male behavior, the lack of male role models, single parent homes, etc. Add one more:

According to a new study by Professor Judith Kleinfeld of the University of Alaska in the current edition of Gender Issues a new dimension to consider is home environments’ and parents’ influence on youngsters–and the perhaps resulting mindsets of the youngsters themselves

Only 29 percent of the boys said they were encouraged to pursue college preparatory courses and to attend college as compared to 70 percent of the girls who said they were urged to seek college educations. In fact, 18 percent of the boys said they received pressure against continuing their educations.

Paradoxically while showing little interest in going forward with their educations, many of the sons of working class parents also eschewed pursuing technical training for vocations in the trades — electricians, plumbing, roofing, etc. Instead, according to Dr. Kleinfeld many “”expresed interest in implausible ‘dream jobs’, such as designing video games, owning a recording studio, directing movies or becoming music stars.”

At the same time she added they had no idea of how to get into those occupations nor of what salaries were in occupations in which they might get jobs nor of even the earnings required to support themselves. The dire consequences presented by such a lack of awareness was noted in the study. Namely, that over the past four decades there has been a 26 percent decline in real income for male high school graduates and 38 percent decline for men who did not graduate.

I think that it's worth noting what programs females are studying in post-secondary education. I understand that the basic numbers of enrollment show more females, but if you look closely, you will find young women are enrolled in programs that are too broad and have few or low-paying employment opportunities (i.e. Psychology, social sciences, communications, English).

I was in computer science and very few students were female. Most of the math classes were male as well. Not saying that there aren't any amazing female CS or math students though.

There may be more women in universities and it may sound good on paper, but how many of them are actually taking courses that will make them competitive in the real world?

anon wrote: "I think that it's worth noting what programs females are studying in post-secondary education. I understand that the basic numbers of enrollment show more females, but if you look closely, you will find young women are enrolled in programs that are too broad and have few or low-paying employment opportunities (i.e. Psychology, social sciences, communications, English).

I was in computer science and very few students were female. Most of the math classes were male as well. Not saying that there aren't any amazing female CS or math students though.

There may be more women in universities and it may sound good on paper, but how many of them are actually taking courses that will make them competitive in the real world?"
------------------------
No, that's not strictly true. We are seeing more women in law, medicine, physical therapy, teaching etc. and yet at the senior ranks men still dominate.

I have no patience for the mentality that says...."Women had it bad, so now it's the men's turn." Such hypocrisy. If women had it bad, the goal should be to improve women's lot so that it matches that of men. Instead, the goal seems to be to turn the tables and shaft men. So how does that make the situation better, unless you're a freaking man-hater? There should be absolute equality, not a flip-flop.

Yes, of course men have long "dominated" many fields of endeavour. Are we supposed to be shocked and appalled by that? Men dominate stuff because men basically invented everything. If you invent or create something, you're going to dominate it by default. Men have done all the innovation and creation. Women have become experts at imitating men and banging on the doors of edifices men have built. Read it and weep. The truth hurts, baby.

Feminism is not a hate movement, it is an activism movement. It's about the rights of marginalized groups, and the societal pressures that result in these rights being infringed upon.

As for this vaguely one-sided debate going on, am I right in saying that most people agree that approximate gender equality is a good thing? It seems the issue is who is actually at the disadvantage.

Since women have traditionally been at a disadvantage, I'm going to stick with this as the default assumption until presented stats that will lead me to believe otherwise. Issues of boys falling behind girls in school and work and decreasing males incomes are to be expected with more girls succeeding. There is only so much income to go around, and obviously comparing achievement rates in school is going to make it look like boys are being left behind.

Is there a study that shows that boys are increasingly failing in school?

On the pay gap being driven by choices: Perhaps some of these "choices" may be socialized, or made to seem the only options.

Feminism is definitely a hate movement. Feminist hatred is expressed by the hateful stereotypes of conventional masculinity by Michael Kimmel, Valerie Solernas and other radical feminists.

What's Wrong and What Right with Contemporary Feminism?

By Christina Hoff Sommers.

A worthy read for anyone who cares about justice and equality.

www.aei.org/.../20090108_ContemporaryFeminism.pdf

“gender feminists tend to see conventional masculinity as a pathology and the source of much of what is wrong in the world”

"Advocates claim it is a last chance to restore sanity between the sexes and justice for families. Feminist foes accuse masculinists of wrongdoing that verges on criminal acts. High-profile clashes will almost certainly erupt between the two and public policy will change. But what is masculinism?
...
Judging by the backlash, masculinists are having an impact. I know this personally because my Web site Ifeminists.com, which advances equal rights for men, has experienced a dramatic increase in harassment and hate mail from gender feminists in recent months. Every blast centers on men's rights.

The tension will only heighten. Men who claim the right to be an active part of their children's lives will not back down. Women who recognize the justice of those claims are not intimidated.
...
The gender war has shifted toward direct confrontation. Men should take heart from that fact. As Gandhi once explained: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.""

http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2003/0603.html

A Rash of Feminist Hate Speech

"Hello, my name is Mary Man-Hating-is-Fun," she explained. "Ever since I learned to embrace my feminist nature, I found great joy in threatening men's lives, flicking off frat brothers and plotting the patriarchy's death. I hate men because they are men."

"Boys are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them"

http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0504roberts.html

This gender imbalance is very obvious in Arts and Science, but as you go into Engineering, it is even more imbalanced in the opposite way. The highest enrollment of women in Engineering was at 20% back around the mid-nineties, but is now between 10-15%.
There are bigger questions as to why these imballances exist, I would encourage you to take a few women's studies classes if this is something you are interested in.

The initial question was: Does gender imbalance matter? I find it worrying, particularly at the elementary and highschool levels that boys are falling behind. This goes beyond population demographics, and the ramifications of this over time could be devastating. We owe it to all children to give them the best opportunities in life, and if one group is falling behind, it's because we as a society are failing them. I don't believe the arguments about boys needing more active learning. This certainly wasn't the case in the past when children were strictly disciplined and were sitting in their desks all day. I think the problem is lack of competition, this need to quash achievement, so that everyone feels special and equal. Add to that a lack of challenge, a lack of discipline and forced collaboration. I am female, and I don't thrive in that environment either.

At a university level, I am not sure things need to be equal, at least in terms of numbers. What should be equal is opportunity. If a man wants to enter a traditionally female dominated discipline, then there should be no barriers to doing so. I don't think these barriers exist anymore for women entering traditionally male fields, so incentives don't need to be there any more. I work in a very male dominated field, but there is no barrier to my success if I am prepared to work as hard as my male counterparts.

Is everyone forgetting the whole issue of motherhood? Many women either step out of the workforce for a period of time for birthing and rearing children, or stop working altogether. So... what impact does that have on "top employment"? Not to say all women stop working, but for those that do they are at similar ages behind in years of work experience compared to male counterparts, or else will have to struggle to re-enter their fields after a lapse. So even if they are entering "non-traditional" fields, what is the level of retention throughout a career?

Why do some people feel the need to hijack a discussion board to push their point of view? These are places for discussion not shouting down others by flooding the board with studies cherry picked to confirm your bias.

Any dissenting opinions to marxist feminist ideology will not be tolerated.

"If the reports are to be believed, Women's Studies programs are disappearing at many Canadian universities. Forgive us for being skeptical. We would wave good-bye without shedding a tear, but we are pretty sure these angry, divisive and dubious programs are simply being renamed to make them appear less controversial.

The radical feminism behind these courses has done untold damage to families, our court systems, labour laws, constitutional freedoms and even the ordinary relations between men and women.

Women's Studies courses have taught that all women--or nearlyall-- are victims and nearly all men are victimizers. Their professors have argued, with some success, that rights should be granted not to individuals alone, but to whole classes of people, too. This has led to employment equity -
- hiring quotas based on one's gender or race rather than on an objective assessment of individual talents."

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/most-popular/story.html?id=2484139#ixzz0ndjwl3Fw

A lot of very harsh criticism to this post.

I saw a report put out by the Toronto District School Board in 2006 that suggested boys are falling behind in education because of what they were calling "the boy code" - basically, it is uncool for boys to care about school, respect teachers, study, etc. It makes them seem less masculine, and male children and youth are very concerned with being seen as masculine - and not as girly, weak or gay.

This isn't biological or "natural", it's that we have socially developed ideas of what boys do and what girls do. Kids pick up on that and then act it out. If kids tease boys who care "too much" about school, then the boys are going to stop caring.

ps for the record, feminism is a broad movement with a lot of different opinions, but it's generally not about women's superiority. The people who have called themselves feminists and fought for an idea of women's superiority were very, very few in number, and died 20-30 years ago. Feminism is about equality between genders, and a critical assessment of where that has and has not been achieved.

Oh god, please tell me someone did not cite that National Post article as evidence for their point of view. The National Post is the most conservatively biased paper in Canada. Their editorials, and even their regular articles, are often offensive and improperly researched, to say the least. Half the time you may as well be watching Fox News.

Compare and Contrast the modern feminist Michael Kimmel with the traditional feminist Valerie Solanas.

“It’s feminists who are really “pro-boy” and “pro-father”—who want young boys and their fathers to expand the definition of masculinity and to become fully human.”

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=700

-Kimmel is suggesting that traditional
masculinity is not fully human…

Valeri Solernas suggests the same…

“To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.”…“He is trapped in a twilight zone halfway between humans and apes”

http://www.womynkind.org/scum.htm

These radical feminists are dehumanizing men, which is clear evidence of a hate movement. Nothing has changed.

Feminists are academic charlatans promoting misandry...

Dutton, Nichols 2006, The gender paradigm in domestic violence research and theory - The conflict of theory and data

"A case is made for a paradigm having developed amongst family violence activists and researchers that precludes the notion of female violence, trivializes injuries to males and maintains a monolithic view of a complex social problem.
...
In an earlier paper, Dutton (1994) described feminist theory as being a “paradigm”, roughly translated as a set of guiding assumptions or worldview, commonly shared within a group and serving to ward off recognition of data that are dissonant with the paradigm’s central tenets. This theory views all social relations through the prism of gender relations and holds, in it’s neo-Marxist view, that men (the bourgeoisie) hold power advantages over women (the proletariat) in patriarchal societies and that all domestic violence is either male physical abuse to maintain that power advantage or female defensive violence, used for self protection"

http://www.ejfi.org/DV/dv-44.htm

For anyone who's interested in the facts, rather than one decidedly biased interpretation of them, Kimmel’s position is that NEITHER traditional masculinity or femininity gives people the room to be fully human. Anyone who’s read much history would have trouble disagreeing with that.

I hope people really do read the studies/essays being posted, then compare them with the rest of the research and analysis out there, and look into their authors’ background. If, as has been suggested, being “a gay rights activist associated with the feminist movement” means everything you say is discredited, then a lot of us would surely say the same of the plethora of research/analysis posted here that was done by people associated with or affiliated with US conservative groups. After all, we don’t all share their outlook, or wish to have it shape our education policy.

Most of us just want for our kids to have the opportunity to realize their own potential, whatever it is. By the time you reach a certain age, you can’t help noticing that you’ve met quite a few people of both sexes who came lamentably late to the realization that they had aptitudes beyond those ascribed to them by narrow traditional gender roles. It’s the 21st century. Shouldn’t that sort of thing be behind us?

Kimmel's words are very clear...men are sub-human.
There is no criticism of women.
I can't think of any respectable academic that would regard any identifiable group as sub-human.

Feminists hate men! Read Valeri Solerna's description of the final solution.

Erin Pizzey - Why I loathe feminism... and believe it will ultimately destroy the family

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1215464/Why-I-loathe-feminism---believe-ultimately-destroy-family.html

Just three comments:

1. Canada as a society is doing very well, thank you very much. Compared to the late seventies (when I was born), we have far higher school graduation rates for BOTH men and women, lower inflation, lower unemployment and lower crime. So the 'sky is falling' alarmisms doesn't work for me.

2. Men tend to produce more geniuses (as already pointed out by a previous poster) as well as way more jerks (criminals, homeless, addicts etc0. The current situation is simply reflecting the social realities with men concentrated at either ENDS of the social/economic/educational scales. I won't be losing any sleep over it.

3. All things considered, it is still EASIER for men to earn a decent living with a high school diploma or less. Men can work in construction, mining or drive a truck/taxi, while a woman in a similar position would be stuck with a McJob. I have seen very few Canadian born men with full-time McJobs.

Yours truly,
A univeristy-educated centrist guy