Should we be worried that women outnumber men on campus?

The first paragraph says it all: 'here are now more women than men in higher education worldwide. While it would appear to be a victory for gender equality ...' Why would a gender imbalance against men that is growing be a victory for gender equality? If you look at the NUT or NASUWT web sites under equality you get references to women teachers, BME, LGBT and disability but nothing on male teachers who are a minority or boys who are performing far worse than girls in schools. There are endless programs to address the shrinking areas where girls do worse than boys and next to none that adress the much larger areas where girls do better than boys. There are studies that show significant bias in the marking of boys work by women teachers and perhaps worse research that shows boys know that women teachers mark them down compared to boys. Comparison of teachers assesments against exam results by gender show a consistent anti-boy bias. What needs to be faced is that in the UK and other western countries there is substantial, instituitionalised and ubiquitous discrimination against boys within the education system and in the interests of fairness and if we want boys to do better it needs to be addressed. Positive discrimination is a red herring while there is pervasive anti-boy, anti-male bias in the system.

Antman's point about 'positive' discrimination is entirely accurate, when I was a school governor I saw female teachers marking down male pupils, something that continues in Higher Education. I'm aware of male student nurses being marked down by female nurse lecturers, even though they had worker in pairs with the female student nurses they suffered 10-15% lower marks, just enough to fail. I also note on this evenings local BBC news, sitting as I am just outside Oxford, that space for underprivileged male (and female) potential students isn't worth as much as foreign government funded overseas students, the Winchester School of Art's current Chinese student income is around £11 million, for ONE course, (£20K per year each MINIMUM beats £9K for a UK student). Interestingly the biggest complaint in the BBC report is that those Chinese students attending the WSA once qualified go home, apparently due to visa/work permit issues, in truth the Chinese Gov't pays handsomely for them to qualify to then build up China's industries at home, whilst OUR potential UK students have reduced chances of attending University. The Confucius Institutes established within UK Universities also ensure Chinese students, and moreover Academics, don't cause offence to China's interests, whilst host the University greedily takes their money. That of course is the main issue, for the universities, the money...

“women tend to underreport their academic potential…when they forecast their academic performance in college, and boys tend to oversell themselves”. This means that “a lot of young men get a very rude awakening [when they get to university] and their self-worth hasn’t really been ready for that.” Comments such as this from Martínez-Alemán are all too common at every level of education need to be challenged. How many struggling boys/young men have been overlooked for help as teachers/lecturers see them simply having an over-inflated ego? If their results from school were good enough to get them into university, then they are strong enough academically-wise and the issue lies elsewhere. Clearly young men at her institution are not getting the help they need.

The information age has created a wonderful world for many women today due to very different treatment given from infancy. To see this we must remove from our minds the false teaching of genetics and effort in ability. We must also redefine our average stress as many "maintained layers of mental work" which take up real mental energy from many past, present, future - experiences, fears, anxieties, preparation for defense, needs along with many weights and values given (some very faulty) which may act as magnets for others accumulating layers of "maintained mental work over time". The belief boys should be strong is creating a very rough world for boys in general. It allows aggressive treatment by parents, teachers, peers, others from infancy so they will be tough. There is much less mental/emotional/verbal interaction/support for fear of coddling. This creates high, maintained layers of average stress for boys (new thought will send to all). These layers remain in the mind taking away real mental energy leaving much less mental energy for academics so they will have to work harder to receive the same mental reward. This treatment creates more social/emotional distance from others/adults. The total treatment creates higher average stress hurting learning/motivation; more activity (not genetic); higher muscle tension hurting handwriting/motivation; much lower social vocabulary/communication skills from both much less communication and social/emotional distance from fear. It creates lags in communication girls are given daily. The high stress creates activity for stress relief not genetics. This creates higher muscle tension which hurts handwriting motivation. The total treatment hurts reading/motivation which requires both a high social vocabulary/knowledge of syntax and low average stress, something boys through harsh, less support are increasingly weak in. This treatment creates more social/emotional from others/adults. It creates lags in communication girls are given daily. The high stress creates activity for stress relief not genetics. This creates higher muscle tension which hurts handwriting motivation. The effect with false genetic models creates more failure and hopelessness. To make it tougher boys are given love honor feelings of self-worth only on condition of achievement. This was designed to keep Male esteem low and be willing to give their lives in war for love honor from society. Males not achieving are given ridicule and discipline to make them try harder. Support is not given for fear of coddling and false belief in genetics. Many boys falling behind turn their attention to sports and video games for small measures of love honor not received in school. The belief boys should be strong and false belief in genetics create denial of the harsh treatment which is creating the low academics low esteem and other problems for boys. This is not about more openness from boys; it is about society allowing aggressive treatment from infancy so boys feel much wariness toward parents teachers who freely use aggressive treatment for any sign of weakness. This is condoned by society. This problem is affecting all male children but the lower the socioeconomic bracket and time in lower areas the much more amplified the treatment given male children by parents/teachers. There is a wrinkle to this. There are a "very few boys" given more stable, correct support from some families which will enable those boys to succeed in school. This enables those boys to do well -and receive love and honor from others, which they must continually do to continue to earn that love and honor. This then becomes a drug for those boys which drives them to continually achieve in different ways in school. However the vast majority of boys who do not receive that support will not do well in school and early on, go into other areas to generate love and honor such as sports, military, other. As girls we are given much support and care by parents teachers peers. As girls we are treated better and so enjoy support from society. Since we as girls are given by differential treatment much mental social/emotional support verbal interaction and care this creates the opposite outcome for girls when compared with boys. We receive love honor simply for being girls. This creates all of the good things. We have lower average stress for ease of learning. We enjoy much freedom of expression from much protection by society. We enjoy lower muscle tension for ease in writing motivation to write. We enjoy much positive trust/communication from parents teachers and support for perceived weaknesses. We are reaping a bonanza in the information age. Now with girls and women taking over many areas of society we enjoy more lavishing of love honor from society while boys and men are now failing more and are given more ridicule and abuse by society. Mind you this is now coming from girls and women using our still protected freedoms of expression and more with false feelings of superiority. As for girls there is a wrinkle also. We are given love and honor simply for being girls. This allows us to choose less than top planes of success and still find wonderful planes of innersecurity. We are not as driven. However, as the middle class continues to drop, there will be fewer boys able to receive the bare adequate support to be successful academically. Also more girls will begin "choosing to go into those higher fields by choice. This will slowly allow women to begin taking over those higher fields just as they have already taken over the other fields. Much more from learning theory.

To be quite clear, girls do not "do better at school". Girls score higher against the tests that have been tuned and tweaked constantly over the years to give girls a better chance at doing better. One example of this is that boys constantly perform better than girls on exams. Years ago the exam used to account for 80% of the work and the course work would account for 20%. As girls struggled with exams and no matter what they tried they could not get girls testing scores up, they simply adjusted the ratio. Now you will find for most courses the exam only accounts for 30-40% and as a result girls now outscore boys in assessment. They proved this one year by adjusting the ratio for the subject of maths A-Level and the boys instantly took the lead by a significant margin. Manipulating the assessment criteria doesn't do anyone a favour and will only lead to companies not trusting the grade system. Another factor which is not discussed in this article is the fact that the large majority of degrees that are being awarded to women are outside the major faculties. Social science, psychology, gender studies etc etc are the main degrees women are leading on. On the heavy hitting subjects like STEM fields you will see that women still lag behind. I highlight this not to diminish the significance of addressing the gender balance at university but to highlight that the bar has been lowered significantly over the years by universities to allow more people to join and get diplomas and degrees. The only real world affect that has is that degrees are now becoming more and more worthless.

"As girls we are given much support and care by parents teachers peers. As girls we are treated better and so enjoy support from society. Since we as girls are given by differential treatment much mental social/emotional support verbal interaction and care this creates the opposite outcome for girls when compared with boys. We receive love honor simply for being girls." I wish. As a girl, I was bullied, beaten, and sexually assaulted before I even left primary school. Boys routinely told me that lego was a "boy's toy" and it was only access to an all-girl secondary school that allowed me to develop STEM skills without being told "that's boy's subjects". Worldwide, girls face infanticide and sex-selective abortion. Being a girl is not the easy ride that you think it is.

It is a sad state that the past 40 years of feminism has done to society...at almost any avenue you look, it is apparent.....favoritism of females over males, no matter the age, to attempt to list the areas would be disallowed by this forum's sentence structure limitations....from preschool to all other ages, it is obvious, except to the blind. There may be a turn around, but not in our lifetimes. It is rare, indeed, that any kind of power reversal takes place, once placed on the "books". This effect is easily seen in history. Hundreds and hundreds of years...if ever....go by...possible to be broght on by calamity, when the better become a clearly obvious. But then, only after many centuries Men, will, and must become accustomed to an inferior, second class state until such times....a state of perhaps virtual slavery....due to their greater strength and intellect.....though the books/laws will continue with the belittlement. This state, or condition, is assured from the vast past 40 years of female entitlement...known as feminism in msny parts of the word.....and actually third stage feminism....which does not attempt to secure basic rights...those were secured many years ago...but instead it is the continuation of changing rights of one species over the rights of the other other.....ridiculous, practically obscene favoritism. The feminists are so accustomed by their own positions, and life style of denenegerating men that they cannot continue adding to womens rights

This is a most interesting article (and comments) because it highlights the insecurities that abound in this time of great change. Yes, I am disturbed that working class boys are not receiving the help they should get, but this should not be pitted against women finally achieving a degree of success. I cannot imagine that help for boys would be actually targeted to working class boys alone when the envy toward women finally achieving some parity is so palpable. There is a growing male backlash and I would guess some would only read the first part of this article and be smug in their belief that all males are suffering at the hands of women. If a moment is given to the numbers of single mothers working in low paying jobs and struggling to give their children, boys and girls, a chance at life; then it might be understood that we are living in a time of crisis and many are suffering. This crisis has also seen a tremendous rise in violence against women.