Went and dug a little deeper and it seems that for high-income nations, this trend of more women than men graduating in universities (as well as outperforming in school) has been going on for multiple decades now.

Apart of me wants to think its just right-wing hysteria because this was brought to my attention by some random podcast clip using this example as somehow proof that patriarchy doesn’t exist lol. Some articles I read did mention how other factors (particularly class and race) was a higher determinant of school/university success.

And I particularly do not like biological explanations anyways (too essentialist to my taste, but I can’t say for sure). I forgot which article in particular but it did argue it’s because men used to be able find jobs in more traditional blue-collar industries, leading to this present day discrepancy.

What do you all think?

    • @TheConquestOfBed@lemmy.ml
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      92 years ago

      Yeah, this is basically it. Women are performing better in school but on average still get lower paying jobs after schooling because patriarchy instills a sense of doing work ‘for the sake of it’ in women. Men do school in order to be “better providers”, but if that traditional structure breaks down, they become lost and confused.

      What we need is to take gender less seriously, for one. And two, we need more dignity in “less desirable” jobs. A fast food worker doesn’t work less hard than a lab tech. But rather than deflate the lab tech, the fast food worker should be raised up and equalized and given a career.

    • NeptiumOP
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      2 years ago

      Yeah in the podcast clip, the dude mentioned how ‘mainstream media didn’t want you to know this’. But a quick google search and I found articles from The Guardian and The Atlantic detailing this problem since the late 2000s. If that isn’t mainstream media then I really don’t know what is.

      Further reading and I found out that this ‘fact’ was used since the 1990s with some scientific articles calling it a ‘moral panic’ especially in a UK and North American context from the early 2000s and onwards.

      But nonetheless it is really interesting and its sad that a genuine conversation (without right wing hysteria) can’t be had in our current societies.

      • @redtea
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        52 years ago

        Part of the problem with the mainstream narrative is that this info is almost always distorted, as you say, by the right wing. Often as an argument against affirmative action, or (if it’s different) extra support in school for black children, etc.

  • @Neers94
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    2 years ago

    It’s certainly a very glaring problem. Not saying more women graduating and attending college is bad, that’s great! But seeing how men are going down and down and graduation and attendance rates is concerning.

    More concerning is that most articles and media that covers this can’t offer any good explanations, obviously the right wing want to use it to attack colleges for affirmative action, but having no other real explanations is a problem. In my opinion, I don’t think it’s the decline in good jobs in blue collar industries necessarily, but more so that opportunities brought to you by college are generally not great anymore. Even in STEM, you arent going to find a good job after college unless you have good connections. So it definitely demotivates young men from trying in school, knowing that they’re basically just there for a piece of paper that MAYBE will give them better opportunities down the line. And even if they don’t, it’s generally more accepted for young men to fall back on manual labor jobs like construction, whereas for women this isn’t really an option, which is why I think they tend to try to stick to college and perform well.

    Overall, as a young man in college, it is very concerning how far degrees have dropped in value. My girlfriend graduated last year with a STEM degree. From what we’ve all been told as kids, that should mean she’s set for life, now she can get a good job and start her career path. Not so simple. She looked around for jobs in her area, most didn’t pay well, she found the best option she could have, only paid around 16-17 an hour for a lab tech position. She’s been there for almost a year now, and they’ve been dangling a raise in front of her like a carrot, and using it to make her work overtime and generally be bossed around in the workplace. Its horrible. But this was the best option she had. She doesn’t even make enough to move out of her parents house.

    This is how the job market is treating graduates, and IMO, it’s not surprising seeing young men look at this and say fuck that.

    • NeptiumOP
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      32 years ago

      But for what reason would young men in particular be more sensitive to a job crisis that would push it towards to not going to university? Not trying to critique you or anything here, it just seems odd, as also a male university student, in which in my own limited life have been hammered from birth til now that university opens opportunities, would think if that were to be the case, be pretty much non-gender specific.

      Keep in mind this is a global trend. The linked press release mentioning that more than 110 countries of the ~150 studied, had more women graduating than men. This includes a vast majority of middle income and low-mid income countries, in which STEM still pays well (at least better than the average). Where university education still isn’t as widespread as it is in the West.

      • @redtea
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        42 years ago

        I wonder if part of it is that boys are almost encouraged to horseplay?

        In school this means messing about and being ‘one of the lads’, and up through university it means e.g. excessive drinking and again being ‘one of the lads’. This also frequently involves sports teams and extroversion. In a way, boys who become men who can fit into that kind of environment can probably make up for lower grades better than women can when it comes to job hunting.

        Being ‘a bit cheeky’ can balance out some underachievement, and (some) boys seem to know this from a young age.

        In several jobs I’ve had there was never really a question of the employer hiring a woman for my position even if one applied who was better qualified.

        With sexism still so embedded in the workplace, maybe one factor in boys’ underachievement is that they are just planning on winging it?

        PS I got very mixed messages about going to university when growing up. From some, it was the key to success and wealth. From some, it was something that would be good but was very much optional. From others it was an utter waste of time (even studying a ‘useful’ degree). I think Normal People by Sally Rooney almost completely captures my experience. If I don’t see myself in one of the two main characters at any given point in the novel, I see myself in the other. You might get something like an answer to your broader OP question from that novel, btw. It might be one to save for after you graduate, though. I’m not sure if it would hit so hard reading it during uni.

        • @Neers94
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          62 years ago

          I really don’t know, it’s a very strange phenomenon. I think it could be both what you describe as “boys will be boys” culture and a general culture of despair that I’ve seen growing around a lot of especially online communities with young men. A lot of young men feel completely lost in life, not knowing at all what to do, don’t have a plan, don’t know what to plan, and are scared of the future. I used to be one of them and kind of still am. Every young guy I know is like this except for a rare few that seem to have themselves figured out, or atleast can present that way.

          It’s very hard to get motivated when you feel lost in life. When I was lost in high school, it was very hard to try for good grades, because I had no plans for the future, I had no idea what I wanted to do, if I wanted to go to college, what I’d do in college etc. It wasn’t really because I felt like id be okay, more the exact opposite, I was scared, very scared of the future. I know a lot of young men feel this way. Add to this the “boys will be boys” culture, no one really pays any mind to it, they see a boy struggling in school and think “ah that’s just normal he’s just a young man growing up” and they don’t think about asking to help or intervening in any way.

          It’s more concerning because the far- right preys on young men like this. They know exactly how to wheel them in, and funnel them into mindsets blaming women and minorities for how they feel. Guys like Jordan Peterson have seen a meteoric rise in popularity for this exact reason, they try to speak to them.

          As for why they feel bad, I couldn’t put a finger on anything specific, even in my own experiences. Things just looked bleak, nothing seemed certain, and nothing looked like a good opportunity. I guess you could say the collapsing weight of neoliberal capitalism has been hitting young men so hard because they used to be at the top of the pecking order, and the culture around them always made it seem like everything would work out for them, and now it isn’t at all. But I don’t know, just brainstorming.

          • @redtea
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            22 years ago

            You’re describing me, in many ways.

            It is tough. I was lucky to have a few good role models at certain key moments.

            I’d maybe make two observations.

            First, people like Peterson are not necessarily as popular as they appear, but they get boosted by algorithms and funded by the bourgeois partly because they funnel people away from radicalism. (Well, left wing radicalism. I’d argue that what Peterson, especially, is peddling, is a right wing radicalism.)

            Second, I think you’re right about that feeling of ‘it seem like everything would work out for them, and now it isn’t at all’ (emphasis added). But there are many in the previous generation for whom things did not work out. They went through the same struggles that our generation(s) are going / went through. This doesn’t change the feeling for young people, but it may help us explain it.

            If previous generations of boys went through the same thing, or a similar thing, why is it that we think it’s only a modern problem? At some level I would think that this feeling comes from attempts to divide the workers in grounds of age.

            This doesn’t change the stats, by the way, but it may require us to look for a different kind of answer than the one that we’re ‘expected’ to find. By this I mean, we might now ask, if working class boys had received the same level of education as do working class boys today, would we have seen similar statistics in the past as we see today?

            I also am just thinking through the issues. I have no answers.

            If the stats would be similar for boys in previous generations, maybe we’re looking, as you say, at the weight of maybe not neoliberal capitalism, but various forms of patriarchal capitalism. This gendered system sets up all sorts of unattainable goals and maybe some boys realise this but cannot articulate what’s going on or their reaction to it?

        • NeptiumOP
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          22 years ago

          My response mainly pertains to your PS because it made me think about the role of pedagogy in different socieites but like in the other thread, I do agree that cultural values instilled on boys in particular plays a heavy part in how they treat school.

          That’s interesting. Maybe because of my background, where my parents were born and raised in rural villages, and were able to climb up the social ladder because of university in the west, made it seem that university was non-optional. (That is to say I lived a completely comfortable life because of this). My grandparents never even graduated high school, only reaching the equivalent of key stage 2 or 3 in British terms.

          I could also see it as being a much more wider implication. There’s this stereotype that people in the global south love education and those in the West hate it. I have definitely not read enough nor have any data proving this but it does make me wonder if there is some merit to this assertion.

          In my home country, the government is very adamant in expanding university education. And unlike in the anglo West, although still needs to be paid, university isn’t as much of a money furnace. With talks of brain drain, and the like, it’d make sense that one of the key infrastructural issues plaguing development in the global south is, well, skill development and education.

          Maybe in the West where they can rely on aforementioned brain drain, and the harsh realities of the job market meant that university has indeed fallen from prestige. It certainly does fit with the capitalist individualist motto that anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard enough.

          And also thanks for the fiction book recommendation. I really do need to expand my reading list from just nonfiction books lol.

          • @redtea
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            32 years ago

            There’s definitely some racist stereotypes in the West about that North / South divide over education.

            I think I got those mixed messages because I’m from a blue collar background. There’s a bit of… something… that manifests as anti-intellectualism in the blue collar world. It’s a kind of, ‘they’re not better than us just because they’re educated, and we’ll prove it’. So it can feel like you’re betraying your blue collar heritage by going to university.

            I think you’ve identified another factor involved, as well. Roth’s Educated Underclass touches on this: a higher education is no guarantee of a good job or a good life. I can’t remember the exact stats from the book, but it’s something like – the child of working class, low income parents must study to Masters level to expect the same ‘outcomes’ as the child of a higher income parents (I can’t remember the income threshold for the parents) who only just passes their school exams at 16.

            The real numbers may be slightly different, but the point is there’s a huge class disparity. Maybe boys in the West see more of the world than they’re given credit for, and just think (or their families / friends think), ‘nope, what’s the point’. That doesn’t explain the global trend of boys’ under performance. But it may explain negative attitudes to education in the West. I’m the global south, maybe there’s still(?) a good chance of getting a good job through education?

  • @redtea
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    72 years ago

    So far as I know, white ‘working class’ boys are the worst academic performing demographic in the UK.

    I don’t have an answer as to why this is the case other than: capitalism.

    It’s a similar picture in prisons. Although prisons are disproportionately filled with black men, the white men in prison tend to be from poorer backgrounds, with mental health issues, and are more likely than not to be illiterate and innumerate.

    On the whole, black students tend to ‘receive’ worse university grades because so many of the higher ‘performers’ are white ‘middle class’ students (including men).

    Some schools have a program for children of parents who have received social security within the last X years or children of single parent households (the categories overlap considerably, I think). Race is not a factor in the program I’m thinking of. But race is a factor in some programs. These are the target of right wing commentators who note the stats for poorer white boys.

    Some universities (Aston rings a bell) have a pot of money especially to help white working class boys. Most unis also have other funding for other ‘disadvantaged’ students.

    I put some terms in quotation marks because:

    • ‘working class’ / ‘middle class’ rely on a social conception of class that doesn’t fit too well with a Marxist conception, defined by one’s relation to the means of production. Plus, even bourgeois writers of recent years have noticed that the middle is ‘squeezed’ and shrinking.
    • ‘performers’ / ‘receive’. It is common to wrongly put the emphasis on the student’s performance, when the problem is structural. So a brighter black girl whose parents are builders may score worse on a test than a less bright child of two white doctors; but the system favours the child who grows up speaking with received pronunciation (a posh, BBC accent). That’s just one example. The point is, university results may have little to do with one’s personal academic performance.
    • ‘disadvantaged’ is not the most helpful term and, to me, it seems to presuppose that the person with the ‘disadvantage’ is the problem. Okay, a wheelchair user will struggle if their classes are upstairs and there’s no elevator. That is a disadvantage. But only because capitalism / liberal institutions are thoughtless. And with race, it makes me uncomfortable to suggest that race is a disadvantage because it seems to accept the old racist logic about who is and who can be civilised, etc. I’m still working out my thoughts on this kind of language. I think my main problem with ‘disadvantaged’ is that it ends the conversation by suggesting the problem is natural, permanent, and cannot be resolved. But the relevant characteristics also have class characteristics. In almost (?) every example I can think of, the ‘disadvantage’ does not have to exist but for capitalism. I can’t imagine a son of a billionaire will face much disadvantage (at home, at least), even in a wheelchair, because their home will be kitted out with all the tech needed to negate any accessibility issues.

    Aside: Gary Roth, The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility is a great book on university education and class. It’s not quite related to your main point, though.

    • NeptiumOP
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      11 months ago

      I completely agree. I do definitely think that if anything, patriarchy and capitalism together contributes to many problems that men face. Such as the higher incidence of attempted suicide and depression (if i am not mistaken) or in this case failure in education. It is definitely plausible, and probably the most accurate, to say that its all these factors, ie. cultural and political-economic, that contributes to this observed underachievement in school.

      As for your point about race, it is one aspect I didn’t cover, because I think for most people, or atleast those in this site, the affect of class and race on educational achievement is more or less obvious, if they had read any even basic marxist theory.

      I am also acutely aware of the British educational system (not saying that this is specific to the British though) due to having gone through the international versions of both GCSE and A-levels. It is definitely not meritocratic, and it becomes clear that, lets just say, higher income families, can afford to spend extra tutoring sessions, have typically more stable family relationships or even to afford extra revision materials.

      I think as for the term such as ‘disadvantaged’, it can also be interpreted as disadvantaged-by the system itself, and not directly putting blame onto the individual. I do see your concerns though, and thats the issue with identity politics that negate or disregards class as not important. I think as long as we use certain terms with disclaimers, as you have done, it becomes less of an issue, and we can talk more about the heart of the issue, like how disability and class intersect.

      And on that small note about middle class and working class, its something that still irks me. I think we all agree that there is a certain portion of the working class that has absorbed and internalised bourgeois ideology due to their more privileged relation to production. Labour aristocracy comes to mind, but I understand that does not really particularly describe this scenario?

      Petite bourgeoisie is another but of course that is more to do with small business owners.

      When I rant I usually just say something along the lines of managerial/upper middle class/specialist but it would be useful to use a term more grounded in Marxist theory.

      • @redtea
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        42 years ago

        Good response. I agree.

        Pointing out the higher incidence of suicide and depression among men makes me wonder if alienation is a factor along with culture and political economy.

        As we’re in c/revolutionaryfeminism, I wonder if anyone knows of a Marxist analysis on gender and alienation. I doubt it’s possible to say that men experience more alienation than women, but I’d bet there are gendered differences relating to alienation. These differences might explain academic achievement.

        As for class, I go through the same cycles. Working class / middle class is convenient short hand for many discussions. If I’m talking with non-Marxists, I’ll often reject that binary (liberals seem to rarely ask what is above the middle) and insist on a Marxist definition. But this is to make a point. Among Marxists, we can probably get by knowing that if one of us uses e.g. ‘working class’ we’re invoking it for convenience and as a relational term.

        And I agree about labour aristocracy / petite bourgeois. Although maybe if add that in many cases, the middle / managerial / professional class(es) seem to have a petite bourgeois ideology. So they fit into that category even if they’re not a small business owner of minor landlord.

        As for labour aristocrats. This is a useful category, but it’s meaning can seem too wide and too narrow at the same time. Depending on who you ask, it covers everyone in the imperial core or only those on the highest salaries. 🤷

  • @holdengreen
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    12 years ago

    I’ve sworn it off as I’ve sworn off this society. I’m done with the charade.