Men are enrolling into US colleges at an alarmingly low rate. This is why programs that cater to girls at Yale, may be wrong, but I guess the Department of Education will decide! https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-minority/536103/
Its truly alarming in Colorado, to be honest, I am very very worried. The focus on girls over boys has got to stop.
Boys are not well supported in college, compared to girls.
For instance: programs at GaTech also pull girls out, mentor them to a much greater degree, and assume boys
will somehow fend. In fact, they drop out of college, at a very high rate these days, boys are not fending.
The idea that girls needs extra help or extra mentoring is outmoded now for years, but we keep doing it, at the expense of boys. And sooner or later it will catch up. Its wrong.
Reality check here…
My son attends Yale. Does not feel his female classmates are given some unequal access, foot up, entrance that is not also made readily available to him as well. Here’s the thing; I raised him to take responsibility for himself and his own accomplishments WHILE also acknowledging that we live in a world where many are marginalized and lack equal access. He therefore understands the concept of a level playing field and doesn’t whine about what is being “taken away” from him. It’s a new world and those who look backwards are doomed to get lost.
If you want to really impact and help men succeed more needs to be done in the primary grades to address behavior issues and how to channel the different ways young boys/men learn. Let’s not penalize our young women because they understand what it takes to be successful students.
Only if the faculty are overwhelmingly female tee hee. My feelings are you either open up services, programs, clubs to both genders or you balance the uni contributions equally to between male only and female only. Seems to me it was women who argued against single sex clubs and the ilk. So OK that is fair, but not if the uni on the other hand is supporting female only clubs etc. that might not be necesssrily be conforming. This isn’t so much about admissions as much as what is happening administratively on campuses.
I agree with gender-based support groups when one gender is a minority in a field or major. However I don’t think men respond like women to the different programs, and therefore supportive major-based LLC’s wouldn’t be super useful f they’d rather have co-ed leadership LLC’s… Also, I’m not sure men feel they need support for majoring in French or Art History or Education the way women do when they major in tech fields or finance.
What do you mean by gender balance or gender neutrality? If you mean that every field, every school, every employer is exactly 50% male/50% female, that is neither realistic nor desirable. An environment where both men and women have the opportunity to pursue and advance in pretty much whatever area interests them, without hitting glass ceilings or being discouraged from even trying by societal or institutional attitudes seems like a worthy goal.
I agree that the current educational imbalance is a problem, OTOH. Not sure what the answer is.
It does seem this student at U of Southern Cal, who is complaining about Yale, is concerned about female students getting exclusive access to Yale faculty. While I don’t know whats going on at Yale, thats exactly what I see at Georgia Tech, that Society of Women Engineers and many other groups are set up to help women, and that men flounder there and do not meet faculty or get as many scholarships or help with job connections, although I admit that I don’t have a firm way to measure that, other than comparing students stories, and have not done a study at Georgia Tech. . I tend to think Yale, as a gender balanced private college, with a lot of resources, takes care of everyone, actually, but I find this Title IX complaint interesting: https://www.insidehighered.com/node/245081
Just a comment on the side discussion about men in female-dominated fields:
As someone who has worked part-time in a low income preschool classroom this year, I would LOVE to see more incentives for men to major in education and related fields, including scholarships specifically for men that only men can get. And it has absolutely nothing to do with discrimination. It has everything to do with the fact that young boys need male-role models, and this is lacking in a way that I don’t see for girls and female role-models (I am talking about mentors, not celebrity role models.)
I want men and women in education because kids need that, and I want men and women in medicine because patients need that (I, and many girls I know, feel much more comfortable with female physicians and nurses, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some men felt this way too). I don’t really care who designed the bridge I drive on, though, or who takes care of my trash disposal. So I guess I do think the field matters @Coloradomama but not for the reasons that are usually discussed.
Organizations like Society of Women Engineers are groups of women helping other women. Should women be told they can’t direct their help toward the students they wish? Men have had historically had an advantage with industry connections, and organization like SWE are in place to mitigate that advantage. I chose not to make assumptions about the complainant’s race or ethnicity because country of origin doesn’t really tell us anything about either. But his complaint does seem to fit with what appears to be a current trend of young men being upset at the loss of privilege.
Perhaps investigation will reveal that affirmative action is no longer needed, but I doubt that is the case. If we agree that the playing field has indeed been leveled, these programs may still be necessary to maintain that level. And I’m not sure what this particular student chooses to use a measure really is an accurate measure of whether the playing field has in fact been leveled.
My feeling is if equal access to services is something a uni takes a stand about then services should be open to all. The choice to join or utilize should be the students whether or not the name of the group, office or club had a name to target a specific minority segment. Targeting and access should not be the same.
WPI: 66% men
RIT: 2:1 men to women
Caltech 64% men
etc. There are a lot more than 3 schools in which men far outnumber women.
The all male schools went coed because men did not want to go to all male schools. Many all female colleges did as well, but the few that remain are there because women want that experience.
The reason a society for women engineers exists is because the regular engineering groups (of which there are many at GA Tech) are likely dominated by men. These groups exist to support each other. Society has decided there is a benefit to bringing more women into fields dominated by men. Women need to be able to support themselves and their families and have the same opportunities as men to do so.
OTOH, as a society it is also important to ensure that young men get the attention and support they need to graduate from college (if they want to). I don’t think dismissing those concerns because men in general have more privilege is helpful but it is what sometimes seems to happen. I also don’t think that have a society of women engineers is denying any men that support.
“If you give an amputee a prosthetic leg so they can walk on their own accord, you don’t take it away after the achievement.”
“Nah, that one doesn’t work. Women are not like amputees (permanently in need of a crutch).”
Wow, I was not saying that at all. It was to show that taking away what has helped progress in equality will bring back the inequality. People think because we have an equal rights act there is no more more racial discrimination in areas such as banking/mortgages and etc. Society becomes easily complacent.
And it’s not just Yale. This at UofM came through my Google alerts this morning. I remember the “study” room incident at MSU a few years ago. MSU had a “space” in the union that was “women only” and the university was called on it. I couldn’t figure out why they just didn’t open a “man” only space, but that was right in the middle of all the hoo-haa about bathrooms and who gets to use which bathroom so MSU just make a space for all I think.
@Coloradomama who “made” Haverford go co-ed? That is the exact mindset that fuels the push back. There aren’t less all men’s colleges because they were made to go co-ed. They made that choice, mostly out of concern for finances. If single gender colleges were what were wanted by students, we would see far more of them. Many women who go to colleges such as Bryn Mawr don’t do it mainly because it is single sexed. Many do in spite of it.