There are people who legitimately think this.
It’s similar to why don’t we have ‘white history.’
A lot of our country likely agrees with OPs sentiment including women.
I don’t.
But I wouldn’t dismiss the post. Everyone has the right to their beliefs. And all are supposed to be treated fairly and kindly.
I work in nursing which is still pretty overwhelmingly female. However, my longest job was in a department which had almost equal genders in ALL roles (doctors, nurses, techs, etc).
That being said, our high school is currently building and expanding areas for teaching trades. Our high school has a very high percentage of graduates immediately entering the workforce or trades/tech schools.
I dont know. I have a doctorate degree as a female and I know many, many men who dont have a degree at all who make much more money than I do.
Until there is parity in professional achievement among men and women, providing additional resources to women seems appropriate to me, especially in terms of mentoring.
And to what extent is there really a disparity in services? That is a sincere question. I am not aware of any colleges that provide, say, tutoring for female students but deny similar services to male students. Most colleges - at least the ones I’m familiar with - have student learning centers that provide support to all students who seek it. But maybe this exists at some colleges? I do imagine that mentoring programs focused on female students likely exist and, if they don’t, they absolutely should for the reason I noted above.
However, griping about the existence of a women’s studies program doesn’t really make a solid case for discrimination against or marginalization of men on campus.
I have no idea whether this is a serious post, but it could be.
What makes it seem unserious is that it misidentifies the problem. Definitely there’s a problem with a mismatch between the learning styles of many young men, and the structure and demands of our educational system, even more so in K-12 than in college. It isn’t news that statistically, women are more successful in this system. (And yet, men disproportionately end up in charge, later in life.)
But this problem doesn’t exist because of the failure to study men. (And after all, the whole widely-mocked field of “gender studies” does in fact study both/all gender identities.)
There are plenty of scholars in the field of educational research who are examining the question of how educational institutions could better serve men. A student with a particular interest in this area should have no trouble finding opportunities to pursue it as an area of inquiry. As to male-specific support services… what would that look like, compared to what exists? The implication that something is missing in that respect implies that men are being marginalized, which is the assumption that is eliciting the ridicule on this thread. What’s stopping men, who have the disproportionate share of power, from supporting one another, if such support is lacking?
I do not think that “Men’s Studies” needs to be a field, at least not until all the departments (like history) have fully inclusive coursework (including women and nonbinary/trans folk proportionally represented). Until such time, fields like gender studies, ethnic studies, etc. will be filling a gap that should be filled.
I think that @Illinoisparent12’s post was excellent. Boys in the U.S. are struggling at significantly higher rates than girls. There are now so many options to support girls that there are instances of inequities going in the opposite direction now. I work in the education profession and know of schools where there’s a Girls on the Run, but no running option for boys, or Girl Scouts, but no scouting option (unisex or coed) for boys, or a Women in STEM club, but no STEM club for boys (coed or unisex). I can understand if a school offers both a coed option and a single-sex option (as, for instance, STEM used to be dominated by boys and so there are many cases of girls feeling overrun/marginalized in the “coed” clubs that are 90% one gender). But, when there are clubs and support organizations for only one gender and nothing that the other gender can participate in, it does feel unfair.
So there are boys who are growing up and see this type of disparity, and then the American educational system favors learning styles that are more common amongst girls (not much kinesthetic instructional methods, but lots of sitting still and writing, when boys often have better gross motor skills than the fine motor skills that handwriting favors). Girls are generally favored by this learning environment and so they get started on the advanced learning tracks, receive more recognition as they are excelling, etc. Boys are feeling as though it’s much harder for them to be successful in school, and then they don’t try as hard, start being derisive toward many forms of education, and the cycle towards the spirit that everyone’s again “us” starts rolling (and that some politically successful people have tapped into).
With that said, is that for all boys? Heavens no. Look at all the males who come on CC with their superlative backgrounds. But is it a definite percentage of the boys (who become men) in the US? Sadly, yes.
Maybe a ■■■■■? Maybe a commentary on the female-to-male ratio at universities today which is around 60/40? Idk
If so, it might bring sarcastic replies today but how to do you think your daughters and granddaughters will feel if they’re looking for an educated spouse one day? Not so funny.
And I’m old enough to remember when none of these things were available to women. They weren’t “expected” to enter STEM fields except for nursing. The BSA was well established all the way through Eagle Scouts for the boys…and nothing past sixth grade for the girls. The track and cross country teams in high schools were only for the guys. Nothing for the girls (think about sports in general before Title 9).
Girls were not allowed to take classes like “shop class”. By the time senior year in high school came around, there were precious few girls in physics and calculus. Mostly guys.
Then came a push for women to have greater access to everything. And that is not a bad thing.
As noted…look at history and see how many famous women there really are…and especially in stem fields.
There is no interest in the area to start a troop with Scouts BSA (coed), Navigators USA (coed, left leaning), or Trail Life (boys, conservative Christian)?
I’m curious why that is, though. Does the school not allow a coed STEM club? (I can understand not allowing a unisex male STEM club as it reinforces still well-entrenched historical biases, but it is strange that they wouldn’t allow a coed club…).
Agree. Things like our robotics teams are all open to everyone. Same with any other HS clubs. There are no single sex clubs at our high school.
This was an interesting segment on CNN.
The gender gap reflects the applicant pool, not the disparity in services. I know of zero colleges which provide tutoring, writing seminars, study halls, extra TA sessions, etc. available to women which are not provided to men as well.
I was a male that attended Vassar in the 1980’s. In spite of having gone coed in 1969 the school still embraced its legacy as a single gender school, was 60/40 female and had underfunded men’s sports while embracing many of its female traditions.
I remember bemoaning the inequity to a professor who I respected. She responded by saying (paraphrase) at least you dont have to worry about getting drunk and being violated, walking into a room as the leader of a team and having your male colleagues approached first as the default leaders, having your demeanor questioned based on your menstrual cycle or getting paid less based on child bearing. She paused and said sorry you are short a few lacrosse goals and balls.
Her point resonated and holds true 3 decades later.
Years later she recalled the conversation at a reunion with my family. I pointed out how impactful it was. She referred to having made the same comments to several other male Vassar students over the years. She called it her “toughen up cupcake” speech. Still makes me smile.
My daughter is planning an art exhibit around the idea that women say “I’m sorry” all the time when they shouldn’t (and no, I can’t quite envision what the show will look like, so I’ll have to get more details!).
When she told my husband about the concept, he launched into a long speech about how sometimes it’s important to say “I’m sorry.” Blah blah blah. She started laughing. When he asked what was so funny, she said she had told quite a few people about her idea, and 100% of the time, it was MEN who started preaching about why you should say I’m sorry. They TOTALLY missed the point, not understanding what women put up with every day.
There’re more men among the most educated, and there’re more men among the least educated, in every society except the ones that keep women from being educated. Therefore, it isn’t a surprise to me that more men than women would be less educated in a society where there’s no gender barrier and most people (men and women) are educated.
In fact my S24 has figured out there are some very desirable colleges which have notably higher admit rates for male applicants, and even that isn’t getting them to more than like 40-45% male attendees. And it is kinda hard to argue he should not view this as a personally good thing (possibly easier admittance AND more women?–not a lot of downside there), even if he recognizes it is a not-so-good thing overall.
And yes, also having a daughter who will eventually be applying to college means I cannot exactly be celebrating all this.
Vassar is in fact one of those colleges I just mentioned that has caught my S24’s attention. 40.8% men among enrollees in the latest CDS, and just to get there the admit rate was 15.8% among women, 25.7% among men.
I’ve cautioned him that you can’t assume the applicant pools are otherwise identical, that recruited athletes and legacies and such could be involved, and so on. He is smart enough though to point out that could cut both ways . . . .
Anyway, if he does end up at Vassar, I definitely hope a “toughen up cupcake” speech of some form is in his future. Not that he hasn’t heard it before, but still, it is hard for me to look at all this and think it is the WOMEN applying to Vassar who are having it too good.
Most often clubs like these are developed by individual teachers/other adult and often as volunteers. I’ve seen the same issue with Boy Scouts offered but not Girl Scouts because there was a male volunteer for Boy Scouts (usually a parent) but no volunteer for Girl Scouts.
I don’t think those issues are because girls are being helped/offered opportunities disproportionately.
Technically speaking, no, we shouldn’t.
Signed, a Mod 
OK - sorry - we should “discuss.” - those that would like to.
My point is - lots of people like to get on people for saying things - I’m one they get on.
But everyone is entitled to an opinion and I don’t know if OP is a ■■■■■ or not and I don’t agree with the premise - but that person is entitled and it should be discussed if people want to discuss.
The person shouldn’t be maligned and that’s what some have done.