This article has gotten a lot of play in conservative and Men’s Rights circles, as it laments the supposed disappearance of men from higher education. Now, were young men rapidly disappearing from college, or systematically being paid less for their work, or relegated to low-paying industries, I’d say it’s time to do something. And I agree with the author that the high school drop-out rate is a huge problem, particularly among urban and low-income youth. But is he right that boys are losing out on college?
Problem is Gurian’s alarming statistics are flat wrong. Men are NOT disappearing from college campuses. In fact, a higher percentage of all college-age men in the United States are going to college than ever before and this trend has held steady for two decades. What’s really happening is that women are going to college in greater numbers, and college campuses have expanded and multiplied to accommodate them.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1983 some 27 percent of all college-aged American men (ages 18 to 24) were enrolled in college. In 2003 that number was up to 34 percent.
But at the same time, in 1983 only 21 percent of American college-aged women were enrolled in college, and that number climbed more steeply to 41 percent of all college-aged women two decades later.
Gurian writes: “The trend of females overtaking males in college was initially measured in 1978. Yet despite the well-documented disappearance of ever more young men from college campuses, we have yet to fully react to what has become a significant crisis.”
Again, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2003 there were 7.2 million men enrolled in degree-granting institutions and 9.6 million women. This is hardly a disappearance of men.
Ok then.
Thank you for the Salon article, which I ought to have read before I posted about Gurian (and the awful Kate O’Beirne response) this morning.
i haven’t read any studies on this, so i don’t know how accurate my feelings are, but one of the first things i thought was that to help boys succeed in (elementary & secondary) school, there should be more male teachers. i think this is another example of the patriarchy short-changing boys: teaching has traditionally been a job for women, and the pay is based on the sex of teachers, not the amount or importance of the work. everyone would be better off if there were higher wages for teachers and teaching wasn’t viewed as “women’s work.”
Indeed. Not to mention the irrational fear people seem to have of men teaching young children.
TJ, you have no idea.
Sadly, many of the young men who have gone into teaching with me were initially attracted to the job not because of their desire to teach, but a desire to coach. Mentorship is mentorship in some ways, but it doesn’t bode well for boys who can plainly tell that their male role models in school fuction either as disciplinarians (administration) or coaches.
So Jill you are saying if 41% of men went to college and only 34% of women you wouldn’t see a problem there? It wouldn’t be something that needed to be studied and perhaps solved?
Eric, don’t forget, far more men than women are in the trades. Men who might not have gone to college in the past nevertheless could make a good living from the trades and from skilled labor.
I don’t doubt you that some percentage of those not going to college are in trade school but of course there are women doing that too. Trade schools are usually associated with “men’s” (in quotes) jobs but I find it hard to believe that lab-techs, non-registered nurses, cooking and baking, office management, book keeping, etc don’t capture a significant number of women. My GF, is looking at going in learn a trade and at a recent tradeshow I was blown away at the number of options. I don’t doubt more men are learning trades than women but I doubt it is enough to create the difference 7% difference.
There is also the military and of course prison which could be where the difference lies. However until recently no one was even talking about this, let alone studying it so we don’t know.
Anyway, I just found it odd that Jill threw those stats up there and dismissed them as if this isn’t worth considering. If the stats were reversed, I’m sure someone would be mobilizing.
I wasn’t trying to say that they’re worth dismissing, just that the idea that there’s somehow a shortage of men in college and it’s women’s fault is a deeply flawed idea. I’d love to see more people of both genders go to college; that said, higher education just isn’t for everyone. And like Zuzu point out, men can make a good living in trade professions without a college education. And as you said, there are lots of men who go into the military. Women don’t have similar options — the pink-collar workforce is notoriously underpaid.
I agree that it’s worth studying and looking into, I just don’t think the numbers speak to any sort of crisis.
I don’t see anything reasonable to be done with boys in education until we a) get rid of NCLB, and b) stop placing more cultural value on entertainment than education. In the meantime the malaise will spread to every demographic, not just this generation of boys.
Wow. I had no idea we were such a rare commodity.
Seriously, what’s the problem again? While the low attendence of men in college today is a frightening prospect in relation to some minority groups, particularly African Americans, in general, men are still paid much more highly than women for the same work and are more likely to advance to higher job positions. If anything, it would be nice if the disparity were even larger — it’s one of the few trends that is pointing toward some measure of eventual workforce down the line.
And I wouldn’t blame the lack of men in higher education on having too many teachers — between peer pressure and parental role modeling, there are several far greater influences out there. (I say this as a guy getting a Ph. D.)
I meant “having too many *female* teachers”
College is a choice for young men who can afford it. If they are voluntarily opting out, who are we to say they’re wrong? It’s no different from women opting out of the workforce. Both actions are voluntary.
Are conservatives suggesting that boys are too stupid to make their own decisions? Or is it that the conservative movement has failed men, much like conservatives think feminism has failed women?
Framing this as gender issue obscures the greater problems–racism and classism. Among middle class Whites there is no gender gap, but among African Americans and Latinos there is a gender gap that only gets worse as income gets lower. For Whites the only gender gap only for young people from lower income families.
So a better question is not where are the missing men, but where are the missing Black and Latino men and their poor White counterparts? The gender gap can only be understood by taking an intersectional approach. The typical suburban White guy still goes to college, but many other men are not.
My GF, is looking at going in learn a trade and at a recent tradeshow I was blown away at the number of options. I don’t doubt more men are learning trades than women but I doubt it is enough to create the difference 7% difference.
Which trade is your GF interested in? And actually, EricP, within the IBEW (electricians), 99% are men, 1% are women. That’s quite a difference, and we are one of the more “liberal” trades when it comes to female participation (translation: female participation is actively encouraged at the national level, women are promoted within the hierarchy of the union, etc.). Just sayin’.
La Lubu, I was just going to invoke your name.
La Lubu can speak to this better than I can, but the “men’s” trades, such as construction, plumbing, electric, heating and cooling, auto mechanics, etc., pay far better than the “women’s” trades you list. And if the idea of going to college is to get a good job, a man going into a “man’s” trade and a woman going to college might be on equal footing in terms of pay.
I can’t remember the official name of the program she was most interested in. It was a rather specialiazed and was based on handling and archiving medical records for hospitals and clinics. There is a real need for people in this field. At this point she is a little bit away from actually doing it (and trying to decide what she is most interested in) and is still accessing her options. I’m the type of person who makes a decision and lives with it, she tends to think about things for ever before jumping. Despite the fact she knows I’ll support her as needed, she’s taking forever to make the leap and it is driving me crazy!
My uncle is an electician and I remember spending summers working with him (his own kids were lazy). I learned a lot that helped me when I bought my own house.
I think too many women don’t want a career that involves being dirty. I can’t think of a single woman I know who would consider being an electrician or plumber despite the salaries they could pull down. I think the idea of a job that involved crawling through attics or musty sub-floors would be objectionable to most women. It is too bad but it does tend to increase my respect for women who are willing to enter the trade.
Heh, actually, I’m considering becoming an electrician. I was a stagehand for a long, long time, so being dirty doesn’t phase me at all. The main problem was men thinking I had a problem with it and having to prove myself everytime I worked in a new space.
Also, I think these days, dirty jobs don’t appeal to most PEOPLE, not just women.
I can’t think of too many women who’d be thrilled about cleaning up things like other people’s literal shit and rotten food, but the vast majority of maids are women, and a lot of janitors are as well.
Worrying about who has what representation is pointless. The politics of envy are stupid politics; why waste the time?
Instead, look at trends over time.
What Nerdlet said. Add the fact that most nurses (including LVNs/LPNs and nurse aides) are women, and let’s all have a chat about who knows without looking it up what a “Code Brown” means, and while we’re chatting, discuss who changes the diapers and wipes up (and dodges) the pureed greenbeans both before and after they’ve been completely or only partially digested, and the mud-to-the-eyeballs toddler, and… well, etc.
What the h#ll was that weird generalization about, anyway? You live in a nest of Barbiedolls?? You really think it’s all about daintiness and not the sexual-harassment gantlet? Come on.
I’m a computer programer who started and runs a software company. As you can imagine my hands keep pretty clean at work. Most “PEOPLE” do prefer to keep their hands and themselves clean in their jobs. At home, I love “dirty” work. I’m into wood working and have some skill with electical work (thanks to my uncle). When I had to do some plumbing, I bought a torch, the other necessary tools and read some online how-tos. My experience gave me the confidence to try (and in this case succeed).
I’ve become the one to call whenever someone needs help with minor dirty work for many friends and family. Real electrical work usually involves my uncle for obvious reasons – most other jobs fall to me). I get a lot of “respect” (and free beer) for my willingness to roll up my sleeves and take care of jobs other people wouldn’t have a clue on how to handle. I myself have a lot of respect for the real masters of their trades. I would love to know everything they know but time is a limiting factor.
I have even more respect for women who choose these trades. There is a real sense of satisfaction in seeing a feeling a job well done. Physical trades offer a level of tangible positive feedback that you don’t get in other careers. As much as modern men avoid these trades, women avoid them even more. I think, from my experience, a lot of women wouldn’t consider a career that involves so much physical work and so much “dirtiness”. Someone else mentioned maids or janitors. Those are jobs not something you train for. Spending a year or two training involves choosing a career path rather taking an available job. Another difference is some jobs involve dirty hands and some jobs and full-body dust-ups.
These trades can be rewarding but you do come home coated in grime. Women who choose these trades are an exception. Since I’ve found women to be more detail oriented (sexism alert), I would personally choose a woman over man every day for jobs I wasn’t prepared to undertake. At the very least, they might feel that they have something to prove and do a better job.
If you do choose to become an electrician I wish you the best. Maybe I’ll hit you up for tips;-)
Hey Ron, please spend the next couple of day asking some young women (those at an age to choose a career) why they wouldn’t consider a career as a plumber. Report back and prove me wrong on this point.
Nursing is a bit different. Most people (women in most cases) get into it to help people. I doubt most people consider how much grossness they’ll have to deal with when choosing it.
For other “womanly” jobs like taking care of kids, I have a lot of respect since I couldn’t do it but it doesn’t tend to be a full body dirtiness experience. At least in people imaginations when they start to get into it. I’ve heard from my mother that baby boys can make it a full-body experience when out of their dipers;-). And of course people taking care of children are taking on jobs rather than commiting to a career.
Also, any job involving children also comes back to taking care of someone. That does tend to compensate somewhat.
Women, that I’ve known (and I only talking about personal experience) tend to shy away from physical careers that involve continuous dirtiness. There are, of course, jobs that involve that. There is a difference between undertaking schooling and commiting oneself to a career and taking a job to make ends meet.
There’s dirt, and there’s dirt. Grease, grime, oil, dust, mouse droppings, cat shit… not a problem. Human barf and excreta, no way.
I’m female. I’m good with tools. I’d like to be paid more money.
But I’d also like to not have to fight everyday to “prove” myself, or my skills, or my intentions. Hence, no trades for me.
Shorter version of what I’m saying: dislike of “dirt” is not inherently male or female; dislike of dealing with dirt for low pay, or dislike of dealing with dirt and sexism, isn’t either.
But, for better or worse, it’s the stereotypically “female” jobs that are both gross and low-paying, while “male” jobs involving dirt often pay as well as “clean” white collar jobs do. So something other than dislike of “dirt” is operating there.
The answer from at least some of them would probably be more along the lines of, “Gee, I hadn’t considered it.” That’s one of the things that happens when you never, ever see anyone of your gender in a particular trade. Why don’t you ask them. Then ask them if they’d ever consider nursing.
Oh, come on. ER has been on the air for forty-eight seasons now. Everyone knows that caring for patients usually involves wiping up some pretty unsightly fluids. Incapacitated human being = shit for someone else to clean up. No aspiring nurses could labor under any misconception to the contrary for longer than the first session of their first course. Why would a woman be willing to set aside her natural squeamishness out of altruism but not for the sake of job security and a much fatter paycheck than many nurses can claim? Nor are all that many nurses particularly altruistic. Many if not most women go into nursing for the same reason they go into paralegal work, housecleaning, or teaching: it’s a job.
“Full-body?” What difference does that make? Are you saying that squeamishness prevents women from unclogging a drainpipe but not wiping a stranger’s ass? From rooting around in a crawlspace but not holding a stranger’s hair while they puke into a bedpan? From cleaning a toilet but not fixing one? This makes no sense.
Sigh. EricP, where to start???
Nursing is a bit different. Most people (women in most cases) get into it to help people. I doubt most people consider how much grossness they’ll have to deal with when choosing it.
Nonsense. My mother was a nurse. She knew damn well what she’d be dealing with when she got into it. Perhaps if she grew up in my generation, she would have chosen a different path; women of her generation were more limited in their choices. She did know that she didn’t want to work in the glass factory alongside her parents, although that is what she did for a time to pay her way through nursing school (it’s also how she damaged part of her hearing).
I’ve been dirty on jobs…really filthy, in fact. We used to have to saw traffic loops in concrete and asphalt (asphalt is far worse), but now it’s done by pole-mounted detectors. The nastiest I’ve had to deal with is climbing down into a shit-pit (literally, at the treatment plant) to retrieve a malfunctioning float switch that wouldn’t pull up. YUUUUCCKK. You don’t want to know the details! But still…..
My mother had to deal with piss, shit, blood, pus, puke, spit, festering ulcerative sores, gangrene, dried crusts of semen, diarreah, colostomy bags….you name it. It doesn’t get any filthier than that. And on top of it all? Men who enter the “female” world of nursing are promoted faster and tend to oversee female staff with twice the experience or more!!
Look. The filth factor is not why women aren’t entering the trades. Sexism on the job is a factor, but probably not the main one. I blame sexism in society as a whole for the reason more women won’t consider the trades. There are several stereotypes of women in the trades, and all of them are very negative. Not many women want to buck the trend and be on the receiving end of these stereotypes. There are a few Neanderthals on the job that will give you a hard time….however, the general public is far more likely to be giving you that hard time.
Think I’m kidding? What do you think of when you hear the word “tradeswoman”? Do you think of an attractive woman? A hard worker? Someone intelligent? Pleasant to deal with? Please. There are a lot of ugly stereotypes about us…and of course, the first one is that we’re ugly. Stupid. Mean-spirited bitches. Rode hard and put away wet. Pounding down the shots at the bar. Fuck every man we see, especially the married ones. That is, unless we’re hardass dykes that hate men. We like to fistfight. And we don’t do shit on the job, we let guys do it all. And of course, it’s a given that you’re a lousy mother (“good” moms don’t work construction).
It’s not pleasant. It does make me angry. I try to remember to breathe, and remind myself that if someone has an issue with my being in the trade it is their problem, not mine…..but yes, it is demoralizing. Especially after a number of years, long after I would have thought I’ve “proven” myself.
Because see, you can prove yourself to the brothers on the job. That’s the easy part. But you can never prove yourself to the people who do not work with you. Those people are more comfortable with their stereotypes than they are with your presence.
So, you give up a certain amount of respectability by entering the trades. This quite different from the classism that men in the trades deal with, although you get that part too. You also may be giving up the possibility of male companionship, because many men are not willing to date a woman in the trades. You give up your perceived “femininity” (whatever that is). Seriously.
And y’know, I’m not out here to break down any barriers….really. I just want to earn my living just like anyone else. I’m proud of what I do, and I work hard at it. I have the respect of my Local. I’m proud to say that I’ve been a part of changing attitudes in my Local, and in my area towards women in the trades. But until there is critical mass, change comes painfully slow. And that’s the crux of the matter—the change comes slow, so the mass isn’t there, which means the change comes slow. Circular problem. What can help is encouraging girls, I mean, grade-school girls, to consider the trades. By the time they make it to high school, they’ve already turned off on the idea. Few people want to be among the “first”, because it’s a hard, lonely road. It is rewarding, but it takes a certain personality.
I also think encouraging military women to enter apprenticeships can be a breakthrough—the trades is already involved in the “Helmets to Hardhats” program, and women who’ve been in the military are already used to a similar environment.
I’m interested in hearing from the women—have you ever thought about a career in the trades? (I did, from an early age. Part of that was seeing the first women entering apprenticeship work on major projects in the St. Louis area—they were visible to me, so I thought it was a possibility for me as I grew up. At that time (early seventies) women on welfare were strongly encouraged by caseworkers to enter the trades. I met some of those women later on when I returned to that area to work. They were/are really something!) And if you’ve never considered it, why not? Is working with tools just something that doesn’t appeal, or other reasons? I’m curious.
It never occurred to me, probably because my parents brought their daughters up one way and their sons another. My brother was tapped to help my dad with all the household projects involving hammers and nails; we folded laundry and learned to cook. By the time we were out of grade school, he was the only one who knew how to do any of those things. I don’t think my parents were even conscious of it; they certainly don’t believe on that level that women can’t get dirty.
Although, I should say that I don’t come from a blue-collar family. We don’t have “white-collar” jobs, exactly, but we tended to become secretaries or teachers (with a few attorneys) in my mom’s generation and in mine. So I have relatively well-paying, secure options outside of the trades.
That aside, I never saw any tradeswomen when I was growing up. Just as I never saw female firefighters, engineers, techies, police officers, or soldiers. It never really occurred to me that there were jobs in those fields, jobs that women could take, and therefore jobs that I could take. Nursing, on the other hand, I did consider.
Sorry, that was unclear. Those definitely qualify as “white-collar;” what I mean to say is that we tend to be paralegals rather than attorneys, nurses rather than doctors, teachers rather than professors. Make sense?
I usually see those classes of jobs called “pink collar”.
Right. But the guys in our family took those jobs, too, so I didn’t want to sound unclear.
Oh, now I get it. Never mind.
/emily littella
You realize that now, many women — many men, in fact — go into nursing because it’s one of the few secure, portable careers left that can’t be outsourced?
I never considered going into a trade fulltime, but I certainly learned from my civil-engineer father to work with my hands. I do my own simple electric, plumbing (I borrow my tools from the lesbians from the dog park with the Victorian fixer-upper) and basic installation. I would definitely consider learning a trade, for real, once I can stop working as a lawyer.
I will also give a plug to my mother’s side of the family — my grandmother was raised by a single mother who didn’t speak English and went on to nursing school, and my grandfather was raised by immigrants who raised nine children and valued education so highly that they ensured that all of their children, boys and girls, went to college and/or professional school. Grandpa was one of the youngest and graduated dental school in the late 1920s; one of his older sisters was a lawyer.
Incidentally, Grandpa’s first job as a dentist was at a state mental hospital, where he lived on site. My brother has the laundry basket the inmates wove and then used to pick up their laundry 75 years ago. The damn thing won’t die.
Good point!
Don’t you hate it when they flat out make up statistics?
About dirty jobs, well, it looks like shit and it smells like shit and you may even be wading through someone’s shit, but it feels damn good. My background, upbringing, education, etc. were not exactly geared toward me doing ‘the trades’ – unless perhaps law, music, or computer software are included, but when I find myself in a position like that, it just feels real bloody good. A little manual labor is good for everybody [who's physically able]. Your blistered, worn hands seep productivity, your sweat glistens with pride, and your soul is cleansed by the very shit you’re fixing, because ‘work’ work, manual labor, the ‘unskilled’ trades even – they wash away the bullshit of life like a hard rain on caked mud. A shovel, a pale, and a hot sun, or three tons of fragile equipment, a logistical catastrophe, and a ticking clock – these things mean it’s back to basics, and there ain’t no denyin’, no talk no guff no messin around, and it feels so damn good.
(Not entirely relevant, but like she said earlier, it’s worth appreciating just how much those who opt out of higher education do that those who opt in couldn’t necessarily – The industrial workers of the world keep this globe a-spinnin’, and we (middle/upperclass, internet-accessing, politics-discussing folk) couldn’t do it without ‘em)
Both of my parents grew up in blue-collar families. My mother’s brother was an elevator repairman. One of my father’s brothers, Ed, a steamfitter, encouraged me to follow in his footsteps when I was about 20 or so (20 years ago). Said women could be just as good as men at the job, and it paid really well, with good benefits. (His own daughters were not interested.) I did think about it, but decided against it because I’m not good with my hands, and wasn’t sure I could master the physical part of the job. I don’t mind getting dirty. And I have nothing but respect for tradespeople. (I’d never heard any of those stereotypes about tradeswomen, not that I’m doubting you, LaLubu.)
I went to college, and graduated with a b.a. after about 15 years. If I could find a job where I was paid to think, but not teach, I’d do that, but since I haven’t, I sometimes wonder if I should’ve gone ahead and entered the trades. The road not taken…
It sounds like they might be bound up in class stereotypes as well. I have definitely seen those intimations–coarse, ugly, mannish, etc.–about poor women, whether they’re in the trades or in other jobs that involve physical labor.
Interesting thread.It leaves un discussed people go to college for a variety of reasons.Career,social(many people my age are taking part time classes to meet someone-hopefully),inertia:ie-it’s expected.Certainly career goals and interests also play a part.The part about trades is very pertinent.
[...] of college attendance faster than men have been. As Robin Herman writes (hat tip: Jill at Feministe): According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1 [...]
[...] t’s only among Hispanic men that the rates of attendance have actually gone down. In the comments of Feministe, Rachel of the new-to-me blog Rachels Ta [...]
A little manual labor is good for everybody
Spoken like someone for whom manual labor is entirely optional.
There’s a hell of a lot of difference between doing a weekend of heavy work, and having to do it for a living.
Jill, you’re making yourself look stupid. Gurian is taking about the proportion of people at college who are male, this is clearly both disproportionately low and falling. “Disappearance” meaning a fall in proportions. The average white woman is at college, the average white man is not. He is not talking about absolute numbers – which would be daft considering recent increases in the number of people at college.
Once this is understood your sole point seems to be that he used a bad analogy which could confuse the literal minded, you say absolutely nothing about the substantive point he is making.
Nik-
I’m well aware that Gurian is talking percentages. But the suggestion that men are “disappearing” from college implies that their numbers are decreasing, when, in fact, they aren’t. There are more men in college today than there were a few decades ago. There are more women, too, which makes the proportion of men to women go down. From the article:
So a college-aged American man is more likely to go to college now than he was 20 years ago. Women’s enrollment in colleges hasn’t pushed men out; there isn’t an education crisis that makes men less likely to go to college than they were before. That’s my point — that Gurian has no substantive point.
Let me offer an analogous example, and then see who looks stupid:
I start a book club. 10 people join, 7 women and 3 men. We meet a couple times and it turns out that more people want to be in this book club. We open our doors, and the enrollment jumps — now we have 30 men and 22 women. Is there a crisis in the book club now because the proportion of women to men has decreased? Are the women in the book club “disappearing”?
Let me offer an analogous example, and then see who looks stupid
Let’s be even handed. You both look stupid.
In nik’s case, it’s because he’s wrong about the factual question. In your case, it’s because that top does NOT go with that skirt. For God’s sake, buy a mirror.
Even if this trend were in fact extant, I don’t find myself particularly disturbed by its notion. In fact, I could probably care less if fewer and fewer males were attending college, being replaced by women, simply on the basis of the question: Does it really matter? No, it probably doesn’t. The world’s not going to come crashing down around us because of a shift in the proportion of males to female in the latter’s favor. Of course, I say this sitting in my ivory tower at NYU, though by no means am I the proverbial rich white boy. Rather,
my education is subsidized by the poor Southern white trash scholarship being paid for by proverbial rich white boys and girls.
Jill – the article is totally clear that it’s a fall in proportions. The title (probably written by a subeditor) is “Disappearing Act”. Then we get:…
(Paragraph 1) “more young women in my classes than young men”
(Paragraph 2) trouble recruiting and retaining male students – 2-to-1 ratio, women to men.
(Paragraph 3) phrase “mysteriously vanishing” used, and is immediately put in context as a reduction in the percent of students.
(Paragraph 4) mentions females overtaking males in college – which is refered to as a “well-documented disappearance”. The first use of the word disappear in the article.
It’s quite clear what he’s talking about. And it isn’t that “women’s enrollment in colleges has pushed men out” or “that there is an education crisis that makes men less likely to go to college than they were before”. These are words you’re putting in his mouth.
What’s happened is that you don’t like MRAs and right wingers (which is fair enough), so in order to bash them you’re made a distorted reading of a pretty sensible article. What’s your point? “Two word headline misrepresents article”, “Metaphor in second sentence of fourth paragraph could be misleading if you haven’t read the first sentence of the fourth paragraph”…
Gurian’s point – “boys are losing out on college” is true and as you say above, you don’t think that’s the case.