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U.S. women are outpacing men in college completion in every major group

105 points by samspenc 2y ago

klodolph 2y ago
This has been clear from the data for a long time.
- declan_roberts 2y ago
  I wonder when the rhetoric and scholarships will catch up to the reality.
djohnston 2y ago
[flagged]
- declan_roberts 2y ago
  "Schools treat boys like they're malfunctioning girls, and girls like they're malfunctioning boys"
- zifpanachr23 2y ago
  I am seriously concerned about this same issue, but I think "psychological castration" is maybe being a bit hyperbolic w.r.t the long term effects of amphetamines at typically prescribed dosages.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      This is a very weird topic to bring up, but just using your logic: Democrats "want men back" and we do so by banning circumcision. But already democratic states in the west are where they stopped. So who's doing the circumcision again?
      - zifpanachr23 2y ago
        I don't know. I'm circumcised and I feel fine and I'm not particularly resentful about it. It's definitely weird though if you think about it too long. I just don't think it's got anything to do with much of.anything politically or socially or sexually or whatever.
        Der_Einzige 2y ago
        Nope, no connection to bodily autonomy issues at all. Not related to tail docking, cat declawing, "my body my choice", or anything libertarian at all! Nope!
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > but I think "psychological castration" is maybe being a bit hyperbolic w.r.t the long term effects of amphetamines at typically prescribed dosages. You see long term brain changes in kids who get prescribed Adderall, you don't see this for adults. Proponents tend to tout this as why we absolutely need to give this to kids, because they say this will permanently heal them, could just as well be permanently damaging them.
    - zifpanachr23 2y ago
      I can accept this. I just have a problem with the allusion to castration, which is a long term, irreversible, and immediately noticeable thing in the typical context that the word is used. I'm concerned about potential long term changes to the brain as well. I wouldn't call that necessarily catastrophically consequential on the level that castration would be though, on account of many other drugs also causing long term and potentially negative changes to the brain. I wouldn't compare underage drinking (known to potentially have long term consequences for the brain) to castration for instance, which is why I think doing the same for amphetamine use is hyperbolic.
  - Aeglaecia 2y ago
    you would certainly have thought somehow differently if your thinking apparatus was consistently influenced by unnatural neurotransmitter concentration during its formation
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      I mean, you act like the alternative would make you a genius somehow. It's a suppressor, not something that fundamentally changes your entire disposition. That's why "castration" is a exaggeration. What's this utopic ideal you're being sealed from if you take something like adderall in your early years? Can't make it to the NBA/NFL?
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - Aeglaecia 2y ago
        your world view presents inconsistencies and would benefit from reflection, for example making negative judgement of exaggeration then proceeding to exaggerate yourself. such behaviour leads me to believe you are not interested in good faith and the following will be a waste of breath. I do believe that daily drug use during childhood is likely to fundamentally change that child's adult disposition. many men I have spoken to who were medicated during childhood have agreed, I have higher confidence in their opinion than yours. some kids will benefit from this. lots and lots of kids are victims of overprescription, and effectively will be mentally castrated by having spontenaiety and peaks of enjoyment crushed via permanent downregulation of the mind's reward circuitry. physically castrated too by reducing growth 10-20% which yes would probably impact ability to maximise sporting potential.
- fooblaster 2y ago
  psychological castration? what are you on about exactly? Can we just discuss the problems men face without the totally unnecessary victimhood language.
  - handwarmers 2y ago
    can you stop tone-moderating people who are trying to share how they feel about something?
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - Copenjin 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - djohnston 2y ago
    Force-feeding adderall to developing brains will eventually be viewed the same way we view lobotomies - a crude and cruel method of control. These children absolutely are victims of a sick system.
    - zifpanachr23 2y ago
      It's crude and it's potentially a method of control, but it's massively massively less terrible in basically every way compared to a lobotomy. The problem with the way you talk about this issue is that everything you say is comparing things that are off by about an order of magnitude in terms of their typical consequences.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - djohnston 2y ago
    You can swear on HN you know, it's ok to say "shit," we can handle it :)
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Fyuck yeah. But I don't think swearing was ever banned. I don't personally bother doing it just because of my own disposition but I've yet to read a comment here that made me go "wow, what a sailor's mouth". Just don't make it distract from the actual core points of curiosity and communication :)
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  There is also a dearth of good male role models in the public sphere.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    You don't think Trump and Andrew Tate are good role models??? /s
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      which father would not want their daughter to marry one or both of them (in Utah…)???? :)
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    There's ton of good male role models. But you don't get to the public sphere these days by being a good wholesome person with zero drama. How many of anyone do we really have like that? Maybe leBron James? Keaneu Reeves (for now?). The public sphere gets its attention by appealing to base desires (rage, sadness, humor) and slowly slipping in the pitch for snake oil. If you're giving inconvinent truths, you're being "preachy", and "don't understand my struggle" and "are part of the problem". Or they simply become famous in various means and in that power make skeletons to be revealed years later. It's hard to have a spotlight on you 24/7 and have your entire life be squeaky clean. That used to be the facade of politicians and even they don't care anymore. Can't make the horse drink, even if they are dying of thirst because they keep being fed alcohol.
- matrix87 2y ago
  > psychological castration wow, I might have to try this in the bedroom sometime
- Copenjin 2y ago
  What did I just read. I'm not american but I doubt that this is the actual reality you guys live in. Feels like you watch too many of the wrong youtube influencers.
  - bufferoverflow 2y ago
    That's a pretty accurate description of what's happening. DEI did this to men, because men were blamed by the media and by the feminists for everything. Sexist anti-male programs were created, and now we see the results. What, you thought that in one generation men magically became dumb?
    - Copenjin 2y ago
      Again, I'm not american but I'm well aware of the silly stuff you are being fed to by influencers selling male victimhood content. Stop listening to that crap. Your downvotes will not change anything. As someone else said, the only problem is the lack of real positive role models (people who build, have ethic and do something useful with their lives), that have been replaced by pathetic characters like JP and other nobodies that only sell victimhood or get rick quick fantasies on the internet.
      - bufferoverflow 2y ago
        Dude, you're so brainwashed. We're showing you actual numbers that colleges/universities are 60-80% female, and your response is that male victimhood is some conspiracy. Numbers clearly show that you're lying and gaslighting. And then in the next sentence you're victimizing yourself for being downvoted. I can't even downvote you. HN doesn't allow me for some reason. I can screenshot it, if you want proof.
        rubyn00bie 2y ago
        > We're showing you actual numbers that colleges/universities are 60-80% female, and your response is that male victimhood is some conspiracy. You’re literally making those numbers up, they are not referenced in the linked article and you provide no proof. You may want to take a step back and ask yourself if it is you who is brainwashed.
- serverlessmania 2y ago
  I'd say war-grade amphetamine, adults taking amphetamines maybe, US air force still give that in some circumstances, but giving amphetamines to an hyperactive kid to calm him down, is just mind-blowing.
  - zifpanachr23 2y ago
    Maybe I'm just already brain damaged in an irreparable way or am potentially a superhuman badass capable of doing all the drugs without consequences... I think it's bad to give amphetamines to kids...full stop. But it isn't similar to castration or a lobotomy or even in the same order of magnitude in terms of long term irreparable effects. Stimulant drugs of that nature tend to be more tolerable than opiates or benzos or a lot of other drugs often prescribed for common mental illnesses (and often to kids). My issue with the whole discussion is not that we shouldn't take a hard look at our amphetamine prescribing tendency and try to resolve the underlying issues instead of putting on a drug band-aid...my issue is that it is implying some sort of long term catastrophic damage for kids or adults that may have undergone that sort of treatment in the past. And it's asking them to start adopting a blame mentality and potentially start using this great potential (imagined) future that was robbed of them as a coping mechanism. They aren't mentally handicapped, and they shouldn't think of themselves as being the equivalent of somebody that's been castrated or lobotomized and therefore permanently mentally disabled in some way. Yes, giving amphetamines on a regular basis to kids is mind blowing. It's also not the end of their lives.
- deleted 2y ago
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mettamage 2y ago
I wonder how the split is for different academic disciplines
- duxup 2y ago
  I am curious about further details too, does the discipline change anything?
  - brvsft 2y ago
    Yes.
- jokoon 2y ago
  Curious to see how they perform in math
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    It would not be surprising if they perform on-par with men at least, given that they dominated the field of computing until the advent of automated machines (and then system operation after that until approximately the era of the personal computer).
- nradov 2y ago
  This site has some data on college majors with major gender disparities (although it's a bit outdated). Women are heavily over represented in Fashion Design, Interior Design, and Elementary Education. Men are heavily over represented in Construction Management, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. https://www.payscale.com/career-advice/do-men-or-women-choose-majors-to-maximize-income/ https://www.payscale.com/career-advice/do-men-or-women-choos...
pclmulqdq 2y ago
[flagged]
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Even at Caltech?
- metabagel 2y ago
  Are you suggesting that there is discrimination against men? Or are you suggesting that Title IX is itself a factor in the college attainment gap between men and women? I believe neither is the case. I think other factors are at play here, although I’m not an expert and willing to be persuaded.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    The current model of "equity" as in Title IX is currently defined based on difference in outcome implying structural/systemic discrimination. There is now a difference in outcome going the other way. Thus, one must conclude systemic discrimination the other direction by the same rules. This difference in outcome was the only hard evidence that justified creation of programs that give women an advantage, such as women-only mentorship programs, scholarships, and career counseling.
vannevar 2y ago
This makes intuitive sense---men have more opportunities to make a decent living in the trades without a college degree. See e.g. https://iwpr.org/numbers-matter-clarifying-the-data-on-women-working-in-construction/ https://iwpr.org/numbers-matter-clarifying-the-data-on-women....
- alexnewman 2y ago
  True but the trades are incredibly small Trade,Estimated Employment Construction Laborers,1,019,090 First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers,777,420 Electricians,712,580 Carpenters,700,290 Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators,450,370 Bls2023 Where as there’s nearly 4 million acredited teachers and 3 million registered nurses
  - theoreticalmal 2y ago
    What do you mean incredibly small? Don’t you numbers show trade jobs are on par with nurses and teachers?
    - teachrdan 2y ago
      No, it shows that all trades jobs put together make up about as many jobs as nurses OR teachers. This is some basic media literacy that needs to be used when media outlets like the Wall Street Journal publish articles suggesting that all unemployed Americans should just become electricians. (or whatever other trades job they trot out) These jobs can be lucrative for men without a college diploma but are a small fraction of jobs in the USA.
  - holub008 2y ago
    The IWPR link from above (with data from the US BLS) suggests that the 320K women in construction trades represent 4% of the total field, implying that there are about 8 million total construction trade jobs in the US. I'm not sure how many construction workers hold 4 year degrees, but it seems plausible this would explain a large portion of the gap.
  - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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listless 2y ago
This isn’t surprising. It’s also not an indication that women are doing better than men writ large. Most degrees are not worth the investment. A few high performing ones hold the average up. Trades are desperate for workers and have above average pay. Men are much more likely to do those jobs. The risk is that women are going to be left with more debt and will be less employable in the long run. But for a society that acts like everyone’s worth is wrapped up in whether or not you have a degree, we should be a lot more concerned about this than we are.
- kevinventullo 2y ago
  Maybe also worth noting that in computer science, a major which I think most would agree is worth the investment, men still greatly outnumber women.
  - jay_kyburz 2y ago
    As a non US citizen, can you tell me how much a computer science degree costs? I've heard students are left with hundreds of thousands in debt when they graduate. Also, can you pay student loans with pre tax income? I've worked with many talented engineers over the years who didn't have degrees and have had no trouble finding jobs and moving around. I imagine a degree might help you get a foot in the door, but once you can demonstrate you can do the job, seems to be easy to pick up more work. I really wonder how damaging that debt would be for a young person who is also trying to save for a house and start a family.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - gruez 2y ago
      >I've heard students are left with hundreds of thousands in debt when they graduate. That's very atypical. The average student loan size at graduation is around $33k to 41k. The only way you get "hundreds of thousands in debt" is if you go to an expensive private university and pay full price. https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt >The average private nonprofit university student borrows $33,910 to complete a bachelor’s degree. >For-profit students borrow an average $40,970.
jimjimjim 2y ago
Men can be more easily drawn to the trades for what seems like much easier money. When I was a poor student I had friends working in house building, driving trucks and even 1 working in a foundry. They all had nicer cars and more beer money than me until I graduated.
- khuey 2y ago
  > They all had nicer cars and more beer money than me until I graduated. It's not exactly surprising that someone working full time has a higher standard of living than a college student. The question is what happens after graduation.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - acdha 2y ago
    Partially: that’s the perfectly rational position but … how many teenagers did you know who carefully planned the game-theoretical optimum for their life? The guy who got a scholarship to MIT is doing that but public policy has to think more about how the 50th percentile person is doing and I think that’s where what you see around you matters more: someone academically driven or who grew up comfortably with professional class parents has the cultural preparation to stick with it but someone who has non-stellar grades, needs to juggle work and school, is thinking regularly about how many years of their parents’ annual income their student debt translates into – that’s who’s likely to give up.
- Izikiel43 2y ago
  > They all had nicer cars and more beer money than me until I graduated. Well yes, they had jobs. Let's say 10 years after graduation, how are things holding up.
- deftosser8501 2y ago
  I mean it's not a wrong thing to think. First day of Polytechnic school, one of my instructors asked how many of us had spouses or girlfriends; about half raised their hands. He said very plainly that they should withdraw from the course if they valued their loved one more than their academic performance. Thing was he was being kind. The course load was targeted around 80 to 100 hours a week in year 1 and then eases off to 60 to 70 year 2 after proving you have the mental fortitude to sustain that kind of pace for more than a few weeks. Post secondary is hard. It's supposed to hard. Only 9 out of an intake of 60 graduated. We were staking a lot of money on the line that would disappear if we didn't make it through. Is it really so unreasonable to think that some people would look at that and decide they don't want to make those sacrifices even if means higher pay check afterwards?
jqwizard 2y ago
The narrative that women don't succeed in computer science and cybersecurity because of discrimination never aligned with my experience whatsoever. Sure, when I was in high school and college, there were significantly less women. And sure, women experience discrimination in many forms, many in ways that men don't understand or have to deal with. I get it, I'm speaking from a "position of privilege" as a man. But I had numerous female teachers and college professors in my programming and math classes. The female students in my classes were smart, capable, and dedicated. Never once did I see them denied anything or treated differently. Female friends told me about negative experiences facing sexism, and they always came from people outside the school, or at the very least outside the CS program. And yet literally everyone I talked to at this overwhelmingly left-leaning school assured me that being a female CS student was a form of torture. They could never explain why. Forget about the female-only scholarships, the conferences, the special clubs and interest groups. These middle-class college students living in one of the world's richest cities are suffering in this field, and we should be doing anything and everything to help them, we will not be satisfied until we have an exact 50%-50% split. I'm not saying it's all rainbows and sunshine. Obviously sexism is still a systemic problem in many parts of American life. I have sisters, they have told some awful shit. I'm simply posing the questions - at what point does a minority group stop being disadvantaged? When do they stop being considered a minority? Who gets to decide when and how that happens? Why are there so many scholarships, interest groups, and initiatives designed to help women in STEM who are struggling, but the very real problem of men and boys struggling in other fields is largely ignored? How large does the gap between male and female education have to get before it reaches public consciousness? It seems like we (the US) should be doing more across the board to help students and provide them opportunities, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. Constant culture war spats and identity politics aren't helping anyone. The vague impression from my social group is that Europeans have it figured out and we just don't, but I really don't know if that's true.
- cocacola1 2y ago
  > It seems like we (the US) should be doing more across the board to help students and provide them opportunities, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. Constant culture war spats and identity politics aren't helping anyone. It's a nice sentiment, though a quick look at our history reveals that it's all about identity politics and culture wars. There is no way to move past it because the US is, and will remain, a divided, multicultural, individual-focused nation. It's one of my favorite aspects of the country, though it's caused no small amount of grief.
gotoeleven 2y ago
[flagged]
- SG- 2y ago
  [flagged]
greatpostman 2y ago
The value of a college degree is in the toilet
queuebert 2y ago
So should we recruit more men to college or more women to trades?
- jqwizard 2y ago
  Why not both? I don't think more skilled workers would be a bad thing?
sho_hn 2y ago
It's amusing how nearly all comments so far are a bit defensive. Not so long ago women were not allowed in academia; shouldn't the first reaction be "yay!"?
- jqwizard 2y ago
  At what point in history has the message "People like yourself are falling behind in a very serious way" ever been met with "Yay!" ? Also, many Americans are taught that statistical gaps between different demographics are usually a result of some terrible injustice. (It's certainly been true in the past.) Whether or not this is true always or even in this case, I can't really say, but I do understand why the mostly American audience of HN would have a negative reaction...
- gruez 2y ago
  >Not so long ago women were not allowed in academia; shouldn't the first reaction be "yay!"? If your ideology is "any differences in outcomes must be caused by systemic discrimination, and we should engage in reverse discrimination to fight it", then this is bad news, because according to that ideology, you should be doing a 180 and discriminating against women. That conclusion upsets some people.
- silisili 2y ago
  Why should we celebrate a growing gap in any direction? Women surpassed men in degrees earned over 40 years ago. How long is the celebration supposed to last?
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    the celebration will last until morale improves
- creato 2y ago
  Maybe. I thought we were supposed to think of that as bad? The second reaction should be to institute a bunch of scholarships for men only, tutoring programs for men only, and so on. Even the elementary school near me a few years ago had a "girls after-school math program" they advertised on a giant banner for the entire time I lived there. (I don't actually think this, but this is what we collectively did when the "problem" was reversed.)
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rr808 2y ago
I've done a bunch of college tours this year with my daughter. Its kinda shocking to see so many homeless men on the streets, then the universities majority women. I'm kinda hoping she'll go to a school that is 50/50. Georgetown was at 62% female, I think Tulane is 64%.
- Izikiel43 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - halfmatthalfcat 2y ago
    This includes men. Men don't care about men. Especially the men who say they do, care the least. What they actually care about is just themselves, not "men".
    - handwarmers 2y ago
      this meme is popular but wrong. nice debate trick tho.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        This isn't a meme, it's a well studied phenomenon since "Bowling Alone" in 1995: https://melindawmoyer.substack.com/p/the-epidemic-of-male-loneliness https://melindawmoyer.substack.com/p/the-epidemic-of-male-lo... GP just put it in a cynical sense, but it's true. males connect a lot less than females. They are disportionately affected by factors like the fall of The Third Place or social media ruining face-to-face communication and plannings. Feel free to ask for more sources, I've been readin a LOT about this topic in the last year.
      - halfmatthalfcat 2y ago
        Feel free to elaborate on how it's wrong.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    trump cares about this as much as I care about synchronized swimming
I_cape_runts 2y ago
Not a surprise. Men don’t go where they’re not wanted.
- proc0 2y ago
  Should be true and obvious for everyone.
matt3210 2y ago
Frankly I think most collage degree programs are used as a continuation of high school for those who are afraid or just not looking to grow up and go out into the market.
matrix87 2y ago
I feel bad for all of the boys out there who have the potential to specialize and get a degree but are surrounded by shitty, ignorant male role models. People who have no goals, no sort of ambition left, no desire to learn, they just sit around and pat themselves on the back for being unmotivated
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I think they're the opposite of ignorant. They know boys are angry and purposefully taking advantadge of their need for acceptance to further their own goals, be it money, power, or clout. We have a name for groups who target and isolate vulnerable individuals for personal gain...
  - matrix87 2y ago
    I wasn't just talking about the GOP. Some of these people actually are ignorant, feel bad about it, and try to keep everyone else ignorant so that they feel less bad about themselves
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Some, perhaps. There's plenty of splinters who got their advice up the chain. But I don't think the root causes that started as millionaires already and only get richer are ignorant per se. You need a certain discipline, narrative, and overall feel on the mood to properly become that successful on a grift. I doubt many of them went from rags to riches on this.
    - cocacola1 2y ago
      Asimov said something about this: > There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.
      - 2y ago
voidfunc 2y ago
[flagged]
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Corporate America, of course. the class/gender warfare was always a way to distract from the true goals of the elite to control the working class. History repeats.
- tayo42 2y ago
  There's a large amount of women that vote the same way
- janalsncm 2y ago
  If a man’s wife has to fly to another state to get an abortion how is that a win for the man?
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    why would a man’s wife get an abortion? maybe a side piece? :)
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    If the couple is smart, they'll just move to such a state, or to another country even.
- atmavatar 2y ago
  Voting-age women outnumber men in the US, and women both register and vote at a higher rate than men do. See: https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/voting.html https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/voting.html See also: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p20-586.pdf https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p20-5... The reality is that a significant minority of women overall, including majority of white women (53%), voted for Trump in the recent election. See: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024 https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Is college really a useful signal? I think it matters which school, what degree, and whether a person would have got into that college due to affirmative action / DEI programs. Sure college is a useful signal for some subset. For the rest it is more a sign that you’re willing to take on debt for either the college experience itself or status or signaling.
- zifpanachr23 2y ago
  I would say no, it's not a very useful signal, but I'm also biased and I'm also aware that bad signals are used all the time to make hiring decisions.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  going to college tells your future employer one important thing - you went somewhere, for four long years, and you stuck it out and got your papers. this trait alone tells a lot about an individual. I think that is really the crux of it. technically if we have two people, went to same school, same degree same classes, same grades in every class all the way through. last semester one of the two took one different class and was 1 credit short of graduating and then left school and never got her/his paper. one of these two individuals is setup to have a prosperous career while the other is “unemployable” even though of course academically-speaking they are one and the same
  - patja 2y ago
    Agree that a college degree sends a strong signal that you can conform to the expectations and requirements of an institution. You can show up when required and follow instructions to achieve an outcome over a period spanning years. This is a valuable signal to employers that you meet some bare minimum of employability.
ta8645 2y ago
[flagged]
- matrix87 2y ago
  > and diversity hires before the diversity hires, there were nepo hires. they didn't suddenly throw "merit" out the window to make way for diversity, it was already a lie to begin with
  - ta8645 2y ago
    You're not wrong, you're just failing to appreciate the difference in scale.
  - csomar 2y ago
    Though changing the system during the French revolution led Napoleon to take over Europe. Nepo is sclerotic, it might not look very bad now but give it a few generations and you end up really way down there. A more efficient governance will then take you over.
  - tbrownaw 2y ago
    > didn't suddenly throw "merit" out the window to make way for diversity, it was already a lie to begin with Deviations from an ideal (hire whoever will be most effective at doing whatever it is you're hiring them to do), whether intentional (nepotism, e.a., trading favors, etc) or accidental (for example trusting formal credentials a little to much), do not make that ideal a "lie".
    - matrix87 2y ago
      I'm not saying that merit in itself is a lie, I'm saying that when they retroactively use "merit" to justify decisions, it frequently is
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > before the diversity hires, there were nepo hires There still are nepo hires, you just added to the problem with diversity hires it didn't fix the nepo hire issue.
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bargainbot3k 2y ago
Why is this even measured? What do we actually achieve from this metric as a goal, one way or another?
neilpointer 2y ago
This is why the men are beginning to form political identities in opposition to women.
- deleted 2y ago
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xyst 2y ago
We are no longer in a knowledge economy. This is a grifter and entertainer/jester economy now.
- fulladder 2y ago
  This is an underappreciated problem. What I observe is that no one does any real work anymore, except immigrants. ("Content creator" is not a real job. That's something you do for fun.) Odd that these guys get beaten up on so much, considering that the entire rest of the society spends all their time ranting on social media and not doing actual work.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >"Content creator" is not a real job. That's something you do for fun. This is dismissive. Some do it as a hobby or simply to expand their reach (even Tim Walz had a few gaming streams this year), but the people making real money easily put 40+ hours into analyzing trends, understanding their audience, preparing content, editing media, and overall being a business person. Those CCs very easily be the hardest workers in any sort of communications company, but that's not how the market works these days. I suppose by that metric, most of HN just working on some website frontend or server backend are just typing away for easy money >considering that the entire rest of the society spends all their time ranting on social media and not doing actual work. well, no one wanted to give me a full time job this year. Gotta do something between the Workday applications draining my soul and the boring Leetcode practice.
    - tolerance 2y ago
      The two comments ahead of us make sweeping generalizations but they're valid ones. They aren't comments made just to look busy at the shop. You can argue that the kind of "progress" or "inequality" that's being discussed was pushed forward by a social justice grifter culture that came to form online in the last decade. Producing "content" for a living is just the natural evolution of the social justice grift, where "$peaking truth to power" becomes just "$peaking", to anyone, on anything, in a way that yields societal or institutional development but of a kind that occurs indifferent to its effects on mankind. Social media has virtually destroyed the image of the academic. By virtue of steadily being assumed by demographics who have a peculiar relationship with social media and technology in general (mid-to-late Gen X and Millennials), Academics are adopting personalities more like YouTube streamers and people who make "content". Academics were at the forefront of the initial social justice grift that contributed to our nascent grift society and the institution will continue to evolve to accommodate this shift. Young women (young black women in particular) took to the social justice grift hard. So it makes sense that they'll make their new home in academia and young men who were excluded from the social justice grift, will pursue other options and get their "grift fix" elsewhere.
yoyohello13 2y ago
You know, it was just 50 or so years ago that the only option a woman had was to attach herself to a man and hope he’s not a mean drunk. Now women actually have options in life and they are availing themselves. Good for them. Of course, now all these HNers suddenly saying college degrees aren’t worth anything because, you know, women.
pyuser583 2y ago
It’s strange how far American women are ahead of men at educational achievement. Education really is a feminist utopia (not really, but more than the real world). It also shows how out of touch education is that these gains don’t lead to better real world success. When I was in college I got good grades. My professors told me my grades were so good, I’d almost certainly do better if I dropped out. That’s how I learned higher Ed’s dirty secret: high performing drop outs do better than graduates. You’d think that would lead to some soul-searching in academia. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >That’s how I learned higher Ed’s dirty secret: high performing drop outs do better than graduates. Well it makes sense... IF you can afford to drop out. the media praises people like Gates and Jobs for never finishing college but making billionaire empires, but it's not like they didn't each burn millions on failed projects first before hitting the gold mine. How else are you supposed to stand out as someone "high performing" but with no certifications to show for it? You gotta be your own business. If you don't have that business acumen (and a small loan of a million dollars), dropping out is horrible advice. In my anecdote of one, college did help me discover topics that really mixed together my mix of talents and passion into one field. I just wish they told me earlier that the jobs tend to expect masters before my grades tanked. I made out okay and am taking a long cut, but you always wonder about what could have been.
  - pyuser583 2y ago
    If I could do college over, I would have learned to code earlier, networked, and got a job at Facebook or Google my sophomore year. Not really. I was studying something I loved but was really impractical. I had the money to major in basket weaving, so I did. But if I needed cash, it would be coding and Google.
dartharva 2y ago
Insane costs and high tuition fees are the root cause of this. Men from all backgrounds have generally been taught from the beginning to join college as a step for moving forward in life, but now more and more of them are discovering they are better off finding a trade instead of getting straddled in debt for a credential that doesn't even come close to being worth what it's charged. Women who get into college, meanwhile, have the dynamics set up in such a way that they are less restricted by any urgency to get financially independent fast, since the set of women being able to get into college will automatically self-select for those who have plenty of safety nets.
iam-role-admin 2y ago
I absolutely hate making this comment but I’m obliged to because I feel some you all are pointing at irrelevant factors, because you don’t know any better. Look at the birth rate for a better signal and the decline of single income families. Lastly, straight men, I’ll give you a secret women choose to go to school because we are taught at a young age that if getting an education is the #1 way to not be dependent on anyone. A man can easily walk out on you so it’s a poor decision to not get or finish an education. Look at when the data starts going up- that’s the generation that saw the last wave of traditional stay at home house wives and single income families. Unless you absolutely are called to be a house wife/trad wife at 18 with your high school sweetheart… you go to school. It’s pretty obvious.
- valval 2y ago
  There’s nothing wrong with single income families, as that has been the default setting for all of our history. I’m inclined to believe that is a solution for some problem that we don’t remember. By the way, love how you addressed us as “straight men”, flushing down the toilet any interest we had in taking you seriously.
  - iam-role-admin 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >There’s nothing wrong with single income families Except the economies. When dual income becomes more common, housing starts to charge under that assumption. Most people literally cannot afford to be single income. There are divorcees who stay together simply because either cannot afford to move out and go it alone for a while.
  - Sammi 2y ago
    No bank anywhere in the western world will lend you money for a house on a single income. Double income is the norm, so it's reflected in the price.
plsbenice34 2y ago
Within this context i find it amusing that i still have seen scholarships that are only for women, none that are only for men. I'm still burdened by student loans that i never would have had in the first place if i were female.
incomingpain 2y ago
[flagged]
vandyswa 2y ago
It's sad that women are dominating in accrual of debt to purchase something where the actual value is drifting downward rapidly. Yes, there are places demanding the credential, but they're entering the region of danger where what they actually are selecting is people with poor cost/benefit analysis skills.
cloverich 2y ago
Professionally one trend I have noticed is an increasing number of women programmers particularly at my current company, and they are all extremely competent and hungry. It could be our target universities but articles like this suggest maybe it's simply a more general trend. I suspect the other new grads entering aren't batting an eye but to me it's an extreme and refreshing departure from when I started. Curious if others are noticing an increasing number of women programmers hired into their orgs?
anal_reactor 2y ago
Was to be expected. US used to be a deeply racist and sexist country, and in order to "make things up", people overcorrected, effectively creating a society that hates white men. Now the pendulum is slowly swinging back. Give it 50 years, white men will be in the position of power again, albeit to a lesser degree. Then it's going to be women and non-whites again. These cycles will keep going on. The idea that a deeply racist and sexist country would magically stop being such "because we've collectively decided not to be sexist and racist anymore" was naive. It's going to take generations to create a society where people are truly equal.

105 points by samspenc 2y ago

klodolph 2y ago

This has been clear from the data for a long time.

declan_roberts 2y ago
I wonder when the rhetoric and scholarships will catch up to the reality.

djohnston 2y ago

[flagged]

declan_roberts 2y ago
"Schools treat boys like they're malfunctioning girls, and girls like they're malfunctioning boys"
zifpanachr23 2y ago
I am seriously concerned about this same issue, but I think "psychological castration" is maybe being a bit hyperbolic w.r.t the long term effects of amphetamines at typically prescribed dosages.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    This is a very weird topic to bring up, but just using your logic: Democrats "want men back" and we do so by banning circumcision. But already democratic states in the west are where they stopped. So who's doing the circumcision again?
    - zifpanachr23 2y ago
      I don't know. I'm circumcised and I feel fine and I'm not particularly resentful about it. It's definitely weird though if you think about it too long. I just don't think it's got anything to do with much of.anything politically or socially or sexually or whatever.
      - Der_Einzige 2y ago
        Nope, no connection to bodily autonomy issues at all. Not related to tail docking, cat declawing, "my body my choice", or anything libertarian at all! Nope!
- Jensson 2y ago
  > but I think "psychological castration" is maybe being a bit hyperbolic w.r.t the long term effects of amphetamines at typically prescribed dosages. You see long term brain changes in kids who get prescribed Adderall, you don't see this for adults. Proponents tend to tout this as why we absolutely need to give this to kids, because they say this will permanently heal them, could just as well be permanently damaging them.
  - zifpanachr23 2y ago
    I can accept this. I just have a problem with the allusion to castration, which is a long term, irreversible, and immediately noticeable thing in the typical context that the word is used. I'm concerned about potential long term changes to the brain as well. I wouldn't call that necessarily catastrophically consequential on the level that castration would be though, on account of many other drugs also causing long term and potentially negative changes to the brain. I wouldn't compare underage drinking (known to potentially have long term consequences for the brain) to castration for instance, which is why I think doing the same for amphetamine use is hyperbolic.
- Aeglaecia 2y ago
  you would certainly have thought somehow differently if your thinking apparatus was consistently influenced by unnatural neurotransmitter concentration during its formation
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    I mean, you act like the alternative would make you a genius somehow. It's a suppressor, not something that fundamentally changes your entire disposition. That's why "castration" is a exaggeration. What's this utopic ideal you're being sealed from if you take something like adderall in your early years? Can't make it to the NBA/NFL?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Aeglaecia 2y ago
      your world view presents inconsistencies and would benefit from reflection, for example making negative judgement of exaggeration then proceeding to exaggerate yourself. such behaviour leads me to believe you are not interested in good faith and the following will be a waste of breath. I do believe that daily drug use during childhood is likely to fundamentally change that child's adult disposition. many men I have spoken to who were medicated during childhood have agreed, I have higher confidence in their opinion than yours. some kids will benefit from this. lots and lots of kids are victims of overprescription, and effectively will be mentally castrated by having spontenaiety and peaks of enjoyment crushed via permanent downregulation of the mind's reward circuitry. physically castrated too by reducing growth 10-20% which yes would probably impact ability to maximise sporting potential.
fooblaster 2y ago
psychological castration? what are you on about exactly? Can we just discuss the problems men face without the totally unnecessary victimhood language.
- handwarmers 2y ago
  can you stop tone-moderating people who are trying to share how they feel about something?
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - Copenjin 2y ago
    [flagged]
- djohnston 2y ago
  Force-feeding adderall to developing brains will eventually be viewed the same way we view lobotomies - a crude and cruel method of control. These children absolutely are victims of a sick system.
  - zifpanachr23 2y ago
    It's crude and it's potentially a method of control, but it's massively massively less terrible in basically every way compared to a lobotomy. The problem with the way you talk about this issue is that everything you say is comparing things that are off by about an order of magnitude in terms of their typical consequences.
bdangubic 2y ago
[flagged]
- djohnston 2y ago
  You can swear on HN you know, it's ok to say "shit," we can handle it :)
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Fyuck yeah. But I don't think swearing was ever banned. I don't personally bother doing it just because of my own disposition but I've yet to read a comment here that made me go "wow, what a sailor's mouth". Just don't make it distract from the actual core points of curiosity and communication :)
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
There is also a dearth of good male role models in the public sphere.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  You don't think Trump and Andrew Tate are good role models??? /s
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    which father would not want their daughter to marry one or both of them (in Utah…)???? :)
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  There's ton of good male role models. But you don't get to the public sphere these days by being a good wholesome person with zero drama. How many of anyone do we really have like that? Maybe leBron James? Keaneu Reeves (for now?). The public sphere gets its attention by appealing to base desires (rage, sadness, humor) and slowly slipping in the pitch for snake oil. If you're giving inconvinent truths, you're being "preachy", and "don't understand my struggle" and "are part of the problem". Or they simply become famous in various means and in that power make skeletons to be revealed years later. It's hard to have a spotlight on you 24/7 and have your entire life be squeaky clean. That used to be the facade of politicians and even they don't care anymore. Can't make the horse drink, even if they are dying of thirst because they keep being fed alcohol.
matrix87 2y ago
> psychological castration wow, I might have to try this in the bedroom sometime
Copenjin 2y ago
What did I just read. I'm not american but I doubt that this is the actual reality you guys live in. Feels like you watch too many of the wrong youtube influencers.
- bufferoverflow 2y ago
  That's a pretty accurate description of what's happening. DEI did this to men, because men were blamed by the media and by the feminists for everything. Sexist anti-male programs were created, and now we see the results. What, you thought that in one generation men magically became dumb?
  - Copenjin 2y ago
    Again, I'm not american but I'm well aware of the silly stuff you are being fed to by influencers selling male victimhood content. Stop listening to that crap. Your downvotes will not change anything. As someone else said, the only problem is the lack of real positive role models (people who build, have ethic and do something useful with their lives), that have been replaced by pathetic characters like JP and other nobodies that only sell victimhood or get rick quick fantasies on the internet.
    - bufferoverflow 2y ago
      Dude, you're so brainwashed. We're showing you actual numbers that colleges/universities are 60-80% female, and your response is that male victimhood is some conspiracy. Numbers clearly show that you're lying and gaslighting. And then in the next sentence you're victimizing yourself for being downvoted. I can't even downvote you. HN doesn't allow me for some reason. I can screenshot it, if you want proof.
      - rubyn00bie 2y ago
        > We're showing you actual numbers that colleges/universities are 60-80% female, and your response is that male victimhood is some conspiracy. You’re literally making those numbers up, they are not referenced in the linked article and you provide no proof. You may want to take a step back and ask yourself if it is you who is brainwashed.
serverlessmania 2y ago
I'd say war-grade amphetamine, adults taking amphetamines maybe, US air force still give that in some circumstances, but giving amphetamines to an hyperactive kid to calm him down, is just mind-blowing.
- zifpanachr23 2y ago
  Maybe I'm just already brain damaged in an irreparable way or am potentially a superhuman badass capable of doing all the drugs without consequences... I think it's bad to give amphetamines to kids...full stop. But it isn't similar to castration or a lobotomy or even in the same order of magnitude in terms of long term irreparable effects. Stimulant drugs of that nature tend to be more tolerable than opiates or benzos or a lot of other drugs often prescribed for common mental illnesses (and often to kids). My issue with the whole discussion is not that we shouldn't take a hard look at our amphetamine prescribing tendency and try to resolve the underlying issues instead of putting on a drug band-aid...my issue is that it is implying some sort of long term catastrophic damage for kids or adults that may have undergone that sort of treatment in the past. And it's asking them to start adopting a blame mentality and potentially start using this great potential (imagined) future that was robbed of them as a coping mechanism. They aren't mentally handicapped, and they shouldn't think of themselves as being the equivalent of somebody that's been castrated or lobotomized and therefore permanently mentally disabled in some way. Yes, giving amphetamines on a regular basis to kids is mind blowing. It's also not the end of their lives.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

mettamage 2y ago

I wonder how the split is for different academic disciplines

duxup 2y ago
I am curious about further details too, does the discipline change anything?
- brvsft 2y ago
  Yes.
jokoon 2y ago
Curious to see how they perform in math
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  It would not be surprising if they perform on-par with men at least, given that they dominated the field of computing until the advent of automated machines (and then system operation after that until approximately the era of the personal computer).
nradov 2y ago
This site has some data on college majors with major gender disparities (although it's a bit outdated). Women are heavily over represented in Fashion Design, Interior Design, and Elementary Education. Men are heavily over represented in Construction Management, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. https://www.payscale.com/career-advice/do-men-or-women-choose-majors-to-maximize-income/ https://www.payscale.com/career-advice/do-men-or-women-choos...

pclmulqdq 2y ago

[flagged]

selimthegrim 2y ago
Even at Caltech?
metabagel 2y ago
Are you suggesting that there is discrimination against men? Or are you suggesting that Title IX is itself a factor in the college attainment gap between men and women? I believe neither is the case. I think other factors are at play here, although I’m not an expert and willing to be persuaded.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  The current model of "equity" as in Title IX is currently defined based on difference in outcome implying structural/systemic discrimination. There is now a difference in outcome going the other way. Thus, one must conclude systemic discrimination the other direction by the same rules. This difference in outcome was the only hard evidence that justified creation of programs that give women an advantage, such as women-only mentorship programs, scholarships, and career counseling.

vannevar 2y ago

This makes intuitive sense---men have more opportunities to make a decent living in the trades without a college degree. See e.g. https://iwpr.org/numbers-matter-clarifying-the-data-on-women-working-in-construction/ https://iwpr.org/numbers-matter-clarifying-the-data-on-women....

alexnewman 2y ago
True but the trades are incredibly small Trade,Estimated Employment Construction Laborers,1,019,090 First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers,777,420 Electricians,712,580 Carpenters,700,290 Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators,450,370 Bls2023 Where as there’s nearly 4 million acredited teachers and 3 million registered nurses
- theoreticalmal 2y ago
  What do you mean incredibly small? Don’t you numbers show trade jobs are on par with nurses and teachers?
  - teachrdan 2y ago
    No, it shows that all trades jobs put together make up about as many jobs as nurses OR teachers. This is some basic media literacy that needs to be used when media outlets like the Wall Street Journal publish articles suggesting that all unemployed Americans should just become electricians. (or whatever other trades job they trot out) These jobs can be lucrative for men without a college diploma but are a small fraction of jobs in the USA.
- holub008 2y ago
  The IWPR link from above (with data from the US BLS) suggests that the 320K women in construction trades represent 4% of the total field, implying that there are about 8 million total construction trade jobs in the US. I'm not sure how many construction workers hold 4 year degrees, but it seems plausible this would explain a large portion of the gap.
- 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

listless 2y ago

This isn’t surprising. It’s also not an indication that women are doing better than men writ large. Most degrees are not worth the investment. A few high performing ones hold the average up. Trades are desperate for workers and have above average pay. Men are much more likely to do those jobs. The risk is that women are going to be left with more debt and will be less employable in the long run. But for a society that acts like everyone’s worth is wrapped up in whether or not you have a degree, we should be a lot more concerned about this than we are.

kevinventullo 2y ago
Maybe also worth noting that in computer science, a major which I think most would agree is worth the investment, men still greatly outnumber women.
- jay_kyburz 2y ago
  As a non US citizen, can you tell me how much a computer science degree costs? I've heard students are left with hundreds of thousands in debt when they graduate. Also, can you pay student loans with pre tax income? I've worked with many talented engineers over the years who didn't have degrees and have had no trouble finding jobs and moving around. I imagine a degree might help you get a foot in the door, but once you can demonstrate you can do the job, seems to be easy to pick up more work. I really wonder how damaging that debt would be for a young person who is also trying to save for a house and start a family.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 2y ago
    >I've heard students are left with hundreds of thousands in debt when they graduate. That's very atypical. The average student loan size at graduation is around $33k to 41k. The only way you get "hundreds of thousands in debt" is if you go to an expensive private university and pay full price. https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt >The average private nonprofit university student borrows $33,910 to complete a bachelor’s degree. >For-profit students borrow an average $40,970.

jimjimjim 2y ago

Men can be more easily drawn to the trades for what seems like much easier money. When I was a poor student I had friends working in house building, driving trucks and even 1 working in a foundry. They all had nicer cars and more beer money than me until I graduated.

khuey 2y ago
> They all had nicer cars and more beer money than me until I graduated. It's not exactly surprising that someone working full time has a higher standard of living than a college student. The question is what happens after graduation.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- acdha 2y ago
  Partially: that’s the perfectly rational position but … how many teenagers did you know who carefully planned the game-theoretical optimum for their life? The guy who got a scholarship to MIT is doing that but public policy has to think more about how the 50th percentile person is doing and I think that’s where what you see around you matters more: someone academically driven or who grew up comfortably with professional class parents has the cultural preparation to stick with it but someone who has non-stellar grades, needs to juggle work and school, is thinking regularly about how many years of their parents’ annual income their student debt translates into – that’s who’s likely to give up.
Izikiel43 2y ago
> They all had nicer cars and more beer money than me until I graduated. Well yes, they had jobs. Let's say 10 years after graduation, how are things holding up.
deftosser8501 2y ago
I mean it's not a wrong thing to think. First day of Polytechnic school, one of my instructors asked how many of us had spouses or girlfriends; about half raised their hands. He said very plainly that they should withdraw from the course if they valued their loved one more than their academic performance. Thing was he was being kind. The course load was targeted around 80 to 100 hours a week in year 1 and then eases off to 60 to 70 year 2 after proving you have the mental fortitude to sustain that kind of pace for more than a few weeks. Post secondary is hard. It's supposed to hard. Only 9 out of an intake of 60 graduated. We were staking a lot of money on the line that would disappear if we didn't make it through. Is it really so unreasonable to think that some people would look at that and decide they don't want to make those sacrifices even if means higher pay check afterwards?

jqwizard 2y ago

The narrative that women don't succeed in computer science and cybersecurity because of discrimination never aligned with my experience whatsoever. Sure, when I was in high school and college, there were significantly less women. And sure, women experience discrimination in many forms, many in ways that men don't understand or have to deal with. I get it, I'm speaking from a "position of privilege" as a man. But I had numerous female teachers and college professors in my programming and math classes. The female students in my classes were smart, capable, and dedicated. Never once did I see them denied anything or treated differently. Female friends told me about negative experiences facing sexism, and they always came from people outside the school, or at the very least outside the CS program. And yet literally everyone I talked to at this overwhelmingly left-leaning school assured me that being a female CS student was a form of torture. They could never explain why. Forget about the female-only scholarships, the conferences, the special clubs and interest groups. These middle-class college students living in one of the world's richest cities are suffering in this field, and we should be doing anything and everything to help them, we will not be satisfied until we have an exact 50%-50% split. I'm not saying it's all rainbows and sunshine. Obviously sexism is still a systemic problem in many parts of American life. I have sisters, they have told some awful shit. I'm simply posing the questions - at what point does a minority group stop being disadvantaged? When do they stop being considered a minority? Who gets to decide when and how that happens? Why are there so many scholarships, interest groups, and initiatives designed to help women in STEM who are struggling, but the very real problem of men and boys struggling in other fields is largely ignored? How large does the gap between male and female education have to get before it reaches public consciousness? It seems like we (the US) should be doing more across the board to help students and provide them opportunities, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. Constant culture war spats and identity politics aren't helping anyone. The vague impression from my social group is that Europeans have it figured out and we just don't, but I really don't know if that's true.

cocacola1 2y ago
> It seems like we (the US) should be doing more across the board to help students and provide them opportunities, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. Constant culture war spats and identity politics aren't helping anyone. It's a nice sentiment, though a quick look at our history reveals that it's all about identity politics and culture wars. There is no way to move past it because the US is, and will remain, a divided, multicultural, individual-focused nation. It's one of my favorite aspects of the country, though it's caused no small amount of grief.

gotoeleven 2y ago

[flagged]

SG- 2y ago
[flagged]

greatpostman 2y ago

The value of a college degree is in the toilet

queuebert 2y ago

So should we recruit more men to college or more women to trades?

jqwizard 2y ago
Why not both? I don't think more skilled workers would be a bad thing?

sho_hn 2y ago

It's amusing how nearly all comments so far are a bit defensive. Not so long ago women were not allowed in academia; shouldn't the first reaction be "yay!"?

jqwizard 2y ago
At what point in history has the message "People like yourself are falling behind in a very serious way" ever been met with "Yay!" ? Also, many Americans are taught that statistical gaps between different demographics are usually a result of some terrible injustice. (It's certainly been true in the past.) Whether or not this is true always or even in this case, I can't really say, but I do understand why the mostly American audience of HN would have a negative reaction...
gruez 2y ago
>Not so long ago women were not allowed in academia; shouldn't the first reaction be "yay!"? If your ideology is "any differences in outcomes must be caused by systemic discrimination, and we should engage in reverse discrimination to fight it", then this is bad news, because according to that ideology, you should be doing a 180 and discriminating against women. That conclusion upsets some people.
silisili 2y ago
Why should we celebrate a growing gap in any direction? Women surpassed men in degrees earned over 40 years ago. How long is the celebration supposed to last?
- bdangubic 2y ago
  the celebration will last until morale improves
creato 2y ago
Maybe. I thought we were supposed to think of that as bad? The second reaction should be to institute a bunch of scholarships for men only, tutoring programs for men only, and so on. Even the elementary school near me a few years ago had a "girls after-school math program" they advertised on a giant banner for the entire time I lived there. (I don't actually think this, but this is what we collectively did when the "problem" was reversed.)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

rr808 2y ago

I've done a bunch of college tours this year with my daughter. Its kinda shocking to see so many homeless men on the streets, then the universities majority women. I'm kinda hoping she'll go to a school that is 50/50. Georgetown was at 62% female, I think Tulane is 64%.

Izikiel43 2y ago
[flagged]
- halfmatthalfcat 2y ago
  This includes men. Men don't care about men. Especially the men who say they do, care the least. What they actually care about is just themselves, not "men".
  - handwarmers 2y ago
    this meme is popular but wrong. nice debate trick tho.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      This isn't a meme, it's a well studied phenomenon since "Bowling Alone" in 1995: https://melindawmoyer.substack.com/p/the-epidemic-of-male-loneliness https://melindawmoyer.substack.com/p/the-epidemic-of-male-lo... GP just put it in a cynical sense, but it's true. males connect a lot less than females. They are disportionately affected by factors like the fall of The Third Place or social media ruining face-to-face communication and plannings. Feel free to ask for more sources, I've been readin a LOT about this topic in the last year.
    - halfmatthalfcat 2y ago
      Feel free to elaborate on how it's wrong.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  trump cares about this as much as I care about synchronized swimming

I_cape_runts 2y ago

Not a surprise. Men don’t go where they’re not wanted.

proc0 2y ago
Should be true and obvious for everyone.

matt3210 2y ago

Frankly I think most collage degree programs are used as a continuation of high school for those who are afraid or just not looking to grow up and go out into the market.

matrix87 2y ago

I feel bad for all of the boys out there who have the potential to specialize and get a degree but are surrounded by shitty, ignorant male role models. People who have no goals, no sort of ambition left, no desire to learn, they just sit around and pat themselves on the back for being unmotivated

johnnyanmac 2y ago
I think they're the opposite of ignorant. They know boys are angry and purposefully taking advantadge of their need for acceptance to further their own goals, be it money, power, or clout. We have a name for groups who target and isolate vulnerable individuals for personal gain...
- matrix87 2y ago
  I wasn't just talking about the GOP. Some of these people actually are ignorant, feel bad about it, and try to keep everyone else ignorant so that they feel less bad about themselves
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Some, perhaps. There's plenty of splinters who got their advice up the chain. But I don't think the root causes that started as millionaires already and only get richer are ignorant per se. You need a certain discipline, narrative, and overall feel on the mood to properly become that successful on a grift. I doubt many of them went from rags to riches on this.
  - cocacola1 2y ago
    Asimov said something about this: > There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.
    - 2y ago

voidfunc 2y ago

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johnnyanmac 2y ago
Corporate America, of course. the class/gender warfare was always a way to distract from the true goals of the elite to control the working class. History repeats.
tayo42 2y ago
There's a large amount of women that vote the same way
janalsncm 2y ago
If a man’s wife has to fly to another state to get an abortion how is that a win for the man?
- bdangubic 2y ago
  why would a man’s wife get an abortion? maybe a side piece? :)
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  If the couple is smart, they'll just move to such a state, or to another country even.
atmavatar 2y ago
Voting-age women outnumber men in the US, and women both register and vote at a higher rate than men do. See: https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/voting.html https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/voting.html See also: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p20-586.pdf https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p20-5... The reality is that a significant minority of women overall, including majority of white women (53%), voted for Trump in the recent election. See: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024 https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Is college really a useful signal? I think it matters which school, what degree, and whether a person would have got into that college due to affirmative action / DEI programs. Sure college is a useful signal for some subset. For the rest it is more a sign that you’re willing to take on debt for either the college experience itself or status or signaling.

zifpanachr23 2y ago
I would say no, it's not a very useful signal, but I'm also biased and I'm also aware that bad signals are used all the time to make hiring decisions.
bdangubic 2y ago
going to college tells your future employer one important thing - you went somewhere, for four long years, and you stuck it out and got your papers. this trait alone tells a lot about an individual. I think that is really the crux of it. technically if we have two people, went to same school, same degree same classes, same grades in every class all the way through. last semester one of the two took one different class and was 1 credit short of graduating and then left school and never got her/his paper. one of these two individuals is setup to have a prosperous career while the other is “unemployable” even though of course academically-speaking they are one and the same
- patja 2y ago
  Agree that a college degree sends a strong signal that you can conform to the expectations and requirements of an institution. You can show up when required and follow instructions to achieve an outcome over a period spanning years. This is a valuable signal to employers that you meet some bare minimum of employability.

ta8645 2y ago

[flagged]

matrix87 2y ago
> and diversity hires before the diversity hires, there were nepo hires. they didn't suddenly throw "merit" out the window to make way for diversity, it was already a lie to begin with
- ta8645 2y ago
  You're not wrong, you're just failing to appreciate the difference in scale.
- csomar 2y ago
  Though changing the system during the French revolution led Napoleon to take over Europe. Nepo is sclerotic, it might not look very bad now but give it a few generations and you end up really way down there. A more efficient governance will then take you over.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  > didn't suddenly throw "merit" out the window to make way for diversity, it was already a lie to begin with Deviations from an ideal (hire whoever will be most effective at doing whatever it is you're hiring them to do), whether intentional (nepotism, e.a., trading favors, etc) or accidental (for example trusting formal credentials a little to much), do not make that ideal a "lie".
  - matrix87 2y ago
    I'm not saying that merit in itself is a lie, I'm saying that when they retroactively use "merit" to justify decisions, it frequently is
- Jensson 2y ago
  > before the diversity hires, there were nepo hires There still are nepo hires, you just added to the problem with diversity hires it didn't fix the nepo hire issue.

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bargainbot3k 2y ago

Why is this even measured? What do we actually achieve from this metric as a goal, one way or another?

neilpointer 2y ago

This is why the men are beginning to form political identities in opposition to women.

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xyst 2y ago

We are no longer in a knowledge economy. This is a grifter and entertainer/jester economy now.

fulladder 2y ago
This is an underappreciated problem. What I observe is that no one does any real work anymore, except immigrants. ("Content creator" is not a real job. That's something you do for fun.) Odd that these guys get beaten up on so much, considering that the entire rest of the society spends all their time ranting on social media and not doing actual work.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >"Content creator" is not a real job. That's something you do for fun. This is dismissive. Some do it as a hobby or simply to expand their reach (even Tim Walz had a few gaming streams this year), but the people making real money easily put 40+ hours into analyzing trends, understanding their audience, preparing content, editing media, and overall being a business person. Those CCs very easily be the hardest workers in any sort of communications company, but that's not how the market works these days. I suppose by that metric, most of HN just working on some website frontend or server backend are just typing away for easy money >considering that the entire rest of the society spends all their time ranting on social media and not doing actual work. well, no one wanted to give me a full time job this year. Gotta do something between the Workday applications draining my soul and the boring Leetcode practice.
  - tolerance 2y ago
    The two comments ahead of us make sweeping generalizations but they're valid ones. They aren't comments made just to look busy at the shop. You can argue that the kind of "progress" or "inequality" that's being discussed was pushed forward by a social justice grifter culture that came to form online in the last decade. Producing "content" for a living is just the natural evolution of the social justice grift, where "$peaking truth to power" becomes just "$peaking", to anyone, on anything, in a way that yields societal or institutional development but of a kind that occurs indifferent to its effects on mankind. Social media has virtually destroyed the image of the academic. By virtue of steadily being assumed by demographics who have a peculiar relationship with social media and technology in general (mid-to-late Gen X and Millennials), Academics are adopting personalities more like YouTube streamers and people who make "content". Academics were at the forefront of the initial social justice grift that contributed to our nascent grift society and the institution will continue to evolve to accommodate this shift. Young women (young black women in particular) took to the social justice grift hard. So it makes sense that they'll make their new home in academia and young men who were excluded from the social justice grift, will pursue other options and get their "grift fix" elsewhere.

yoyohello13 2y ago

You know, it was just 50 or so years ago that the only option a woman had was to attach herself to a man and hope he’s not a mean drunk. Now women actually have options in life and they are availing themselves. Good for them. Of course, now all these HNers suddenly saying college degrees aren’t worth anything because, you know, women.

pyuser583 2y ago

It’s strange how far American women are ahead of men at educational achievement. Education really is a feminist utopia (not really, but more than the real world). It also shows how out of touch education is that these gains don’t lead to better real world success. When I was in college I got good grades. My professors told me my grades were so good, I’d almost certainly do better if I dropped out. That’s how I learned higher Ed’s dirty secret: high performing drop outs do better than graduates. You’d think that would lead to some soul-searching in academia. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>That’s how I learned higher Ed’s dirty secret: high performing drop outs do better than graduates. Well it makes sense... IF you can afford to drop out. the media praises people like Gates and Jobs for never finishing college but making billionaire empires, but it's not like they didn't each burn millions on failed projects first before hitting the gold mine. How else are you supposed to stand out as someone "high performing" but with no certifications to show for it? You gotta be your own business. If you don't have that business acumen (and a small loan of a million dollars), dropping out is horrible advice. In my anecdote of one, college did help me discover topics that really mixed together my mix of talents and passion into one field. I just wish they told me earlier that the jobs tend to expect masters before my grades tanked. I made out okay and am taking a long cut, but you always wonder about what could have been.
- pyuser583 2y ago
  If I could do college over, I would have learned to code earlier, networked, and got a job at Facebook or Google my sophomore year. Not really. I was studying something I loved but was really impractical. I had the money to major in basket weaving, so I did. But if I needed cash, it would be coding and Google.

dartharva 2y ago

Insane costs and high tuition fees are the root cause of this. Men from all backgrounds have generally been taught from the beginning to join college as a step for moving forward in life, but now more and more of them are discovering they are better off finding a trade instead of getting straddled in debt for a credential that doesn't even come close to being worth what it's charged. Women who get into college, meanwhile, have the dynamics set up in such a way that they are less restricted by any urgency to get financially independent fast, since the set of women being able to get into college will automatically self-select for those who have plenty of safety nets.

iam-role-admin 2y ago

I absolutely hate making this comment but I’m obliged to because I feel some you all are pointing at irrelevant factors, because you don’t know any better. Look at the birth rate for a better signal and the decline of single income families. Lastly, straight men, I’ll give you a secret women choose to go to school because we are taught at a young age that if getting an education is the #1 way to not be dependent on anyone. A man can easily walk out on you so it’s a poor decision to not get or finish an education. Look at when the data starts going up- that’s the generation that saw the last wave of traditional stay at home house wives and single income families. Unless you absolutely are called to be a house wife/trad wife at 18 with your high school sweetheart… you go to school. It’s pretty obvious.

valval 2y ago
There’s nothing wrong with single income families, as that has been the default setting for all of our history. I’m inclined to believe that is a solution for some problem that we don’t remember. By the way, love how you addressed us as “straight men”, flushing down the toilet any interest we had in taking you seriously.
- iam-role-admin 2y ago
  [flagged]
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >There’s nothing wrong with single income families Except the economies. When dual income becomes more common, housing starts to charge under that assumption. Most people literally cannot afford to be single income. There are divorcees who stay together simply because either cannot afford to move out and go it alone for a while.
- Sammi 2y ago
  No bank anywhere in the western world will lend you money for a house on a single income. Double income is the norm, so it's reflected in the price.

plsbenice34 2y ago

Within this context i find it amusing that i still have seen scholarships that are only for women, none that are only for men. I'm still burdened by student loans that i never would have had in the first place if i were female.

incomingpain 2y ago

[flagged]

vandyswa 2y ago

It's sad that women are dominating in accrual of debt to purchase something where the actual value is drifting downward rapidly. Yes, there are places demanding the credential, but they're entering the region of danger where what they actually are selecting is people with poor cost/benefit analysis skills.

cloverich 2y ago

Professionally one trend I have noticed is an increasing number of women programmers particularly at my current company, and they are all extremely competent and hungry. It could be our target universities but articles like this suggest maybe it's simply a more general trend. I suspect the other new grads entering aren't batting an eye but to me it's an extreme and refreshing departure from when I started. Curious if others are noticing an increasing number of women programmers hired into their orgs?

anal_reactor 2y ago

Was to be expected. US used to be a deeply racist and sexist country, and in order to "make things up", people overcorrected, effectively creating a society that hates white men. Now the pendulum is slowly swinging back. Give it 50 years, white men will be in the position of power again, albeit to a lesser degree. Then it's going to be women and non-whites again. These cycles will keep going on. The idea that a deeply racist and sexist country would magically stop being such "because we've collectively decided not to be sexist and racist anymore" was naive. It's going to take generations to create a society where people are truly equal.