Yes, Patriarchy Is Dead; the Feminists Prove It

[thucythucy]

45. Once again you quote a small portion of the link you provide:

that portion which just happens to be a criticism of feminists. (And, I might add, a rather strange one at that. Are the feminists who saw the crisis in 1970--when there were practically NO women going for degrees in engineering, physics, medicine, etc., the same as the feminists working on these issues today? I bet some of the feminists today weren't even born in 1970, so it's tough to accuse them of "hypocrisy" for a stance taken by others more than four decades ago. I mean, do I get to hold you responsible for stuff men were saying about rape in 1970? But that's a minor point).

Anyway, to quote from the same article to which you link:

The AAUW report, "Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education," reflects a growing concern from many advocates for female students that all of the data about male students is creating an "either/or" choice and discouraging efforts on behalf of women. "Educational achievement is not a zero-sum game, in which a gain for one group results in a corresponding loss for the other. If girls’ success comes at the expense of boys, one would expect to see boys’ scores decline as girls’ scores rise, but this has not been the case," the report says.

"Women are attending and graduating from high school and college at a higher rate than are their male peers, but these gains have not come at men’s expense. Indeed, the proportion of young men graduating from high school and earning college degrees today is at an all-time high," the report adds. "Women have made more rapid gains in earning college degrees, especially among older students, where women outnumber men by a ratio of almost 2-to-1. The gender gap in college attendance is almost absent among those entering college directly after graduating from high school, however, and both women and men are more likely to graduate from college today than ever before."

A major theme of the report is that what appears to be a gender issue (lagging male enrollments or graduation rates) is really a race and ethnicity issue (lagging rates for men from some groups).

Similarly, the AAUW cites test scores on the ACT and SAT to contest the idea of a crisis in the education of males. "Over all, test scores on the SAT and ACT exams challenge the notion of a boys’ crisis. Boys continue to hold an advantage, albeit small, on these undergraduate admissions tests. While the number of girls taking these exams has risen, so too has the number of boys."

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/21/gender#ixzz2pAOCbgWn
Inside Higher Ed



So, in response to all these facts and figures, we have one guy criticising feminists for not seeing that an all time record high for males entering and graduating from college isn't a crisis of gender equity. That's it. That's what you quote, to the exclusion of all else in the article.

Once again, I have to ask: do you actually read the links, the entire article, you use to buttress your argument, or do you just cherry pick for the occasional quote that is critical of feminists?

And are you really blaming the incidence of learning disability, male discipline problems, and suicide rates among males on the fact that the majority of teachers are women? Whew! Something of a stretch, don't you think? And how on earth are SAT scores supposed to correlate with suicide rates? You're saying people who do well on standardized tests are less likely to suffer depression? Really?

Jeff, I honestly am wondering at this need you seem to have to blame each and every problem males have on women, and feminists in particular. Perhaps you might want to sit back for a while and think that over.

Best wishes and happy new year.