Posted on 04/01/2005 7:10:11 AM PST by GMMAC
Where are all the guys on campus?
If men outnumbered women 515,000 to 375,000 in colleges, there'd be an uproar
The Edmonton Journal
Fri 01 Apr 2005
Page: A18
Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
Of the 52 traditional bricks-and-mortar universities in Canada, only one has more male students than female.
Just one.
Ontario's University of Waterloo has a male-female ratio of 54 to 46, according to Maclean's magazine's 2005 Guide to Canadian Universities.
At all the rest -- every last one of them -- women outnumber men.
At Carleton University in Ottawa, it's nearly equal. The numbers there reflect the split between men and women in the population as a whole -- 49 to 51.
But at most post-secondary schools, it's not even close.
At just 10 of the schools Maclean's surveys each year are men as much as 45 per cent of the student body. At 20 schools -- nearly two-fifths of Canadian universities -- men comprise under 40 per cent of the student body.
At the University of Alberta, the ratio is 43 to 57. At Calgary it's 45 to 55, and at Lethbridge it's the same as at the U of A: 43 to 57. Those are pretty typical of the country's large, multi-facultied universities.
At prestious universities such as McGill, Queen's, Western and Laval, men are 40 to 42 per cent of students.
At Memorial in Newfoundland and York in Toronto, they are 38 per cent. At Brandon and Winnipeg, they are 34 per cent, at St. Thomas in Fredericton, 32, and at Nipissing in North Bay, Ont., a mere 28 per cent.
Throughout the five campuses of the Universite du Quebec system, men are nowhere more than 38 per cent of the total.
The imbalance is even greater at most two-year and community colleges.
Mount Saint Vincent in Halifax has the lowest level of male enrolment of any university in the country, just 19 per cent. I guess that's understandable. Until 1967, MSV was an all-female university.
But if I said it was understandable that Waterloo has more male than female students because its focus is math, engineering and computer science, there would be a lot of feminists and other assorted politically correct types who would be anything but understanding.
Lawrence Summers, Bill Clinton's former treasury secretary who is now president of Harvard University, wondered aloud at a closed-door academic conference in January whether the alleged under-representation of women in math and science might, just might, be due to some innate difference between the sexes rather than systemic discrimination or social conditioning alone. And ever since he has been pilloried for even suggesting such a sacrilege.
And that's my point. If the shoe were on the other foot -- if men outnumbered women, significantly, at all Canadian universities but one -- we would never hear the end of it. Yet Canadian universities have become dominated by female students (women now also earn 10 degrees for every seven awarded to men, according to Statistics Canada), and no one even notices.
If men and women both are in our schools of higher learning on merit, then the male-female ratio is unimportant. But it would not be treated as unimportant if the ratio went the other way, even if merit were the explanation, because merit would not be an acceptable application. It wouldn't feed the cause.
Political correctness, feminism, even modern liberalism are outrage "-isms." They feed off the indignation of perceived slights and injustices. If an outraging explanation cannot be found for a difference between men and women, rich and poor, whites and non-whites, then one must be invented. One that cannot be disproved -- an invisible conspiracy, imperceptible social conditioning, systemic discrimination -- is the best kind, since it permits the outrage to be stoked indefinitely.
As women have roared past men in total post-secondary enrolment -- there are now nearly 515,000 women at universities, colleges and technical schools in Canada, compared to 375,000 men, according to StatsCan -- the only "facts" that get reported are the outraging ones: that men still earn more doctorates and masters degrees.
Never mind that the number of men receiving doctorates in the most-recent six-year period fell by 18 per cent, while the number of women doing so rose 19 per cent. It is an outrage to the PC and feminist crowd that parity has not been achieved yet. Only now is soon enough.
When the number of women receiving advanced degrees surpasses the number of men -- sometime around 2014 --expect some new outrage to be found.
If the number of men studying law had risen two per cent in the past decade and the number of women had fallen nearly 18 per cent, instead of the reverse, there would be calls for royal commissions. If male enrolment in business programs had increased 11 per cent and female fallen two per cent, instead of the other way around, newspapers would be filled with stories decrying the imbalance, the unfairness.
The CBC would have several special reports pointing fingers at the patriarchy or cowardly politicians for their lack of funding, or both, if male enrolment had risen 35 per cent in natural resource courses since 1995 and female had fallen 10 per cent. But let the opposite be true and ... silence.
An imbalance in favour of women is considered justifiable payback, un-newsworthy; the universe unfolding as it should.
Lorne Gunter
Columnist/Editorial Writer, National Post
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Tele: (780) 916-0719 / E-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca / Fax: (780) 481-4735
PING!
This is a new phenomena in the US as well. While good for the men on campus, long term i wonder what this means? Why are men not going to college?
They won't tolerate the feminization of education. My son refused to go ( and he is making more than most of his college educated peers).
Many of the men on campus look like women.
Back when I was in school, it was known as the "buck/doe ratio". I don't remember it being that much different in the late '80s.
Lot's of young men either join the military or enter the work force after high school. College campuses can be less than inviting to hardcore blue collar males.
Goodness, this sure makes me miss college!!
Maybe, MAYBE, the men ARE smarter than women, and have figured out that today's "college education" ain't worth it!
According to a book I have been reading, the Gen Y populatiton consists of approx 100 million people. crime is committed, primarily by men ages 18-30. Ipso facto, if less men are in college with a drastic increase in the crime commiting population of those same men--we are going to see a huge increase in crime. Kinda interesting.
hmmmm. But why aren't men going to college? Is it institutional? Will the academics start decrying this imbalance?
I think that is where education is going.
A university degree has very little tangible meaning other than as employer insurance. We hired X with a degree in X. (then they had to send them to get trained)
Sadly the notion of the rounded education has been killed by the PC-ification of the "rounding" subjects. LIterature, history, and non core subjects that people were required to take are pointless because they are so perverted.
Then there are also the made up degrees like "feminist studies".
The author is right, this is sadistic payback in the eyes of the feminsits. I doubt there will be a harvard "babe" swooning at that discrimination.
Men have completely won the battle of the sexes. We now take an easy job, while our wives take a stressful and demanding career.
But they also have to bear the children and look after them.. and cook and clean for us. ---Life is good!
interesting point. How many straight men are on campus? If going to college becomes a homosexual thing the ratio at non-ivy schools will be 0 straight men.
Do many of the schools in Canuckistan feature 'affirmitive action' for women? Is gender a consideration in application? Perhaps it is time to recognize men as a discriminated against minority.
My son graduated from Marquette (Milwaukee). I never heard that the ratio was that skewed, but don't know. Every time I visited the campus, there seemed to be lots of lasses about.
My oldest daughter went to UW (Eau Claire) I thought at one time I heard the lasses outnumbered the lads at that institution.
This may be naive, but I feel the object should be to get an education. As for Marquette and Creighton, I think the Jesuits have learned a thing or two about educating folks. I also recall extremely good feelings regarding EW (Eau Claire) especially when my oldest explained what they discussed regarding social issues. Each of my kids have studied in science or engineering, and I think each of these schools performed well. My kids are conservative and have never been maltreated because of that.
I don't recall these ratios when I graduated in the 1970's. Maybe I was born 25 years too early.
Pictures
My campus is roughly 68% female. Classes have been feminized, and most men don't want to be there. It's as simple as that. Classes that men enjoy, like firefighting, high angle rescue, etc., fill up quickly, but feminists and ultra-liberals control much of academia. Men don't want to hang around a bunch of aging Gloria Stienhams and Alan Aldas.
Shhhhhh! You're giving up the Game!
I believe they call that job "a pimp".
Alan Alda, a womans woman.
Far too many feminists have spent decades promoting the simple-minded approach of beating down masculinity and berating men with such a broad brush that it was bound to have an adverse effect in the long run. Add to this the fact that many of these philosophies have worked their way into our laws and schools and, well, this is what you get.
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