A woman writing an op-ed piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that the reason for the declining reputation of colleges and universities among Republicans is that they are becoming dominated by women, and that is a no-no. (See here.) This is pretty silly since there are lots of reasons why people on the right look askance at our institutions of higher education. Here are some of them:
• The many attacks on free speech, which has resulted in the refusal of many institutions to allow people on the right, male or female, to give “controversial” talks.
• Postmodernism, which has made the humanities excruciatingly boring.
• All the courses and rhetoric which blame white males for all of the world’s ills, while refusing to acknowledge the gains they have made for humanity (such as advances in medicine).
• Safe spaces, bathrooms, pronouns, emotional support animals, and denial of due process.
• The ridiculous increase in the number of administrators, all of whom favor a leftist agenda.
• The politicization of nearly everything.
• Making Republicans feel unwanted on campus via the belief that all of them are white supremacists.
• The self-destructive character of the Western world these days, which has as its source the ideology flowing from institutions of higher learning.
Any one of these could be mentioned as the reason why Republicans hold colleges in low esteem these days, so she doesn’t need to mention that women are now the majority of students, but since she does, let me note that some of these items reflect the stereotype that women are emotional while men are rational. Perhaps as a result, our colleges and universities are becoming very friendly to (certain) people’s feelings and more and more hostile to reason when it conflicts with those feelings.
Anyway, she makes some other ridiculous claims, such as her insistence that as more and more women go into a field, the less respect that field gets. On the contrary, I saw more and more women become doctors way back in the 1970s, and yet that field did not become less respected. It could be, though, that the social sciences are less respected than before, but that has less to do with the number of women in it than with the direction it is taking, with lots and lots of studies coming out claiming hidden racism and sexism in ordinary people. Given that lots of these studies are hostile to people who are on the right, why shouldn’t they value them less?
She also claims that although fewer men are going to college, they have still managed to thrive by doing things such as getting certificates at trade schools or becoming apprentices, and even when they do go to college, they tend to go into STEM fields; all of these routes, she claims, are hostile to the presence of women (supposedly). She believes that women who want to get certificates are limited to just cosmetology and office management. This is completely wrong, since plenty of women can get certificates in medical technology. I run into them all the time at my local hospital.
Furthermore, she claims that men have managed to keep up their pay advantage, even while not going to college. She is incensed by the fact that men have managed to win again. Meanwhile, women are stuck having to get a four-year degree just to keep up with men, and even then there isn’t much work, plus they are stuck with a big loan to pay off. And they don’t get paid as much:
A 2012 study by the American Association of University Women found that women just one year out of college who were working full time earned, on average, 80 percent of what their male peers earned, even after controlling for hours worked, college major, occupation, and employment sector.
I’m pretty sure other surveys have found different results. But this nonsense plays into her argument that now women need to have those college credentials just to catch up to men. Sheesh. It’s not enough that they are taking over our colleges and universities and making them into a laughingstock, it’s somehow men’s fault that women who attend them end up with huge loans that they need to pay off.
Finally, she claims that men have managed to keep power in our society, despite not going to college in the numbers that women do. This is quite ridiculous. You don’t gain a lot of power by becoming a plumber or a medical technician. You get it by having amazing credentials that only a college degree can supply. She just isn’t noticing the power that women are slowly obtaining as more and more women get into the highest reaches of power in our culture.
I never dreamed that anyone would try to argue that men having to scrounge for jobs without having college degrees somehow counts as a victory for patriarchy, which just goes to show how, when people fail to be self-critical, they can persuade themselves of anything.
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