Why do women get more university places?

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The study summed up here: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/feb/22/why-do-white-working-class-boys-shun-university implies a fear of standing out and a rejection of the financial incentives for studying at university (although that is focused just on white working class boys rather than all boys)

It seems like a lot of the "gap" in university participation is explained with a similar gap in the other direction around apprenticeships: https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/6972/Young-peoples-perceptions-of-post-18-education-and-training--survey-results/pdf/ucu_comres_youngpeoplesperceptionsaboutpost18_dec14.pdf page 9 onwards

The qualitative analysis of comments in that point towards a problem around careers advice for young men which is arguably fairly quick and easy to fix.

I can certainly attest to the first point regarding not wanting to 'stand out', whether that is active participation in class or telling your friends how much revision you have done. I thought this thinking was common amongst girls and boys, it certainly seemed to be in my school. It was looked down on if you were a 'spoth'. I thought this attitude was present across all sectors of our generation though. What do you think? What's your experience?

It's the matriarchy

Original post by Exceptional

Because males are too busy playing Call of Duty to worry about their future

You are making a good point there without intending too. Men are ''designed'' to love competition and challenge, this is how we hunt and get to pass on our DNA. Testosterone must be streamed, not stumped.

Reply 43

geolowiser

Original post by Erebor

Several reasons :

- education is extremely feminized these days and it's easier for girls to do better : sit quietly in class, coursework, regurgitate whatever you are taught, don't question authority, don't be original etc... women are far more ''malleable'' than men and easier to control as a mass
- there are many women only scholarships, programs, official or unofficial quotas
- women make up the vast majority of piss easy/no prospect degrees : psychology, sociology, english, anything with ''studies'' (except a few hard and lucrative ones like japanese)...
- women, unlike men, go to ''uni'' to follow their ''passion'' or for the social life
- women don't need to worry about finding a good paying job (that usually comes after a decent degree) since they can find a man to pay for their existence, the welfare state is very generous to them, family and friends are far more likely to help them and let them get away with not achieving anything
- women don't need to worry about paying back their loans since most will never earn the minimum required to do so anyway (work part time, dead end jobs, stay at home)
EDIT : last, but not least, women make up the vast majority of average IQ's (which is all you need to go to uni these days in the very popular female degrees I mentioned above) while far more men are either on the very high end or the very low end of the spectrum (so that also removes a chunk from the male population)

Sorry, forgot mandatory photo of female students jumping after A levels results:

You are without a doubt the most bigoted person I have come across on TSR. I've seen your comments on multiple threads spouting racist, homophobic, and now sexist comments. Wtf is wrong with you man.

Reply 44

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Tyreke

My experience is pretty out of date now but I'd agree that in my experience in a working class school in a poor area people avoided standing out across the entire population (don't want to be too clever, or too thick, or too tall or too short or too weird or too gay or too talented or too anything). I think that's pretty standard in teenagers tbf but it's something that some school environments seem to make worse and it certainly doesn't seem to be a positive thing. I know I got away with a lot more low level disobedience and disruptive behaviour than many of my classmates but I don't think that was because of my gender as much as my otherwise positive relationship with the teaching staff (I wasn't hostile or aggressive towards teachers I just did what I wanted :o:

).

I think the findings that the focus on earning potential was turning off working class white boys in the study linked to is something that can definitely be taken on board. It's positive that they don't want to be seen as greedy and motivated just by money...so it's a definite task for universities and schools to figure out how we can motivate them to reach their full potential through whatever route is best for them.

Careers advice is dire, has been for decades and will continue to be given recent cuts to ringfenced support.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 45

typonaut

Original post by Quantex

If my own school experience was anything to go by, it was the masculine culture particularly among the working class lads which had contempt for education. That traditional masculinity can have a toxic effect on men is something feminists have been banging on about for years.

This is the crux of it, and women are willing to work harder in developing their education.

Reply 46

geolowiser

Original post by Erebor

With all the hunting and procreation you do... Prick.

Men aren't designed for ****, that's all nurture and might have been true back when hunter/gatherer societies dominated the earth.

Now you just sound like an idiot.

Reply 47

Tyreke

Original post by PQ

).

Careers advice is dire, has been for decades and will continue to be given recent cuts to ringfenced support.

My experience completely echoes your own, it's a real shame that education is percieved this way by teenagers. It makes me wonder what causes education in secondary school to be 'uncool'.

Reply 48

Erebor

Original post by geolowiser

You are without a doubt the most bigoted person I have come across on TSR. I've seen your comments on multiple threads spouting racist, homophobic, and now sexist comments. Wtf is wrong with you man.

How about you debate the issues instead of flinging faeces at the poster like all the other emotional, irrational marxists?

Reply 49

Tyreke

Original post by geolowiser

There are proven biological differences between men and women, apart from the obvious ones. So to say 'men aren't designed for ****' is incorrect.

Reply 50

Plagioclase

Original post by Broscientist

Nothing that he said was made up. His statements are based on studies...

Here is one example regarding his IQ/brain/intellectual capacity comment:

http://www.sciencevsfeminism.com/the-myth-of-equality/sex-differences-general-intelligence/#fn6-967

100+ references

What a great collection of "made up stuff"!

Right. First of all, I'm not entirely sure who taught you that the size of a reference list is a direct metric of reliability. I could write a paper talking absolute rubbish and a claim that hundreds of papers are backing me up, that doesn't mean I'm right.

So let's have a look at this article. The first thing that's immediately obvious is that a huge number of those references have been used to support data points that have very little or no relevance to the argument they are trying to make (e.g. 10% of the paper's references are for men having better reaction times to women. Okay, I don't doubt that. I struggle to understand the connection to IQ and intelligence). Out of the 137 citations, about ten are actually relevant to the claim about the IQ differences between the sexes. So we're not talking about 137 papers supporting their argument, we're talking about a figure closer to 10, of which about half are directly relevant. This website (by the way, do you not feel slightly embarrassed quoting from a website called "Science vs Feminism"?) ignores all the papers that contradict its claims, it is absolutely blatantly biased and is not a fair representation of the literature. There are many papers arguing the opposite, all of which are either ignored or dismissed with baseless arguments.

And of course, this entire argument is based upon the assumption that IQ or g-factor is a sensible metric of intelligence in the first place, which is widely disputed.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 51

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Tyreke

My experience completely echoes your own, it's a real shame that education is percieved this way by teenagers. It makes me wonder what causes education in secondary school to be 'uncool'.

It's depressing that things haven't seemed to progress since I was in school in the 90s :frown:

It's tough being a teenager so it's easy to see why conformity and keeping below the radar is an attractive option while you're figuring out who you are...but it definitely feels like there's more we could do to encourage teenagers to break the moulds and enjoy their individuality more.

The current race to the finish culture around education/training that forces people into a funnel where they have to finish FE training by 19 or lose funding and where there;s very limited funding available at either FE or HE level for people who want to change careers or realise later on in life what they want to do is a big problem.

Expecting people to make decisions at 14 about the rest of their adult life is ridiculous and only exacerbates inequality.

Reply 52

Erebor

Original post by Tyreke

There are proven biological differences between men and women, apart from the obvious ones. So to say 'men aren't designed for ****' is incorrect.

I wouldn't bother , either troll or too brainwashed by her social ''science'' man hating ''professor''.

Reply 53

Tyreke

Original post by PQ

It's depressing that things haven't seemed to progress since I was in school in the 90s :frown:

I think this is an area where the government should invest time and energy in.

I've had that discussions with friends and family numerous times about making decisions at the age of 14 that will affect the rest of your life. I can understand why the American model of University is desirable for some, where there isn't a complete focus on one subject and one subject only.

Reply 54

geolowiser

Original post by Erebor

How about you debate the issues instead of flinging faeces at the poster like all the other emotional, irrational marxists?

There used to be a major defecit of women in higher education, schemes and policies were put in place to combat antediluvian male oppression, this positive feedback overcompensated and now women are more likely to get places as the systems continue to grow. It's not surprising, higher education was so heavily dominated by men in the past there is bound to be a degree of deviation around a norm whilst the dust settles.

As for your reply - whilst I'm unsure why you've marked me an irrational marxist, I'm not entirely sure why you consider your opinion worthwhile. It seems from posts in another thread that you are willing to tar groups of people without thought. Stating that black people are far more racist and homophobic than whites for example. I think it's super irresponsible and clearly bigoted to be saying these blanket comments like "women don't need to worry about paying back their loans since most will never earn the minimum required to do so anyway", because apparently women never earn over 21k or whatever the minimum is.

You've made some very good points which are completely lost when statements which aren't thought through mask them. Hence why there is so much Trump hate when a lot of the things he says are pretty good. It's just overall he comes across as an ass, a bigoted one.

Reply 55

brainhuman

Why don't you turn it on the flipside and say women are just better suited to a life of study, let the boys do whatever they want.

And just lol at the basketball quote. Basketball isn't a class. Unless a boy is gifted at sport, sport will always just be a hobby, but it won't make him successful in life. Or are you actually suggesting combining science class with basketball? Coz I bet that would make him hate basketball pretty quickly.

Reply 56

Plagioclase

Original post by Broscientist

Ok, so in 15 minutes, you managed to read the whole article

Yes.

Original post by Broscientist

and then individually assess 130+ references and disregard the vast majority of them. I am sure you somehow overcame the obvious limitations of time and were very thorough with your approach. Throw in a snarky skeptic comment about the validity of the evidence (without even going through it) and the "rebuttal" is complete...

I don't need to read through ten references about reaction speed to know that they're irrelevant to claims about IQ distributions between men and women.

Original post by Broscientist

Throw in a snarky skeptic comment about the validity of the evidence (without even going through it) and the "rebuttal" is complete...

I'm not entirely sure what "snarky comment" you're talking about but the fact of the matter is that the article you've linked is an opinion piece dressed up as a scientific paper. Once again, the references section is intentionally misleading and the article totally disregards much of the scientific literature about the subject. You cannot have a scientific discussion about a statement whilst neglecting all studies that do not support your argument. That is opinion, not science.

What you are saying is not supported by the literature. Some studies have found that, some studies have not. There is no overwhelming consensus on the matter, despite what this article is trying to argue.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 57

BasicMistake

Original post by Erebor

Boys are different to girls. They are more physical, they love challenge, competition, they question, they take things apart, they fight for the top spot .... you won't get the best out of them by treating them as girls.

TIL girls are not competitive, they don't question, they hate challenge and don't like being first.

Original post by Erebor

I would bring back far more physical activity in schools, far more competitive sports (none of that everyone gets a medal for showing up ********), comic books could be used for reading, everything and anything that encourages competition/originality/individuality and discourages mediocrity or just cruising through school as part of a brainwashed, regurgitating mass of zombies.

Apparently boys need physical activity in order to motivate themselves in an academic setting. And they need pictures to go with the words they are reading because solid text doesn't promote 'creativity'.

Reply 58

brainhuman

There is a very interesting study that suggests many boys are being left behind because they waste their time playing video games rather than studying. Girls play a lot less video games on average. Because at the end of the day, the system may be better suited to girls, but the system hasn't really changed that much. What has changed is that it's more common for girls to go to uni now, and other external stimulus such as video games have popped up.

And finally I just want to add that it's not always the school's fault. If the guys want to be rebels if they don't care about school, that attitude is the parents' fault as much, if not more, than the schools'. And if there is some sort of sexism going the other way (such as more female teachers so on average in schools girls are preferred) then do something. Don't whine about it saying boohoo boys are being left behind. I once had a female teacher like that. I went home and ranted to my parents and you bet they went to that teacher and made her feel small.

Reply 59

alcibiade

Original post by Dodgypirate

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36266753

It's simple really, there's a gender gap that has been overlooked.

Hopefully Feminists will make a scene about this since Feminism is there to help both sexes.