It’s been a fairly open secret for years that some colleges give a preference to men in admissions, but as far as I know it’s never been shown in an empirical study before. From the Montreal Gazette:
Men appear to be given preference in admissions as university applicant pools become more female, a provocative new study has found.
Raising the spectre of affirmative action for a group not historically disadvantaged but increasingly under-represented in undergraduate classes, the study examined admissions data from 13 liberal arts colleges in the United States and estimated a tipping point for male preference kicks in when the female applicant pool reaches between 53 and 62 per cent. The study found “clear evidence” of a preference for men in historically female U.S. colleges.
There, being a male applicant raises the probability of acceptance by 6.5 to nine per cent.
“Schools can certainly have more than 50 per cent females and not give preference. But at some point, if females become too dominant, they do seem to give preference to males,” lead author Sandy Baum said in an interview.
Results of the study, completed by economists from New York’s Skidmore College and Lewis and Clark College in Oregon, will be published in a coming edition of the journal Economics of Education Review.
There are thousands of unspoken “affirmative actions” to help men in our society, helping some men into the good job tracks, the positions of authority, the better gallery shows, etc. I’d argue that our entire “Father Knows Best” economy is a covert form of AA that helps men in the job market. Things like this happen all the time.
What’s reported on in this article actually seems like one of the least harmful forms of AA for men. The resource in question – admission to college – is essentially unlimited; the very few unlucky female students who might not get admitted to college X because of this sort of policy will get into college Y instead.
But I’m curious: Why do colleges feel the need to do this? From a “diversity” perspective, there’s really not a significant difference between a student body that’s 50% male and one that’s 40% male; neither one can really be said to be lacking male perspectives in their student population. I presume that tuition money from women spends just as easily as tuition money from men. So what’s so scary about a female-majority campus?
Elsewhere in the article, it mentions that an admissions committee at McGill University suggested that good grades are overemphasized as a measure of student achievement, and might be biased against men:
The committee [discussed]… a more qualitative and less grade-driven admission process. “The application of grades as the sole measure of academic merit may not, in fact, be without an inherent bias,” state the minutes of the admissions committee…
That’s an interesting contrast with a comment made about the “are men better at math” question by Harvard professor Elizabeth Spelke:
Books are devoted to this question, with much debate, but there seems to be a consensus on one point: The only way to come up with a test that’s fair is to develop an independent understanding of what mathematical aptitude is and how it’s distributed between men and women. But in that case, we can’t use performance on the SAT to give us that understanding. We’ve got to get that understanding in some other way. So how are we going to get it? […]
I suggest the following experiment. We should take a large number of male students and a large number of female students who have equal educational backgrounds, and present them with the kinds of tasks that real mathematicians face. We should give them new mathematical material that they have not yet mastered, and allow them to learn it over an extended period of time: the kind of time scale that real mathematicians work on. We should ask, how well do the students master this material? The good news is, this experiment is done all the time. It’s called high school and college.
Here’s the outcome. In high school, girls and boys now take equally many math classes, including the most advanced ones, and girls get better grades.
So apparently the ability to do well in classes is a false, biased measure of the ability to go to college and… do well in classes. Huh.
I could buy that if we were talking about a group that was substantially disadvantaged – denied access to decent textbooks, AP classes, a reasonably good school, or whatever. If you told me that the grades of the students at the poorest high schools in the USA weren’t a fair reflection of their abilities, for example, I’d be inclined to agree. But I don’t think that boys in general are given less resources for learning than girls in general.
Thanks to “Alas” reader Mel for the tip.
It would be interesting to see if this phenomenon exists in other industrialized countries — the phenomenon being the disparity between male and female achievement in high school.
As for the rest, what can I say, Affirmative Action always looks better when you are in the group being affirmatively helped. But I expect that most men would simply deny that they are receiving any preference.
And as for why it might seem necessary — if you were to receive an honest answer, it would probably be based on the kind of stereotypes that are verboten when it comes to helping underrepresented ethnic minorities. This trend has been even more evident at state universities over the last 20 years, and when I lived in Chapel Hill, NC, one of the members of the Board of Trustees lamented that having a big disparity between men and women would definitely hurt their long-term fundraising potential because he didn’t know too many female donors. He wanted the Board to adopt a 50/50 rule (naturally, it didn’t). Conclude from that what you will.
So what’s so scary about a female-majority campus?
Campuses are marriage factories. Having a gender-heavy campus (doesn’t matter which, usually) reduces the utility of the campus for heterosexual men and women who are there to find a mate.
It increases the utility of the campus for those individuals of the minority gender who are subpar in their attractiveness or reproductive skills – but those individuals are generally not a population that the campus wants to specialize in catering too. (“Hey, ugly clueless guys! Come to U of P, where the odds favor you no matter how pathetic you are!”)
“Raising the spectre of affirmative action for a group not historically disadvantaged but increasingly under-represented in undergraduate classes, the study examined admissions data from 13 liberal arts colleges in the United States and estimated a tipping point for male preference kicks in when the female applicant pool reaches between 53 and 62 per cent. The study found “clear evidence” of a preference for men in historically female U.S. colleges.”
Well, applicant pool is one thing, actual admissions is another. Have men at any point in the history of the university been under-represented in admissions? What would male under-representation look like? Certainly it would have to be greater than 52% women to 48% men, right? *That* would be the population status quo (roughly). So, are they comparing under-representation to men’s historic numbers of admissions or are they comparing it to the general population?
According to the Census bureau, males outnumber women in the 20-24 age range: 50.4% of the people this age are male. There are more women than men overall because women live longer, but this is hardly relevant to college admissions.
So I think males are probably underrepresented in college, but I don’t think there’s any cause for concern about that. I’m curious and concerned about the comment about historically female colleges.
At what percentage does underrepresentation take place? Over how many years of a consistent figure can one establish underrepresentation.? Is 10% enough for men to feel disenfranchised. If so, why? And we’re talking about admissions, yes? The article states THIS about actual admissions:
“There, being a male applicant raises the probability of acceptance by 6.5 to nine per cent.”
Simply having a penis increases a human’s acceptance rate. I would think that this indicates that men are applying at a lower percentage, but being accepted at a higher percentage.
Now what was that about representation?
Robert, colleges are less and less likely to be the place where one meets a mate. So even that excuse is a bit lame. A better excuse might be that even women who decide to attend a co-ed school might prefer a more balanced student body. So, in theory, more qualified women would tend to gravitate to schools that are perceived to have more males. No idea whatsoever whether this could be determined empirically, but it does strike me as being plausible.
But the real question seems to me to be, what is going on here? Are boys truly stuck in an underachieving swamp and if so why? Is it a time lag phenomenon or do parents “demand more” maturity from their daughters?
I have also seen studies that men are more likely to consider well-paid careers that don’t demand a college education — such as trades, construction, and now, computer services or engineering (e.g., certified Microsoft engineer). Given the loan burden of college, it could be that some percentage of men are simply unwilling to spend four years in pursuit of a degree at such a high expense. This explanation makes a certain amount of sense to me — the percentage of high school students in college exploded in the sixties and has generally risen since. It may be that boys are at the forefront of a coming decline in deciding to pursue college, and they may be more willing to make that decision because they perceive that other avenues are more open to them.
FWIW, at least for Canadian applicants, McGill uses *only* grades (or, in Quebec, some statistical thing about how well you did wrt your class and your class did wrt the school and the school wrt all schools — this was enacted after I left Cegep so I do not know the details) to determine acceptances. (I believe only people coming from American high schools, either in the US or abroad, need to have the SAT.) So it is arguably true that marks are overemphasised as a way of deciding who is accepted.[1]
I’ve heard this for a few years now — schools across North America give a boost to male applicants. Which would be fine, if the boost were more reasonably done overall — I mean, if it’s important to have a 50-50 ratio b/c that’s what you see in the rest of the world, shouldn’t there be enough affirmative action to get all groups to what you see in the rest of the world?
[1] It is also true that there is some differentiation by province; a 80 is not an 80 from BC to Nfld, and it is well-known that Americans haev the harshest requirements for acceptance.
This begs the larger question.
Wolfangel writes:
“I mean, if it’s important to have a 50-50 ratio b/c that’s what you see in the rest of the world, ”
Where “in the rest of the world” do you see 50-50 representation? Where? And I’m not talking about the heaps of theoreticals the admissions process seems to skip over when only focusing on applicant pool break-down. What about actual admissions; what about actual representation in institutions. And if we’re going to bring in the rest of the world, show me 50-50 representation in government, industry, matriculation, legislative decision making, etc., etc.
Apparently high school is biased (against men, mostly white men), but once you’ve got a college degree all such bias is gone, so when there are fewer women in group X, it’s because they just don’t want to, or aren’t good enough. I believe this was the Larry Summers argument.
But in any case yes: you can rephrase what I wrote to “in the general population”. In which case, there are the same problems (if it’s so important to be proportional in f/m ratios, why not in other ratios?) as well as the ones you brought up, QGrrl: if it’s so important in college acceptances, why not in the real world?
There is some data which suggests boys do experience some “discrimination” in pre-college schools. They are more likely to be suspended, more likely to be labelled “learning disabled,” etc. etc.
It would be interesting to see if admissions plans have an impact on race numbers when they dig deeper in the admissions pool to take more men. Given the disproportionately low number of African American and Latino boys who attend college, it would be curious to see if this helps at all.
My radical feminist take on “what’s so scary about a female-majority campus” is the simple truth that girl-things are less worthy than boy-things and thus avoiding the stigma of being seen as a “girl campus” (said with sneer) is very important. Where women become a majority in a formerly male-dominated area, the value of that area goes down.
If you wrote on rocks, “this rock is not for girls” males would line up around the corner to buy them.
>>more likely to be labelled “learning disabled”[…]>>
This could cut both ways. Not being diagnosed means that you don’t receive any accomodation or treatment.
I’m never surpised that more women are going on to higher education because I’ve always thought that parents have certain low expectations for sons when it comes to behavior. Not accomplishments, not sports, not money-making, but behavior. Maybe. I’m basing this all on observations, but sometimes I just can’t believe at what parents of little boys my daughter’s age let their sons get away with. Certainly the young males in my husband’s South American family are given almost absolute freedom to drink and run around. Surely these attitudes are prevalent here as well. Wouldn’t such a lax treatment of disipline affect schoolwork?
“Here’s the outcome. In high school, girls and boys now take equally many math classes, including the most advanced ones, and girls get better grades. ”
“So apparently the ability to do well in classes is a false, biased measure of the ability to go to college and… do well in classes. Huh.”
Good lord. After decades of expert opinion that girls aren’t as good at math/science/any subject that isn’t ‘feminine’ and that’s why they are so underrepresented in those professional, well-paid careers, they’re changing the rules because boys are finding themselves slightly outnumbered. Funny how quickly the rules change when the shoe’s on the other foot.
It was all well and good when test scores showed – beyond a shadow of a doubt! – that females were the dumb ones. Nevermind that teaching styles might be biased against girls, that the boys got more attention and encouragement to pursue math-based careers, and that girls were told their entire gender identity was at risk if they put too much effort into solving equations. However, they can’t stand males being ever so slightly less in attendance at university, so they just ignore the very evidence that was previously used to justify male overrepresenation.
So that’s how it works in a patriarchy: Females: you’re too dumb and/or lazy to be an engineer, scientist, or IT professional. That’s why you’re underrepresented in those fields. Males: if you’re struggling with math, don’t worry! Test scores aren’t that important for you. You’ve got so much more to offer than those breeders.
“There is some data which suggests boys do experience some “discrimination” in pre-college schools. They are more likely to be suspended, more likely to be labelled “learning disabled,” etc. etc.”
Well, yes, one would expect more suspensions from the group that is taught from infancy to be physically active, aggressive, loud, and domineering. They probably stand out against that other group of children trained to respect authority, sit still and work quietly like good little girls =P
I should say that I’ve thought that as barriers are torn down for women, these invisible barriers for boys- like not curbing certain behaviors- become more obvious.
Samantha hit the nail on the head. There is a stigma attached to majority female campuses. As soon as the gender ratio start skewing a little, applications from boys would decline because they don’t want to go to a ‘girly’ school. Before you know it, the gap is going to widen. The cynical part of me suspects that even well-qualified females would eventually be less likely to apply to a woman-dominated school because it’s inability to attract men would be seen as a weakness.
Wolfangel, I think the thing you are looking for is the “z score” (or some similar name). It is a way of trying to balance grade inflation and such. So that an 85 from a class where that was the highest grade and the teacher is a hard ass isn’t considered truly lower than a 99 from somewhere everyone gets that score.
I honestly don’t know exactly how they calculate it, though.
Yes, z or r score, I think; I forget which; it was only enacted in the anglo cegeps once I had left. Plus they keep changing the rules on it to better distinguish between the schools, I think. I have no idea how they calculate it, but I do know it’s pretty much used as a strict cutoff at all the local universities.
This issue comes up somewhere at least once a year — see, for example, here and here.
I think its horrible (especially as the father of two daugthers who I hope will one day go to college). Unfortunately, there is simply to constituency to oppose it.
The pro-AA crowd doesn’t want to draw attention to the most egregious examples of stuff like this (and how, for example, most of the “black” AA spots go to Africans and Carribeans and mixed-race children, instead of t African Americans) which is really indefensible, because they don’t want to make AA look bad so they can use the “good” parts.
The anti-AA crowd is movitated largely by racism and sexism, so will throw off an occassional “this is bad too” while they continue to focus their energy toward protecting white males.
In the end, you get a blog post or an article every once in a while, but then it drops away because no one’s ideology is fully compatible with fighting it strongly.
Meanwhile, we ambivalents think that stuff like this would be the easiest to ban as completely indefensible on any ground, and question the inegrity of both sides for continuing to debate the “hard” questions and letting easy ones like this slip through the cracks.
Well, yes, one would expect more suspensions from the group that is taught from infancy to be physically active, aggressive, loud, and domineering. They probably stand out against that other group of children trained to respect authority, sit still and work quietly like good little girls =P
That’s precisely the argument. Little boys are not socialized–or is it innate, who knows–to be obedient, quiet students who sit passively while the teacher tries to control a class of 30 kids. Thus, the boys are labelled trouble-makers because they don’t conform to the female-oriented and dominated elementary and high school systems which demand sitting still, working quietly, and bending to authority.
Or something like that.
“Here’s the outcome. In high school, girls and boys now take equally many math classes, including the most advanced ones, and girls get better grades.”
So, um, what was Larry Summers’ point again?
An interesting topic.
First, the worse success of boys and men at school and college is taking place all over the world except in those countries which really discriminate against girls and women. Even in a place like Iran 60% of college students are women. So it’s not a feminist plot that is causing this.
Second, the trend has been there a long time. In countries which started opening doors for women earlier, the imbalance cropped up a very long time ago. Decades ago. It’s just now that people are talking about it.
Third, one argument I hear often is that the way schools are arranged favors girls who are more obedient and follow rules better than boys at certain ages. But the schools were arranged when they were meant only for boys, so there is no hidden anti-boy bias here.
Fourth, if you analyze the data in the U.S. carefully, the male deficit is almost totally because minority boys and men do poorly. If you focus on only the white populations the gender balance is much closer to what it would be expected to be on the basis of numbers. It is the tremendous gender gap in minority populations that causes the overall results. So what the problem seems to be is something that affects the minorities more, and here I can only speculate that it’s both economics (the idea of blue-collar jobs being what men do, say) and cultural.
Fifth, one reason for fewer men attending college is that even today a woman needs to have a college degree to earn, on average, exactly the same as a man earns with just a high school degree. There is a bigger incentive for women to go to college, because the jobs available for them without a college degree are very poorly paying.
Sixth, I find it fascinating how untroubled many are about affirmative action that is created this way. If it was reversed, we’d hear screams about quota queens everywhere. Now we hear sane arguments for why diversity might be desirable and so on.
Seventh, and to reveal my bias, I went to a college which had fifty-fifty gender quotas. As a consequence, I had to score a minimum of 46/50 to get in, but my friend, a man, had gotten in on 32/50.
—
In general, it’s interesting to compare the Lawrence Summers debacle and the whole discussion of boys at school. The comparison tells us loads about the society we live in.
And on the question of colleges being marriage markets and therefore requiring a balanced number of men, did we ever hear this argument when the question was why so few women went to college? I don’t think so. Neither did we hear the related argument that we hear now which is that women will ultimately be better off with affirmative action for men because they can find a better provider this way.
So, Echidne, let me see if I get this straight: black and hispanic men are underrepresented, but schools want to keep the female/male ratios capped, so the make up the difference with more white men, who are not underrepresented to start with, but get a helping hand essentially because they take the spots that the black and hispanic men are not filling?
There are several layers of completely unacceptable to that. And I think Samantha’s right about the correlation between fair female representation and decline in prestige.
Samantha said: If you wrote on rocks, “this rock is not for girls” males would line up around the corner to buy them.
Amusingly, Yorkie ran an ad campaign on those lines in Britain over the last few years (originally claiming to be just for men, and having lots of ads of girls dressing up like men to try to buy them – and then releasing a “girl” version in pink wrapping instead of blue).
Echidne, excellent analysis, thanks.
Piny, you are quite right.
My parents came to conclusion that my brother had ADD/ADHD when he was in middle school, and promptly stepped in and gave him tools to deal with it – structure that he resented at first but later came to appreciate. (While I know that self-diagnosing is rarely a good idea) I’ve always suspected that I may have ADD/ADHD as well. Many of the traits that mark my brother as being ADD/ADHD are traits that have given me trouble as well – just not to same extent. If I do have ADD/ADHD (and I plan to talk to my doctor about next time I go in – yay for having health insurance again!) then I will likely have gone undiagnoised in part, because like most girls and women who have ADD/ADHD, the problems I have are more likely to be disruptive to my life alone; many girls and women with ADD/ADHD show signs of recurring depression (hell yes, that’s me) rather than the more attention grabbing acting out that boys tend to do (and that would most certainly be my brother).
While there is obviously a concern about girls not getting diagnosed, I wonder about the efficacy of giving tranqualizers and drugs to a generation of young boys is a perfect trade-off. I’d be more structured too if I took tranquilizers and downers.
While clearly some boys are helped, there are also boys who are given drugs because they are acting like boys and can’t function in educational systems that demand that kids sit quietly for hours and hours while a teacher drones on in front of them. Whlie little girls get rewarded for being compliant for conforming to type, little boys are punished for the conforming to type.
Jenny,
There was a segment on Talk of the Nation about adults dealing with ADD/ADHD. You can get a link to the audio and some more info here
The fact that white boys are quite capable of functioning in these educational systems – fully as well as the girls do – and it’s only some poor minority boys who are “acting like boys” in the manner you describe – makes me suspect that there’s more going on here than “it’s unreasonable to ask boys to sit still in classrooms.”
“So what’s so scary about a female-majority campus?”
Not enough men to go around for the women! DUH!
hahaha!!!
But seriously… I don’t know if this is any part of this male student affirmative action issue… But it was definitely the thing that crossed my mind when I read this post…
For some time now there have been studies and attention given to “the hook-up culture” that’s developed on college campuses because many men in that age group are immature and looking for a quick sleazy lay and not a relationship, and because there’s such a shortage of men compared to women on the campuses, many women are largely learning to tolerate being used and cast aside, even though they’ll admit later elsewhere that they truly wanted a real relationship, not just a roll in the hay.
I guess it could follow that this might contribute to the trend of people not marrying or marrying much later in the idea that men and women, at a still socially impressionable age, are learning to accept a “hook-up culture”, which carries on into later life.
And, in my anecdotal experience… I have tended to notice this in my own social surroundings.
The more highly educated men & women I know & have met (in various social and professional situations) are either single, and have not been able to maintain relationships… or if they’re in relationships, or even married, they tend to have more “rocky” relationships than the people I know who have little or no university education.
The people where the couples comprise one or both being college drop outs and those with no college education seem to be more commonly in loving faithful relationships, where there’s little or no question that the men are faithful, and where the men clearly consider their relationship a top priority in their life.
Those couples with college degrees and especially beyond, seem to be either single with barely any long-term relationships to speak of. Or, if they have long term relationships – they’re not extremely close or devoted… It’s long distance, or there’s a distinct lack of obvious devotion from the men, or even cheating or suspicion of cheating.
And I also noticed, seemingly ironically, that the more highly educated women I’ve known, seem far more forgiving (or at least accepting in that they put up with more) cheating, being ignored & disrespected, than the less educated women I’ve known.
Perhaps also ironically, I’ve noticed that highly educated women with more typically American ideal appearance (thin, etc.) seem to put up with being mistreated by highly educated men who are NOT particularly handsome. And attractive men without college degrees being very devoted to women who are NOT the American ideal in appearance.
All that said, I’m proud to be a university drop out, and I’m definitely not the American ideal in appearance, and yet I have not had a serious long-term relationship to speak of in over a decade.
But the odds are against me because I tend to attract educated men, yet I’m completely intolerant of disrespect, infidelity, and/or lack of enthusiasm… hehe.
Now of course this is just my experience in life and society. I think I’ve known quite a variety of people in my life, socially and professionally. But still, I know this could just be what I’ve noticed among people I just happen to have known. I don’t know what other people have noticed, because I really haven’t talked about this much with anyone.
And I’m not going to say that there’s a definite positive correlation between what I’ve seen, and the “hook-up culture” that’s reportedly developed because of the shortage of men in universities. I don’t know that there is.
And I’m not going to say that this is necessarily a definite negative for our society. I wouldn’t presume to be an expert on what’s good for other people, certainly I couldn’t say what’s good or bad for everyone. To each their own.
However, I imagine this issue probably weighs heavily in the minds of some.
Whether it has an effect on this topic of male affirmative action at colleges, I don’t know. But I guess it could have.
Chloe:
Wow, that was weird.
Do you have any friends who were just looking for a “roll in the hay”?
I know that’s what I’m doing at college, getting a degree and getting laid. Boyfriends are too much upkeep.
respisa:
I mentioned “tools” – not drugs – for a reason: many kids and adults with ADD/ADHD are able to funtion better after being diagnosed not because they are all put on drugs, but because identifying the problem helps you come up with workable solutions. The “structure” that my parents provided for my brother was just that: structure. As an ADD/ADHD kid, he had a hard time managing his time and focusing on what needed to be done – they (sometimes ineptly – but eventually successfully) provided him with techniques for dealing with that, as well as solutions for other problems/symptoms. My mother has had several kids diagnosed with or suspected of having ADD/ADHD in her classroom over the years (it’s part of what convinced her that my brother has it). Only one that I know of was put on drugs while they were still in her class.
AndiF – thanks, I’ll check it out.
Ampersand – good point.
On the one hand diagnosing real behavioral problems and learning disabilities is an important step to helping kids. On the other hand, the fact that poor minority boys are more likely to be diagnosed with these problems, and less likely to get adequate help for them, raises, at the very least, serious questions about society’s priorities.
My brother did a report in high school on a program in DC(?) jails to reduce recitivism: they tested the inmates for ADD/ADHD and put the ones who were diagnosed through “life skills” classes. The recitivism rate for that group was dramatically lower that of their peers or the national average. Sadly, and typically, the program was not renewed.
VK, they’ve been doing some version of the Yorkie campaign for as long as I can remember. I’m out of the country so I haven’t seen the pink Yorkies yet (does anyone actually buy them?).
It would seem to me that, given that the gender gap is mainly attributable to the low admission rate of minority men, surely the answer (if we see the gender imbalance as a problem that needs fixing) is to put in place programs that boost minority admission rather than making it gender based?
On another note, VK’s comment has now planted in my head a mental image of a small Yorkshire Terrier dyed bright pink. This is very disturbing.
Chloe: so, compulsory heterosexuality should determine gender representation for all women?
Amp:
Why do colleges feel the need to do this? From a “diversity” perspective, there’s really not a significant difference between a student body that’s 50% male and one that’s 40% male; neither one can really be said to be lacking male perspectives in their student population.
I have *no* doubt that this is about social desirability, from the students’ point of view. Whether or not colleges are “marriage factories,” the students there are extremely interested in having social lives, and the prospect of a severe gender imbalance (say, beyond 55 or 60% either way) is enough of a disincentive for attendance that it probably decreases the quality of student that applies in subsequent years. This is definitely a problem on liberal arts campuses near me, and it’s definitely leading to sticky discussions about what it means to factor gender balance into admissions (particuarly in favoring men, not a common need).
Samantha:
My radical feminist take on “what’s so scary about a female-majority campus” is the simple truth that girl-things are less worthy than boy-things and thus avoiding the stigma of being seen as a “girl campus” (said with sneer) is very important. Where women become a majority in a formerly male-dominated area, the value of that area goes down.
This may be a factor in a feedback loop in declining male applications to certain campuses, but it’s not the factor that the students there notice — the dating balance is much more tangible to them. Over time the turn-off of a “girlie campus” is probably balanced for men, to some extent, by the attraction of being in a desirable minority socially, but these aren’t the factors you want students to use in choosing schools — thus the desire to keep the balance close enough that it feels invisible.
Echidne:
And on the question of colleges being marriage markets and therefore requiring a balanced number of men, did we ever hear this argument when the question was why so few women went to college?
Well, “coed” (as a noun) was certainly a sexually charged word from day one, so I’m guessin’ that the boys had been wishing there were more girls around. Certainly, I know more than one man from that era who left an ivy-league school for a lesser institution just so that socializing wouldn’t be an artificial affair created on weekends…
I can say for myself that I would have shied away from a school in which my gender had a large majority, and only for social reasons. There were so many intangible factors that went into my choice of college (feel of the campus, students I met who did or didn’t impress me, etc.) that this could easily have been a deciding factor in eliminating an otherwise good school.
While minority boys are more often disciplined, the overdiagnosis of boys with ADD and behavior problems is not just a “minority thing” but also impacts white boys. In a Virginia study of 30,000 children in two school districts, a full 20% of the 5th grade white boys were found to be taking medications for ADD in school.
So it is also white boys who are impacted by the structure of the schools.
I went to one of those top-tier liberal arts schools in the Midwest (the group that includes Oberlin, Carleton, Grinnell, Kenyon, etc) and it was definitely in the 55-60% female range, as are most liberal arts colleges.
I had no idea there was a gender imbalance on campus until my junior year, when the administration of my college absolutely refused to release to me the number of women on campus. I suppose they were worried that making that information publicly available would mean that prospective students wouldn’t want to come anymore. (We were constructing something for Take Back the Night Week–taking the statistic 1 in 4 and figuring out how many women that would represent at this small college.) I mean, I get that people think that you would be able to tell–after all, it does seem like it would be obvious, doesn’t it?–but honestly, just walking around campus, you wouldn’t have known. Did I know a lot of women? Sure. Did I know a lot of men? Sure. Thus, there must have been about an equal number of them on campus… most people’s brains work like this when confronted with that much data. You just can’t intuitively process it like you could with a group of 10 people.
All of which is to say that it’s doubly sick that administrations would be so worried about how students won’t want to go to an “unbalanced” school, and they are lowering standards for white men to make up for the lack of men of color. Wrong on so, so many levels.
Sorry, one other thing in response to acm–I’m just not convinced that problem of “social desirability, from the students’ point of view” is actually real. I can see how an administration would think that–it’s easy to fall into the common sense trap–but it’s assuming *so* many things that aren’t necessarily in evidence. In particular, that the number of gay/lesbian/bi students is nonexistent, or so small that an equal number of men and women are needed to make sure that there still exists the possibility of “social lives” for the students (I’m taking “social lives” to mean “sexual lives”, which I think is the implicit assumption of most people when they say that). I would guesstimate that about 25-30% of my college identified as queer in one way or another.
Do you really think that students would be turned off a school because of a 40-60 gender split? (Assuming they could even tell, which I’m not sure they can?) Particularly the type of student that is likely to self-select into a liberal arts college (highly motivated for academics)? And why wouldn’t this make colleges have tough discussions about admitting more men of color (following the logic that black/hispanic/native american women would be turned off a school that didn’t have adequate opportunities for their “social lives”)?
I don’t think you’re wrong about the thinking behind this. I just think that the train of logic is highly suspect, once you start unpacking it.
I was accepted to the honors program at a large state university 30 years ago. In one of our seminars we were told that the requirements for acceptance were significantly higher for women than for men. The reason for it was that the pool of qualified female applicants was much larger than that of male applicants and that the university felt that for the dynamics of the program to work, small seminars rather than big lecture classes, they needed a more even balance of males and females. The explained to us that they felt the reason was that more top-level male students in the state were being sent to ivy league or other private schools, while female students of the same calibre settled for the state university. I told them I thought that was extremely unfair to their female students. Firstly, women had to accept the fact that their families were not willing to make the same sacrifices for them as they made for their brothers, then the univertsity told them they had to meet a higher standard to get into the honors program.
I have *no* doubt that this is about social desirability, from the students’ point of view. Whether or not colleges are “marriage factories,” the students there are extremely interested in having social lives, and the prospect of a severe gender imbalance (say, beyond 55 or 60% either way) is enough of a disincentive for attendance that it probably decreases the quality of student that applies in subsequent years.
Isn’t this essentially self-correcting, though? If school X is 60% female, and that is unattractive to women because they are afraid there won’t be enough men to go around, and that is a more important factor than educational quality (or a tie-breaker, at least) they will apply to a different schools, and there will be fewer qualified female applicants.
[I assume it woudn’t be an issue for men in this case, primarily because the market for “friends” isn’t limited by pairing off.]
If that doesn’t happen, and there is in fact 60-65% women at the school, then obviously that “social” factor isn’t important enough to do anything about.
When I went to Stanford, back in the day, there were 2 undergraduate men for every woman; campus-wide, counting the grad schools, it was 4/1. The infamous “ratio”.
Which meant you had to be smarter to get in as a girl, among other things.
And you got a lot of doors opened for you if you were a girl. And you didn’t have to take any crap from a guy; there were plenty more where he came from.
The guys didn’t like it.
But…. folks in the admissions offices are making the decisions regarding male-female representation and there is little chance in hell that they are planning on socializing with either gender.
But…. folks in the admissions offices are making the decisions regarding male-female representation
Not really. In some elite schools, there may be a more discretionary role, but in the state systems I’m familiar with, the admissions staff exists to code the humanly-variable information about prospective students into numerical values that can be put into a formula – and the formula then makes the decision. For example, in Colorado, the admission standard is basically (SAT score + GPA > X = admit). If every boy in Colorado suddenly starts bombing on their SATs, we have an all-girl class of 2010, regardless of what the admissions people think.
Most of the decisions made that affect college admissions are made months or years before the actual admittance, by the individual students – as in, deciding whether to study for the bio test, or go out drinking with your buddies. Admissions people have administrative responsibilities much more than decisionmaking ones.
If every boy in Colorado suddenly starts bombing on their SATs, we have an all-girl class of 2010, regardless of what the admissions people think.
That’s contradictory to what the original article shows happening, which is admissions officers thinking certain gender ratios are better than others overruling the student talent pool they’re drawing from to the point they’ll break with merit-based criteria to promote males more.
About what the article says, I cannot speak to. About what happens in Colorado, I can speak to. We don’t have differential admissions criteria by gender; our admissions pool each year is whatever the fates throw in our lap.
Robert, you’re missing my finer point. Folks on this thread are arguing from the student perspective, while the article mentioned above clearly states that admission officers are giving males an advantage once they personally feel that the ratio of women-to-men gets dangerously close to women being “too dominant.” [no subtle choice of words that!] The article makes quite clear that the desires of the students is not of importance.
Q Grrl, the student perspective became a subject of discussion because Amp wondered why universities would care about a gender imbalance, and I (and others) noted that they would care because students would care, and universities want to be attractive to high-quality students.
The article does not discuss the desires of students at all. It does not follow that those desires are unimportant.
Q Grrl–I understand what you’re saying. But I don’t think it’s beyond the scope of reason to suggest that admission counselors at liberal arts colleges (the study was based on data from 13 liberal arts colleges, Robert) are responding to what they perceive will make the campus “attractive” to potential students. Or maybe they believe some other reason why it’s detrimental to have more women than men. I think it’s worth examining why that is, and why it may be erroneous.
Personally, I think situations like this are less and less motivated by explicit misogyny, *particularly in the minds of the people doing it*. The subtle sexist assumptions are more prevalent now and it’s more useful, I would argue, to understand what, outside of a blind irrational hatred of women, would cause someone to act in a sexist manner. ‘Cause that’s the only way to fight it, IMHO.
Why do you think the admissions officers “personally feel” that women are too prevalent? I mean, there must be some reason behind it. Do you think it’s just that they don’t like women?
Did anyone here who went to college know or care about the male to female ratio at their schools? I didn’t. I was much more interested in location, majors offered and the size of the school (I went to a big state university).
I did plenty of dating in college once I got there but find it hard to accept teenagers consider the potential dating pool when selecting where they’ll go.
Absolutely, I did.
I considered religion to make sure there was a critical mass of my little sect (applied to Washington U. in St. Louis over otherwise-comparable schools).
I considered racial and class makeup to make sure I wasn’t in a school that was 99% rich white people (bye, bye Bucknell).
I wanted to be in a city (so Oberlin was out).
I downgraded schools that were closely affiliated with almost-all-guy engineering schools (ended up going to one, though, due in part ot the counteracting effect of an almost-all-gal nursing school, one of whom I married).
Despite the strict ordering of U.S. News & World Reports, unless you have a really narrow focus in what you want to do (e.g., Tulane for architecture), and especially if, like me, you were going in as an East Coast airhead in a liberal arts school with no declared major, there are going to be 50 or so schools that will broadly fit your needs.
From that group that fully met my academic needs, it was completely and 100% the social aspects (including gender balance) that decided where I would apply.
Although the difference between 40% and 55% is, I agree, not visible once you’re living on campus, I seem to recall that the various “college guides” do print the male/female ratio for each college. So if it matters to prospective students who consult those guides for information, that would be a reason for the admissions folks to care, I suppose.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if they found a way to monkey around with those numbers, kind of like they do with SAT numbers. To paraphrase someone famous, there’s lies, damn lies, and college guides by US News & World Reports.
It’s interesting how certain arguments are accepted as more valid or more OK regarding affirmative action depending on whether the group is the dominant or subordinate group, though. I’ve never heard anyone argue that a good reason to have AA for minorities in colleges is because the potential to lose potential students who don’t want an all-white campus. But I know that was an issue for more than a few friends of mine. I bet (although perhaps I’m wrong) that many right-wingers would see that as an unacceptable violation of merit-based blah blah blah. Turn it around and make it about men avoiding those campuses, however, and it sounds so… reasonable and rational. Free market and all that. (I’m a die-hard feminist, and at first I thought it sounded reasonable, before I thought about it some.)
After all, if the actual goal of admissions officers is to get the smartest/most able students, why should you care if the campus is predominately female? Lowering the standards for men’s admission goes directly counter to the stated goal. Lowering the quality (in terms of test scores and grades) of students in the present to prevent the lowering of quality in the future… doesn’t really make sense. Even assuming that a student body that is 65% or 70% female would really discourage quality applicants from matriculating in sufficient numbers to affect anything, which once again, I think is based on some seriously heterocentric assumptions.
Sorry for the length. It was just one of those click moments for me–how the article made it seem so rational and market-based and reasonable to give an extra boost to men, and public discussions around doing the same thing for white women or men/women of color are so typically… not.
It’s fascinating how grades and test scores are suddenly the holy grail of college admissions–when it means giving men a break in admssions–and the posters can’t fathom how they shouldn’t be followed to the decimal point when making admissions decisions.
All those years of disussions of test bias and the bias in admitting just on grades flies out the window when white women may be disadvantaged and may be benefitting from bias.
Diversity is important thing. That’s why special admissions programs are a good thing, even if they aren’t designed to ameliorate past discrimination. Whether it’s a campus with too many white people or too many women, schools should try to have a student body that reflects the communty it serves.
Who here has suggested admissions should be based on grades and tests alone?
When I graduated college with a double major in English and linguistics, there was the question of who to make the English valedictorian because several students had a perfect 4.0. The woman they decided to give it to was announced and walked onstage to get her award, and once she was there the award-giver told us that in addition to having a 4.0 she had six kids. The crowd went nuts and I don’t think there were any hard feelings among the other 4.0-ers.
Did anyone here who went to college know or care about the male to female ratio at their schools?
Something like 20x as many girls as boys applied to St. Andrews Uni once it was annouced Prince William was going to study there, which gave the campus a large female majority the next year… and the year after that far more boys applied, drawn by the large number of girls there.
Did anyone here who went to college know or care about the male to female ratio at their schools?
I did. Like Richard, I sorted through schools on a number of different characteristics. (And I didn’t want to be in a city, so I did end up at Oberlin.) The gender balance was, in fact, a factor in my decision, albeit not a huge one. (Oberlin looked better than other similar schools because (a) there were more women than men which I figured improved my odds (making me one of the undesirables in my previous analysis ), and (b) the women who I saw there were pretty smokin’.
Hey, when you’re 18, your decisionmaking is not always based on logic, vast, cool and unsympathetic.
I had no idea it figured that prominently in the decision-making process. You learn something new everyday.
Samantha,
I didn’t care about the male/female ratio of the students, but I cared a lot about the male/female ratio of the teachers – which is part of how I ended up at an all women’s college.
VK – that is hilarious (and a little creepy). It’s right up there with the description in Smart Mobs of how “gangs” female students were using cell phones and IM to keep tabs on his coming and goings.
I remember an alumni interview for a small college (Swarthmore I think), in which the alumni were a young married couple, who mentioned, in passing, how exceptionally high a proportion of students met their spouses at that particular college. This was mentioned, in passing, as an amusing anecdote, in all the college guides’ articles about the college. It was more than a little creepy.
I remember an alumni interview for a small college (Swarthmore I think), in which the alumni were a young married couple, who mentioned, in passing, how exceptionally high a proportion of students met their spouses at that particular college…It was more than a little creepy.
Oberlin has the same myth/tradition. (As I recall it’s pretty much true; Obies marry Obies.)
Why’s it creepy?
Samantha wrote:
Nor I. In fact, I still have no idea what the male-female ratio was in any of the colleges I attended. No wonder I’m pushing forty and still haven’t snagged that all-important diamond. Tsk. :o
On the bright side, my partner’s Dad bought him a washer-dryer as a congratulations-on-living-in-sin present. So it hasn’t been a total loss.
No offense Samantha, but your paragraph sorta sums up the nauseating (normative) heterocentricity I’m feeling in this thread:
“When I graduated college with a double major in English and linguistics, there was the question of who to make the English valedictorian because several students had a perfect 4.0. The woman they decided to give it to was announced and walked onstage to get her award, and once she was there the award-giver told us that in addition to having a 4.0 she had six kids. The crowd went nuts and I don’t think there were any hard feelings among the other 4.0-ers. ”
I would have been pissed as shit. Absolutely pissed. There are so many intangible rewards for being heterosexual, marrying, bearing children that they get covered up as “hardships” or “challenges”. That’s just privilege there, folks. She was awarded valedictorian based on a criteria that the average lesbian will never attain, nor want to. Gah.
Lesbians don’t have kids?
News to me.
as to the finding your spouse at college myth, it’s prevalent at my small liberal arts college as well (people say that it’s the highest rate in the country, which i think isn’t true).
as to robert’s question about why it’s creepy. well if you keep hearing that 77% of students at your school marry other students, it does put more pressure on you to find a mate while you’re there. i’ve never dated anyone from my school but there is still a nagging voice in my head about it.
and i can’t remeber if it’s been brought up or not, but what about the alum factor? i would assume that another reasons schools would want more men because men make more money and therefore are more likely to make large donations to the school. sidenote–my school is a merger of former all male and all female colleges and i love being on the side where most of the buildings are named after women.
I hear what you’re saying, but disagree with the analysis. I don’t know if she was married or heterosexual (though it’s understandable to draw that conclusion), and some lesbians have kids too.
Besides that, motherhood gets incredibly short shrifted in our culture and the enormous responsibility that is raising children is far more often ignored than honored. I don’t have kids or plan on having kids, but I give full props to parents and think this woman’s academic accomplishments on top of that is worthy of recognition when choosing among several students with the same high marks.
Don’t give me this crap about “some lesbians have kids too”. That’s tripe. Assimilationist tripe at that. I said “average lesbian”. Do you know any? This woman was awarded a freakin’ title based on heteronormative standards of worth. THAT SUCKS. And it is priviledged.
Maybe its my age and social/work circles, but most gay/lesbian people I know got married, had kids, came out in their 30s, and concurrently left their spouse for a member of the same sex.
In January, I attended a wedding that I call the “six tuxer”: groom, groom’s father, groom’s stepfather, bride’s father, bride’s stepfather, bride’s father’s gay lover all wearing matching tuxes.
The heteronormative culture I live in doesn’t regularly award mothers for the unpaid labor they do nearly as much as it takes for granted the labor of mothers and makes invisible the second shifts they pull, the daycare they provide and arrange, the matenity leave they don’t get paid for and jobs they lose for being pregnant, the education they provide, and all the other hard work moms do that benefit society while they still shoulder the blame for just about every societal ill.
According to current heteronormative standards of worth, moms aren’t really worth much more than a greeting card and flowers one day a year.
and your point Richard? That heteronormativity is so entrenched that it should be considered a legitimate part of admissions policies/or the awarding of degrees? That the “urge” to socialize to the end means of marriage is on par with intellect, scholarly effort, and general academia? That somehow a woman bearing six children outranks other women’s life choices and academic careers?
To me that screams of utter bullshit and conformity, on so many levels. The underlying message to both straight women and lesbians is: get married and raise a family, for that is the true measure of your worth.
Blech.
… and quit comparing gays/lesbians to heterosexuals as if it were just a walk in the park and the only major life event is marrying the wrong partner in your 20’s.
**bangs head quietly on desk**
And people wonder what I mean about assimilation…
My point is only that a third of all lesbian couples have a child living in their house (according to the 2000 U.S. census, I believe). Presumably the number will be larger if you include those with grown children. I couldn’t tell you how many children the “average lesbian” has, but the answer is probably somewhere around “one.”
My experience is probably skewed toward that “one third” with kids at home because I meet the lesbians who are the parents of my daughters’ classmates in pre-school, not the ones looking to hook up at “Gay Bingo” night in Philadelphia. But from what I can tell, they haven’t been “assimilated by heteronormitivity” or whatever. They just tend to have the same values that I do.
Perhaps it is your view of the values of the “average lesbian” that are skewed by your experiences.
It was creepy because, while I did hope to meet romantic partners at college, I didn’t want a conventional marriage. And I was puzzled why I kept hearing about marriages at this college rather than, say, how interesting the professors in the philosophy department were.
So it was more of a sales pitch failure than anything else; you wanted info on the professoriat, and they were giving you information on the marriage prospects. I don’t see why a misdirected sales pitch would be creepy, but to each their own.
“My point is only that a third of all lesbian couples have a child living in their house (according to the 2000 U.S. census, I believe). Presumably the number will be larger if you include those with grown children. I couldn’t tell you how many children the “average lesbian” has, but the answer is probably somewhere around “one.” ”
And you think that a census report (a public, government document) is going to represent the “average” lesbian. I think not. There’s this tiny thing called homophobia and laws that entrench discrimination against lesbians. Any lesbian reporting herself as living in a coupled relationship is anything but average.
Interestingly enough, the 2000 census DOES NOT have data on lesbians. It does have an unmarried partner category. **rolls eyes**
Yeah, because everything has to be heteronormative.
So what was that again about 1/3 of all lesbians have children? And how this somehow justifies awarding a valedictorianship based on a category that the majority of lesbians will not achieve.?????
Did anyone here who went to college know or care about the male to female ratio at their schools?
I didn’t much care, but the information was out there so someone obviously did. I have a strong recollection of my then-boyfriend reading from some kind of chart in the newspaper and declaring that he would be best off at Uni X and I would be best of at Uni Y, best on the ratios in question.
As I remember, Uni Y didn’t have much in the way of an academic reputation and it didn’t offer the course I was interested in. I went somewhere else, and although I based my decision in part on all sorts of non-academic criteria, the makeup of the student body didn’t interest me enough to find out about it. The boyfriend didn’t go to Uni X either, so I assume he was reading off the information as a curiosity rather as something to base a decision on.
From the scant anecdotal evidence given here it seems men cared more about the student gender ratio than women.
On the bright side, my partner’s Dad bought him a washer-dryer as a congratulations-on-living-in-sin present. So it hasn’t been a total loss.
I’ve been joking for years that my sweetie and I are going to have an Unwedding when we find ourselves needing several new kitchen appliances at one time. A glass bong is a kitchen appliance, right?
I goofed my blockquote of alsis’s comment; sorry
I’m a woman, and I cared about the male-female ratio at my grad school: when I realized how few women were there (no women in a number of years before mine, and few female faculty members), it made me *extremely* reticent to go there. Not because of marriage prospects (ugh, what a way to make a decision), but because I had no desire to spend 5-8 yrs in a department that seemed to be unfriendly to women, in a field that I already knew to be so. Doesn’t that figure in other women’s decisions? I know I didn’t apply to places like Carnegie-Mellon (to name one) because their male-female ratios worried me…
“Doesn’t that figure in other women’s decisions?”
Yes, although when I was looking at undergrad schools I didn’t see a whole lot of difference in the male/female student ratios (except the women’s colleges). I did however, notice huge differences in the male/female teacher ratio. The school I went to was between 50/50 and 60/40 but just about every other school of similar “ranking” was at best 70/30, quite often 80/20.
Campuses are marriage factories
You’re showing your age. These days, they’re first-marriage factories.
Since the problem is deeply sociological in nature, educators are looking at some very short term solution rather than put their jobs on the line by stressing much difference in sociological treatment from a young age. The only educators who are given voice are those who feel there are organic differences or boys are simply more lazy. While this may please the medical community, women’s groups, and the so-called scientific community, such misplaced ideas are leading Males to a the lower position of a caste system that will only serve to drive Males farther down the ladder of academics and life.
While both boys and girls begin life equal, they are then raised from birth to be different. The boys are treated not by accident to increasingly more aggressive styles to make them tough. They are not given as much mental, emotional, social support for fear of coddling them. Most importantly and not by accident but by intent, they are increasingly given love, honor, and respect, the essentials of self-worth, based on measures of achievement, power, status, etc. This makes boys and later men much more competitive (by design) for this makes them try much harder in order to achieve those feelings of self-worth from peers and society. Those boys or men who do not measure up in some way will not only receive less honor and respect but will receive more aggression from society. In the information age, all of those areas have led to a large decrease in academic learning and in turn ability to compete in the information age. Women are surging ahead.
Since girls and later women are not supposed to be strong this allows for much mental, emotional, social support from an early age along with much love honor and respect simply for being girls. In the information age, this support not only allows girls to mature faster but to do better in academics. This support continues through adulthood and now is showing up in economic advantages for women.
Today, the combined real effect of wives earning more; the media blitz against men in various ways (again, since Males are supposed to be strong that allows more types of aggression); and the very real problem with Males unable to compete and earn a living in the information age; is all working together to create some very hostile Males who are now losing big time, feelings of self-worth (love, honor, and respect) from society. Many Males may either lose the ability to escape to the local bar or get a quick drug fix. Also many hardworking, though industrial age Males who have not read the handwriting on the wall that the information age is becoming the more so the only game in town to earn a living are finding themselves helpless in supporting their families and now feel they are failures as men and deserving of more abuse from society. This then leads to more accumulated psychological suffering, lack of reflection time, and depleted feelings of self-worth. This is making many, even formerly good hearted Males susceptible to a catharsis of violence. Usually this will be taken out on those closest to them in their lives. My learning theory offers hope in this area. Thank goodness it shows a sociological solution and a permanent genetic problem. It will go to all on request. mayfieldga@bellsouth.net
1. I fear the use of Male classrooms with more discipline and more time on task will only lead to more stern and even more harsh treatment and more stereotyping of Males to perform more physical or menial labor to match the growing caste system being portrayed in the media against Males today. These attempts to focus on genetics, learning differences, male role models, or cater to more activity or instruction are destined to failure. The problem is sociological from day one. It is differential treatment Males experience that is creating this problem. Please read Learning Theory and other related articles on this subject.