# Why are men falling behind? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 28, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037 "2011-10-28T03:31:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/21 "2011-10-28T12:53:22Z")
My money is on a kindergarten and school that caters to traditional feminine values and at best ignore masculine values - but more often are directly hostile towards. > [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Whereas I work in a female-dominated Department in the government and I wish to god there were more young attractive men there (being a gay man here sucks). Well perhaps you should move into utilities or commodities trading / hedging. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/22 "2011-10-28T12:56:07Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Whereas I work in a female-dominated Department in the government and I wish to god there were more young attractive men there (being a gay man here sucks). You’ve got a Department for Female Domination? You Brits think of everything. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/23 "2011-10-28T12:57:49Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Well perhaps you should move into utilities or commodities trading / hedging. Too attached to my soul. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/24 "2011-10-28T13:02:26Z")
Jobs have changed too. My wife’s a recently-qualifed doctor, and over 50% of her year-group were female. The medical industry has moved from a paternalist “doctor knows best” approach to a more fluffy view of patient-centre care, which seems to favour the female approach. This encourages more women to apply. It’s also the case that some men are opting for differnet jobs, rather than insisting on traditionally “male” occupations. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/25 "2011-10-28T13:10:48Z")
There isn’t one answer that you could point at, but some factors include: Increasing numbers of women with technical and advanced degrees entering the workplace as cultural taboos are overturned. Those same women are often more motivated than their male peers, having to have worked harder for their spaces. All other things being equal, male dominated workplaces often have incentives to hire women for purposes of diversity. Many industries that previously required the physical strength of men now have used technology to level the field. A decline in the need for trade work due to the housing/economic problems. Focus on girls’ education and standardized test scores over the last two decades or so. Economic and social issues encouraging women to have families far later in life than ever before has increased competition for jobs in general with young men. Women have been encouraged to pursue classically “male” fields of work while men have not been rewarded for making inroads on jobs traditionally filled by females. You don’t see many male cashiers, HR workers, billing department, secretarial/personal assistants, Medical office specialists, etc… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/26 "2011-10-28T13:29:24Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > **Why are men falling behind?** For the view. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/27 "2011-10-28T14:18:10Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > For others sake, here it is: [All the Single Ladies](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/%5B/url). For the record, while that article was the inspiration for my question, these stats have been out there for a while from other sources. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/28 "2011-10-28T14:34:34Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Women have been encouraged to pursue classically “male” fields of work while men have not been rewarded for making inroads on jobs traditionally filled by females. You don’t see many male cashiers, HR workers, billing department, secretarial/personal assistants, Medical office specialists, etc… FWIW, women were never really rewarded for working in those fields, either. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/29 "2011-10-28T14:49:10Z")
I didn’t read that one. I had read [The End of Men](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/). Or I should say that I tried my very best to. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/30 "2011-10-28T14:55:05Z")
We’re not falling behind, we’re lagging so we can look at your asses. > [@JohnT](#): > > 1. What the point of the ERA and women’s liberation movements were about, and > 2. To be expected given their slight statistical prominence (~51% of Americans are female) > > ? Actually, the gains for women in college (57/43) outpace their demographic advantage. That demographic advantage is much smaller than 51/49, anyway. That’s for the general population, including senior citizens, who have a much greater female skew. I’ve seen arguments that state that elementary education is increasingly hostile to boys, although I don’t remember it being that friendly when I was in elementary school. I was one of only two boys who had better than a B average (out of 10), perennially, while there were six to eight girls who did (out of 25). Some combination of factors used to invert this in high school, and they no longer seem to do so, and formal education credentials have become much more important than they used to be. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/31 "2011-10-28T15:26:16Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Actually, I’ve read that in this recession, unemployment is hitting women harder than men. Whaaaat? I think you read it wrong. [Here](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/06/two-years-of-economic-recovery-women-lose-jobs-men-find-them/) are the stats. I find the title misleading, so read at least the graphs and the fist paragraph. Men take the hit from recessions because they work in recession-sensitive fields like construction, resource gathering (mining/logging/etc), manufacturing, and shipping. > [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Those same women are often more motivated than their male peers, having to have worked harder for their spaces. > > All other things being equal, male dominated workplaces often have incentives to hire women for purposes of diversity. Which is it? Women have to work harder or they benefit from diversity incentives? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/32 "2011-10-28T15:29:45Z")
Was there really ever a time where elementary school was all kickball and collecting bullfrogs, or whatever the departed “boy friendly” education is imagined to have been? Looking back on my copy of Little House on the Prairie, it seems like school has always been a lot of sitting around at desk doing boring work. Looking at, well, every other country in the world, what we have actually seems unusually active. In China, for example, children spend an average of 8.6 hours a day in the classroom plus formal weekend instruction. Half of Chinese students said they do not go outside to play- at all, ever. I’m not saying there aren’t ways to account for gender difference in the classroom. But I don’t really buy that our classrooms used to a boy paradise and are now a boy hell. You read the most ridiculous things sometimes. I was trying to research this, and found a site saying that boys need “stimulation appropriate for a hunter.” Great. Does that mean that girls need to study in a way that simulations gathering berries? Should we be hiding flashcards around the classroom to really tap into those primal instincts? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/33 "2011-10-28T15:46:30Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Whaaaat? I think you read it wrong. [Here](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/06/two-years-of-economic-recovery-women-lose-jobs-men-find-them/) are the stats. I find the title misleading, so read at least the graphs and the fist paragraph. Men take the hit from recessions because they work in recession-sensitive fields like construction, resource gathering (mining/logging/etc), manufacturing, and shipping. > > Which is it? Women have to work harder or they benefit from diversity incentives? Both. There are many women who earn their spots by merit alone, and there are those that are chosen for a diversity pick out of \*otherwise equal \*resumes. I’m not making commentary on their abilities. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/34 "2011-10-28T16:06:53Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Was there really ever a time where elementary school was all kickball and collecting bullfrogs, or whatever the departed “boy friendly” education is imagined to have been? Looking back on my copy of Little House on the Prairie, it seems like school has always been a lot of sitting around at desk doing boring work. I can’t speak for graduates of one-room schoolhouses, and I don’t know how relevant that is anyway since few people graduated eighth grade in those days. I can say that, while classroom decorum was much stricter in a Catholic School in the 70s than it is now, time where decorum was required was much smaller. Not only was there recess and gym class, but from 3:30 or 3:45 a boy was not required to behave like a human being until dinnertime. I can’t really say how that would affect academic performance, but it was definitely different. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/35 "2011-10-28T16:10:11Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Both. There are many women who earn their spots by merit alone, and there are those that are chosen for a diversity pick out of \*otherwise equal \*resumes. I’m not making commentary on their abilities. But if they earn their spots on merit alone, how is that working harder? That’s working equally hard. Show me a company that hires woman for the diversity, and I’ll show you a company where the men have to work harder to earn their spots. Show me a company that discriminates against women, and I’ll show you one that doesn’t hire women for the added diversity. In the aggregate, you can’t have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/36 "2011-10-28T16:16:55Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > I’ve seen arguments that state that elementary education is increasingly hostile to boys, although I don’t remember it being that friendly when I was in elementary school. Another Atlantic article from a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/37 "2011-10-28T16:32:54Z")
What’s the opposite of “sausage fest?” Tuna fest? ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/38 "2011-10-28T16:51:06Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I think it’s worth noting that a man without a college education has a lot more opportunities than a woman without a college education. The trades, in particular, present a wide array of decent solid jobs–mechanics, construction, plumbing, electrical work, HVAC, etc. These are jobs where someone can reasonably support themselves, and where frankly an undergraduate degree is a waste of both money and time. Women without college degrees are much more limited: it’s pretty much food service, retail, and low end administrative jobs. Huh? I never realised a penis was necessary equipment to get into the trades. There’s a lower proportion of women in trade jobs; yep, I’ll believe that, but not that it’s not an option. Especially considering I’ve met several plumbers, electrictians etc who certainly appeared to be of the female variety. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/39 "2011-10-28T17:14:24Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > Huh? I never realised a penis was necessary equipment to get into the trades. There’s a lower proportion of women in trade jobs; yep, I’ll believe that, but not that it’s not an option. Especially considering I’ve met several plumbers, electrictians etc who certainly appeared to be of the female variety. > :dubious: Women are significantly under-represented in the trades. They exist, of course, but its much less likely to seem like a viable option to an 18 year old looking to chose a career. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037/40 "2011-10-28T17:23:22Z")
I’m _pretty_ sure it has something to do with diet Dr. Pepper. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-men-falling-behind/601037.md?page=3)