We are a cognitively dimorphic species, so some sex imbalances are inevitable. But 3% male in a humanities honours program is unhealthy, because we are a cognitively dimorphic species.
An interesting thought experiment is to consider who would have to move where in order to get all majors to be 50-50. Or, if you prefer to take issues one-at-a-time, get all majors to match the current gender skew of overall enrollment, so 60% women and 40% men. (Roughly.) How many women would you march from the humanities building to engineering? How many men would you march from philosophy to Elementary Education? How many of them would be happy with this?
Obviously some of them would. There's always someone who likes a new thing more than they thought they would. And surely there are some women out there who chose Comparative Literature over Chemical Engineering because they didn't like the male atmosphere, but would be happy to study engineering if it were 60% women. Likewise some men who would be OK training to teach kindergarten if they weren't the only guy in the room.
Still, there would be a whole lot of unhappy people. I'm not saying this is because of any innate preference, but rather than a whole lot of things have already been inculcated before they get to campus. It would take a pretty major overhaul of the situation in k-12 (and in the home, and in the media) to get every major at or near 50-50 or 6--40 or whatever.
But it could be quite humorous to imagine a bunch of philosophy dudes forcibly marched over to the Business School to study HR Management or Marketing or whatever. I would donate to a kickstarter to make that YouTube series.
You know WHY this does not elicit the kind of reaction you would have gotten if it was a STEM program.
And this is why wokeism is most of all an insult to genuine liberalism/progressivism. It's been perverted by a bunch of either fakes/social status gamers or by a bunch of normal people doing the new orthodoxy the same way they were doing the old (the religious one).
When progressivism becomes the new orthodoxy, it cannot be progressive anymore. Discuss.
Mid-August answer: interesting but not alarming because there are no systemic limitations for men who aspire to this field. Possibly understood subtext: lots of societal pressure on kids for EVERYONE to consider “more lucrative” fields (e.g., data science, computers, engineering … whether people actually understand those fields or not). Also, articles already this summer about how women outnumber men in higher ed in general right now, that included disparities in various fields (I think looking at admissions data).
Also also - take a look at Mick Herron’s books (for fun - not relevant to this discussion).
I'm not quite sure how to parse "no systemic limitations," here. Is it just that it's not a problem because it's not being done deliberately? I'm also not sure I believe the pressure toward "more lucrative" would necessarily be gendered, though I can sort of see how you would sketch out an argument for it.
The overall female skew of higher ed more broadly is well known; I've heard the admissions situation described as "affirmative action for boys." I'm genuinely not sure whether I think this is a problem or not.
Apologies for shorthand ... rather than addressing the title of the article, was thinking of reasons why Matt's post didn't generate much comment.
By the inartful phrase you highlight, was intending to indicate that if the disparity is viewed as part of larger trends of individual choice highlighted in the same publication this summer rather than resulting from identified barriers placed before applicants, I think many readers would put it in that category of "interesting data point" rather than necessarily indicative of something greater ...
I do agree that pressure toward "degrees that pay" is NOT necessarily gendered. (Would further suggest that's about as helpful to a high school senior as "follow your bliss" was in the past.) Though come to think of it Georgetown's CEW had data about gendered choices and pressures earlier this summer ...
RE: affirmative action for boys, also agree that if an institution makes clear that they admit with an intention of achieving a certain class profile, not at all surprising or alarming that in any given year somebody will inevitably have an "advantage." No shortage of great places to attend. (Both of which ARE ideas helpful for a high school student.)
But not every school or program can afford to/desires to craft a balance, so, as long as there is no bias against or barrier in front of applicants, interesting to note but not necessarily rises beyond that, especially if familiar with other fields where it's also not uncommon.
It would be interesting to look at the gender-distribution trend over time, which I suspect would closely track two other trends: 1) our cultural devaluation of the humanities in general over the last four decades, and 2) the diversification of the subject matter and its methodologies, which is going to alienate white men if either a) they subscribe strongly enough to the idea that if the text isn't about them, it's not relevant to them, and/or b) humanists don't do a good enough job of explaining why it's still relevant to them even when it's not about them, and/or c) they're convinced it's not masculine enough if it doesn't lead to a high-paying career/requires discussion of emotions. Also, it's useful to remember that the humanities are not a monolith; see philosophy, which more frequently has a STEM-like gender distribution.
The "Men are alienated by the subject matter" explanation runs a little too parallel to "Women just don't like math and science" for me to be really happy with that as an explanation.
Point taken about the different disciplines; it should likewise be noted that STEM isn't monolithic either. In recent years, it's really just the physical sciences and engineering that still skew strongly male; in life sciences, new graduates skew female, and the workforce is approaching parity.
" Also, it's useful to remember that the humanities are not a monolith; see philosophy"
Yeah, I'd like to see more focus on this part. For instance, my instinct is that Literature might be more skewed than History, but I'd more data.
(Another possibility is that men would be potentially forgoing more income than women would be if they choose a career in the humanities, due to the terribad job market.)
I think at least it is interesting, e.g., it invites exploration and investigation, including: is this true everywhere? how much of a trend is it, and how deep does it run? does it vary across disciplines?
We all know that individual institutions sometimes have a problem of small numbers to the point that it's hard to make rigorous statements about actual trends, and we know that what looks like a trend in a single year might turn out not to be.
Let's say it turns out that yes, it's pretty real across a wide range of institutions and yes, it looks a bit more like a trend. There's the added complexity that men in general appear to be disproportionately less inclined to pursue a college degree than in the past, for reasons that are still poorly understood, which would in turn complicate interpreting gender skews in any particular area of study.
I think the main difference that would rise up for me is that the skew in the sciences is of very long-standing and that we have pretty strong evidence was tied in the past to strong stigma against women, strong active attempts to discourage women from studying the sciences. Whereas this skew, if it turns out to be a thing, is really new. That's a meaningful difference that calls for different explanations; it may also mean that one is a "problem" and another is not, at least not yet.
The history of explicit bias in the past is an important point, I agree. Though it should probably be noted that this is to some degree an issue of timing-- that is, in the distant past, ALL of acdemia skewed very male because of explicit biases against women, and sadly, STEM has taken longer to get past that.
We are a cognitively dimorphic species, so some sex imbalances are inevitable. But 3% male in a humanities honours program is unhealthy, because we are a cognitively dimorphic species.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jopy.12500
An interesting thought experiment is to consider who would have to move where in order to get all majors to be 50-50. Or, if you prefer to take issues one-at-a-time, get all majors to match the current gender skew of overall enrollment, so 60% women and 40% men. (Roughly.) How many women would you march from the humanities building to engineering? How many men would you march from philosophy to Elementary Education? How many of them would be happy with this?
Obviously some of them would. There's always someone who likes a new thing more than they thought they would. And surely there are some women out there who chose Comparative Literature over Chemical Engineering because they didn't like the male atmosphere, but would be happy to study engineering if it were 60% women. Likewise some men who would be OK training to teach kindergarten if they weren't the only guy in the room.
Still, there would be a whole lot of unhappy people. I'm not saying this is because of any innate preference, but rather than a whole lot of things have already been inculcated before they get to campus. It would take a pretty major overhaul of the situation in k-12 (and in the home, and in the media) to get every major at or near 50-50 or 6--40 or whatever.
But it could be quite humorous to imagine a bunch of philosophy dudes forcibly marched over to the Business School to study HR Management or Marketing or whatever. I would donate to a kickstarter to make that YouTube series.
War! WAR!
You know WHY this does not elicit the kind of reaction you would have gotten if it was a STEM program.
And this is why wokeism is most of all an insult to genuine liberalism/progressivism. It's been perverted by a bunch of either fakes/social status gamers or by a bunch of normal people doing the new orthodoxy the same way they were doing the old (the religious one).
When progressivism becomes the new orthodoxy, it cannot be progressive anymore. Discuss.
Mid-August answer: interesting but not alarming because there are no systemic limitations for men who aspire to this field. Possibly understood subtext: lots of societal pressure on kids for EVERYONE to consider “more lucrative” fields (e.g., data science, computers, engineering … whether people actually understand those fields or not). Also, articles already this summer about how women outnumber men in higher ed in general right now, that included disparities in various fields (I think looking at admissions data).
Also also - take a look at Mick Herron’s books (for fun - not relevant to this discussion).
I'm not quite sure how to parse "no systemic limitations," here. Is it just that it's not a problem because it's not being done deliberately? I'm also not sure I believe the pressure toward "more lucrative" would necessarily be gendered, though I can sort of see how you would sketch out an argument for it.
The overall female skew of higher ed more broadly is well known; I've heard the admissions situation described as "affirmative action for boys." I'm genuinely not sure whether I think this is a problem or not.
Apologies for shorthand ... rather than addressing the title of the article, was thinking of reasons why Matt's post didn't generate much comment.
By the inartful phrase you highlight, was intending to indicate that if the disparity is viewed as part of larger trends of individual choice highlighted in the same publication this summer rather than resulting from identified barriers placed before applicants, I think many readers would put it in that category of "interesting data point" rather than necessarily indicative of something greater ...
I do agree that pressure toward "degrees that pay" is NOT necessarily gendered. (Would further suggest that's about as helpful to a high school senior as "follow your bliss" was in the past.) Though come to think of it Georgetown's CEW had data about gendered choices and pressures earlier this summer ...
RE: affirmative action for boys, also agree that if an institution makes clear that they admit with an intention of achieving a certain class profile, not at all surprising or alarming that in any given year somebody will inevitably have an "advantage." No shortage of great places to attend. (Both of which ARE ideas helpful for a high school student.)
But not every school or program can afford to/desires to craft a balance, so, as long as there is no bias against or barrier in front of applicants, interesting to note but not necessarily rises beyond that, especially if familiar with other fields where it's also not uncommon.
It would be interesting to look at the gender-distribution trend over time, which I suspect would closely track two other trends: 1) our cultural devaluation of the humanities in general over the last four decades, and 2) the diversification of the subject matter and its methodologies, which is going to alienate white men if either a) they subscribe strongly enough to the idea that if the text isn't about them, it's not relevant to them, and/or b) humanists don't do a good enough job of explaining why it's still relevant to them even when it's not about them, and/or c) they're convinced it's not masculine enough if it doesn't lead to a high-paying career/requires discussion of emotions. Also, it's useful to remember that the humanities are not a monolith; see philosophy, which more frequently has a STEM-like gender distribution.
The "Men are alienated by the subject matter" explanation runs a little too parallel to "Women just don't like math and science" for me to be really happy with that as an explanation.
Point taken about the different disciplines; it should likewise be noted that STEM isn't monolithic either. In recent years, it's really just the physical sciences and engineering that still skew strongly male; in life sciences, new graduates skew female, and the workforce is approaching parity.
" Also, it's useful to remember that the humanities are not a monolith; see philosophy"
Yeah, I'd like to see more focus on this part. For instance, my instinct is that Literature might be more skewed than History, but I'd more data.
(Another possibility is that men would be potentially forgoing more income than women would be if they choose a career in the humanities, due to the terribad job market.)
I think at least it is interesting, e.g., it invites exploration and investigation, including: is this true everywhere? how much of a trend is it, and how deep does it run? does it vary across disciplines?
We all know that individual institutions sometimes have a problem of small numbers to the point that it's hard to make rigorous statements about actual trends, and we know that what looks like a trend in a single year might turn out not to be.
Let's say it turns out that yes, it's pretty real across a wide range of institutions and yes, it looks a bit more like a trend. There's the added complexity that men in general appear to be disproportionately less inclined to pursue a college degree than in the past, for reasons that are still poorly understood, which would in turn complicate interpreting gender skews in any particular area of study.
I think the main difference that would rise up for me is that the skew in the sciences is of very long-standing and that we have pretty strong evidence was tied in the past to strong stigma against women, strong active attempts to discourage women from studying the sciences. Whereas this skew, if it turns out to be a thing, is really new. That's a meaningful difference that calls for different explanations; it may also mean that one is a "problem" and another is not, at least not yet.
The history of explicit bias in the past is an important point, I agree. Though it should probably be noted that this is to some degree an issue of timing-- that is, in the distant past, ALL of acdemia skewed very male because of explicit biases against women, and sadly, STEM has taken longer to get past that.