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A generation of American men give up on college

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Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#81
post #65

I wonder if it could be because masculinity is being challenged on campus in the current era. Why would a male who has issues with women want to go to a place where he will be challenged to change his views in sensitivty and toxic masculinity courses? Conversely, why would a male who does not have issues with women go to a place where he will be labeled as having toxic masculinity? It's not like these issues haven't…

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

Yet, as there is only the narrative of "toxic masculinity" and not also discussion of "toxic femininity", the term implies masculinity can turn toxic in a way femininity can't.

There is a Wikipedia page on toxic masculinity, but not one on toxic femininity (it redirects to "Internalised sexism"). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalized_sexism#%22Toxic...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#82
post #65

I wonder if it could be because masculinity is being challenged on campus in the current era. Why would a male who has issues with women want to go to a place where he will be challenged to change his views in sensitivty and toxic masculinity courses? Conversely, why would a male who does not have issues with women go to a place where he will be labeled as having toxic masculinity? It's not like these issues haven't…

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

My first impulse is to agree but thinking about it more what positives are there to take away from masculinity. Is any feature of being masculine that is really desirable? I guess I think the whole idea of trying to be masculine to be kind of lame...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#83
post #65

I wonder if it could be because masculinity is being challenged on campus in the current era. Why would a male who has issues with women want to go to a place where he will be challenged to change his views in sensitivty and toxic masculinity courses? Conversely, why would a male who does not have issues with women go to a place where he will be labeled as having toxic masculinity? It's not like these issues haven't…

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

That might be the "theory" (a word which does some heavy lifting in venues infected by "critical theory") but in practice it comes down to straight males and traditional male virtues being "toxic".

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#84
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. And there's no non-college educated professions where women are prevalent? It's plumbing or bust? Of course clearly when women were under-represented in college, that was due to misogyny. And now that they are over-represented, it's also due to misogyny. No matter what the facts are, the conclusion is the same. There's a word for that.

Do you think that when women were under-represented it was because they were plumbers or climbing telephone poles? Because that's the only way your suggestion makes sense.

They weren't working at all.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean of the choice is between that and crippling debt and a useless degree, he's making the objectively smart move. The fact that they were able to buy things while living at home just drives the point home even more- he would not have the disposable income to make those purchases for many years if he decides to go to college.

Wut? Are those the only choices? Is there nothing in between? Lay off the drama. I don't feel like my degree was useless (and I'm not even working in the field I got a degree in) and I certainly didn't graduate with crippling debt.

Survivorship bias with a N=1 doesn't change the absolute fact that most if not all degrees are worth far less than the debt taken on.

Why your personal story is pertinent here is beyond me, OP was talking about the person in the article.

It's not dramatic at all when we have 1.73[1] trillion in student loan debt, with an average of 39k each student.

Starting your professional career years in debt is the definition of crippling debt.

edit to add source

[1] https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just not borne out by the data. The gap between high school grads and college grads pay is getting wider and wider. You shouldn't go to college if you aren't going to be a serious student and you'll be a legitimate risk for dropping out. But if you are willing to commit yourself and get decent grades, you'll be in much better shape than most people with just a high school diploma. Your advice is also sounds r…

You make several times 90k?? So like how much? Several has to be at least 3 right, so $300k+? What degree do you have??

Software engineers with ~5 years of experience (and probably less) can earn $300k-$400k annually in the Bay Area or New York if working for a large tech company.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll actually find similar gender disparities in China and India. Maybe not as pronounced as the USA, but it’s still there. Somehow there is something going on throughout the industry that crosses cultural boundaries.

From a sample of 3 countries (two with very traditional gender roles), I’m not convinced. In Eastern Europe software engineering was a female dominated field.

It's a legacy of socialist regimes enforcing gender ratios. Gender disparity is usually proportional to freedom of choice. ie. countries where there's less pressure to choose a particular field are more disparate in their gender ratios across disciplines.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#89
That's an interesting figure they've got!

Observations (based on the figure alone):

1. White-Males had the lowest college-enrollment-rates across all categories. They got the lowest in the two lowest income-brackets; basically a three-way tie in the next income-bracket; and just a little higher than Hispanic-Males in the highest income-bracket.

2. Asians had the highest enrollment-rates across all income-brackets.

3. Asians were relatively constant in their enrollment-rates, regardless of income or gender, always above 70%. (Always above ~83%, if excluding the lowest income-bracket.) The gender-gap still leaned toward Asian-Females over Asian-Males, but not by much.

4. Blacks varied heavily by income. Blacks had pretty low enrollment-rates in the lowest income-bracket, but got some of the highest enrollment-rates in the higher income-brackets (after Asians).

5. Black-Females had an odd pattern-deviation: like Black-Males, their enrollment-rates increased dramatically with family-income, getting the highest non-Asian enrollment-rate by the second-highest income-bracket. But then, oddly, their enrollment-rate fell by ~8% from the second-highest to the highest income-bracket.

6. Hispanics were pretty consistent with Whites, especially for Males. For Females, Whites had higher rates in the lowest income-bracket, while Hispanics had somewhat higher rates in all other income-brackets.

7. Ignoring race, enrollment-rates increased significantly with family-income.

8. Ignoring race, enrollment-rates were much higher for Females than Males across all income-brackets.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#90
post #65

I wonder if it could be because masculinity is being challenged on campus in the current era. Why would a male who has issues with women want to go to a place where he will be challenged to change his views in sensitivty and toxic masculinity courses? Conversely, why would a male who does not have issues with women go to a place where he will be labeled as having toxic masculinity? It's not like these issues haven't…

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

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