Definitely see this in the legal profession. Look at graduating classes at law school, they are majority women. A generation ago women could barely find jobs they were so outnumbered.
A commenter makes an intriguing note that physical therapists used to be mostly female, the profession has increased in salary and academic requirements, and now it is mostly male.
What change is cause and what is effect can be tricky to identify.
Add CIS jobs to that reverse impact. But more broadly, look at the Beatles. Beatlemania was a "hysteric" reaction of girls to a soft, long-haired boy band. Until men started appreciating their music. Then it became serious, worthy, awarded. The Ed problem is a reflection of cultural norms.
Indeed. I read this column yesterday and then dove into the comments, expecting a robust and thoughtful discussion. Instead they immediately bellyflopped into a hot mess. This is a topic worth exploring but the loudest segment of the population is incapable of discussing it like adults.
Sehr interessanter Artikel. Wenn man das so liest, wundert einem aber auch nicht, dass vor allem eher bildungsferne junge Männer Trump gewählt haben. Das Selbe erleben wir auch hier. Männer fühlen sich durch gut ausgebildete Frauen bedroht, daher verweigern sie gute Ausbildungsmöglichkeiten. Absurd!
Kate Millett identified this trend in her book Sexual Politics in 1970. She pointed out that, in the USSR, most doctors were women, because men left the profession when women began to dominate it. Fascinating and disturbing to see this pattern repeat itself in an area as fundamental as college.
I would be surprised if the numbers wouldn't be rather different this side of the Atlantic. Not because 18-year-old boys are any more thirsty, but because modern American society is so much more strongly gender-coded than modern European societies.
I was an 18-year-old in the years just after most of the historical women's colleges went coed, when boys could easily get in and be surrounded by college girls with little male competition.
I was a freak, then. Fair enough. What I remember from uni was girls in the lectures no one resented being there, we regarded them as our equals and, when they were better than us, our superiors. I wouldn't say the 1970s were all that progressive. I'm talking about the UK here. Different?
Which was not shocking at all, as they could've spent four years manhandling girls in the cheer squad and not only didn't, but assumed any guy who did was gay
Ballroom dancing was the best possible way to get a girl when I was in undergrad, because there were always more girls than guys and almost all of the guys who did go were dragged in by their girlfriends. Ballroom clubs always had to beg single guys to have a series of girls in their arms
Sigh. WTF, guys? The trend holds up, I just don’t understand the mentality from other guys that leads to this. But then, I’ve spent my career in Biology & education, which means I’ve been in majority-female work environments for most of my career. It’s just fine here, honest.
"Similar patterns of male flight have occurred in nursing, cheerleading, social work, architecture, gymnastics, library sciences and psychology."
Wonder if this happened in art history + conservation too
I am a sixty year old woman and I have a theory that my generation was the last one where we did our boyfriends homework in high school and college, wrote his papers, typed them once upon a time. Today’s girls don’t play and a lot of guys can’t do their own work.
Anecdata, my mom did most of my dad's degree for him (1970s). She was a genius with most of a phd, he was struggling to get an associates in business, and his earning potential was still much bigger than hers so she made sure it got done.
She also did most of an online degree for my brother in the 2000s, but that was less useful as cheating your way to a degree seems to have less utility now.
If a real effect - I'm always skeptical of politically fashionable social science at this point, replications often fail - it takes quite a bit to produce that 60% to 40% threshold.
You're not going to get there with very significant other factors in the mix first.
We can say that men aren't interested in becoming secretaries anymore, but that still leaves open the question of why women started taking over the job in the first place back when it was male-dominated.
And also why the job changed in its nature as the profession feminized.
I’m speculating but wonder if technology like typewriters and phones devalued the profession so it came to be seen as “women’s work”. The tech made it “easier”* so viewed as less prestigious
*admins are extremely valuable! Don’t want anyone thinking otherwise
We need this in the industrial scene fir about a decade to counter the 15 years of aggressively male-centric and misogynistic aggrotech cloning research
I suspect this is a complex thing with multiple causes. The temptation will be to oversimplify it and there is a bit of that here. A guard is looking at the reasons when the sexes are flipped - take women in tech. Lots of those reasons still hold true. Men also just get worried they won't fit in.
I knew a guy who didn't know what to do in college, so he chose a career that had more women than men with the idea that it'd be easier to get laid. Accordingly to him, it worked.
Two guys joined our high school cheerleading squad. We teased them. They said, "after school we hang out with the hottest girls in our class. What do you do?" That shut us up.
Yikes man the comments and replies on that article. Men just confirming the author is spot on but then proceed to be super misogynistic and not at all getting the point? Like, "Ah yeah, it IS because I hate women." Like...bro? Zero self reflection. It's scary.
The comment thread of how women are also uncomfortable with men in the workplace/school but like...women don't casually threaten or actually assault/harass/rape men? When asked why the men are uncomfortable, they said cuz they'd have to do "feminine" stuff, but like, what "feminine" stuff?? Huh??
Also, boys are more likely to think they know better than their elders. I have four nephews with 10 degrees between them, so I don't think that's worrisome.
That is as it should be, from a statistical point of view:
"If the population of China and India is excluded, there are more females than males in the rest of the world." The ratio of boys born to girls born is 105 to 100. Equality.
He lost me with the "escuela is feminine" argument. Trying to associate gender with a noun based on some tangible characteristics of the thing represented by the noun is pointless.
Americans have a REAL hard time understanding that grammatical gender is not the same thing as gender identity. In Proto-Indo-European, the grammatical genders were "animate" and "inanimate."
It seems to me, as an outside observer of America, that America is becoming more crazy for every day that passes.
People are complaining about "wokeness, socialism and communism" and obviously haven't a single clue what any of the words mean.
Ignorance is growing at an alarming rate in the US.
Do we know if this same study has been done places other than the US? Because devaluing fields that women work in/study isn't exactly a new thing, or unique to the US.
Firstly I'd like to point out that it is only an observation from me, my opinion as it were, when watching posts made on different media platforms.
And yes, this not just an American thing. Men in most fields of interest have for a long time regarding womens contributions as less important. Insane.
I recently read a story about the female geologist who discover the tectonic plate movement. Back then women weren't allowed in the field so she worked in the office, going through the male geologists observations.
Yet she noticed this when the men did not. It took her decades to get recognition.
I think we have a culture where men expect to have things & are unaccustomed to having to work for things in the same way that women have had to fight for everything
So once men are challenged, they run - they don't work harder,they undermine others' accomplishments & pretend they never wanted it
I don't think so. Men are very competitive. We have a culture where a man coming in second place to a woman is the worst thing that can happen to a man. It's the real reason sports are segregated by gender.
Isnt that the same thing? Since they dont want to lose to women, and they dont want to work harder to get ahead, they drop out of the things women are good at... or doing better at.
Seems men feel entitled to power and success. Women know they have to work at least 3x as hard for it.
Being competitive amongst each other and not wanting to compete with women out of fear of being mocked by other men isn't the same thing. It's one of the ways the patriarchy harms men.
There does need to be an adjustment. I mean is there a gun problem or a men with guns problem. Most mass murderers are men. Most violent incidences involve men.
And now that men are falling behind in education, its because its "woke" or feminism. Its never bc men dont like to be held responsible.
Men are falling behind in education because they are not applying themselves. They listen to dumb fucks like Elon Musk. Education has always has been the key to getting further. We all have tools to succeed, it is how we use them. We are responsible for our own lives!!!
Agreed. I'd argue men, esp white men, have never needed education to get ahead bc their dad/uncle could previously always find them a job somewhere. That's getting harder now-which is why I think we are seeing a political movement supporting despicable, pro-fascist, racist politicians gaining power
Really interesting read and fascinating theory. What's really distressing is that young men are so afraid of being seen as belonging to a "feminine" organization that they hurt their own prospects. See any similarity to voting patterns? And of course, this fear is actually a sign of weakness.
The 2:3 ♂:♀ ratio or higher in higher education is not a US-specific problem. For example in Sweden is it the same ratio and also the same skewed gender ratios in STEM and HEAL fields as in the US.
Economic factors (higher education is free in Sweden) not a major explanation.
Better paid blue collar jobs in traditionally male professions might partially be an economic factor that still stands.
Looking beyond US, I think that the "masculinity" factor also is a bit too simplistic. Traditional "masculinity" not as highly regarded in Sweden, for example.
An interview (in Swedish) with 2 students that elected an education with a major skewing towards the other sex: a male in nutritional sciences and a female maritime engineer. The male student cites "low status and wages" in HEAL professions as a deterrent for males.
I can't speak to Sweden but the data in the us that the article touches on is that in the US as fields become more female the salaries and status decline.
You see this in teaching as it became more female it became less valued and in reverse in computer science - men chased women out and salaries went up and so did prestige.
It is indeed the same in Sweden and the deterrent for HEAL fields for males was "low status and wages" according to the male student interviewed. Now even MDs are getting lower real wages (probably linked with increasing % women).
I think the problem has to be solved there, not college recruitment
Wow. That is a scary article, for what it says about males at least in the U.S. I was raised in a pretty standard household and I wonder why I have none of the Male Flight feelings. I'm actually more comfortable with a mostly female class. But I am seeing some of this in my 12 year old son.
I expect him to know that. He's twelve, and he's been around "women" - as he calls the girls in his class - since he was in kindergarten. I fear more the rationalization - in white flight, it was "crime", in male flight, it is "wokeness". And he already jokes abt that.
I gave the article to my boy to read. We'll discuss it a b it this weekend. In my opinion, the thing one can do, individually, is talk to your boys, if you have them.
Try to keep an eye on what he is consuming online, especially if he is in gaming spaces. Those can be conduits to Men's Rights (MRA), rightwing or just plain misogynistic/bigoted feeds. Exposure to less virulent or equality affirming materials is good counter. Good luck!
It’s kind of weird how it took so long for everyone to realise these guys are highly conservative and have the biases you’d expect from that, because it was obvious from the beginning
I mean college is also just hard and if your only there to try and get a date it won’t take long for you to realize there’s probably an easier way to meet women then spending $40,000 a year to do coursework.
Having gone to both I think community college is usually easier, but I actually think that makes it better. The thing that made the major university tough for me was not the quality of the work but the quantity.
Also CC had smaller classes with more of a relationship with my professors.
University was constantly pushing me to take on more classes in part because that place was so expensive I needed to finish quick. I took my time in Community and took music or gym classes every term to help even out my day with calming activities.
Effeminaphobia/sissiphobia is one of those things that, when you start you notice it, you'll see it everywhere in the culture from politics to product marketing. It's got enough of a "you have got to be kidding me, it's got to be another reason" feeling to it that it doesn't get enough attention tho
Well said! My kids are teenagers and I’ve seen this with boys who learn these behaviors from their parents. It’s sad. On the other hand, I’ve also witnessed amazing kids and families who are none of these things and give me some hope for the future
I am curious about the % of people who used to go to college a few decades ago vs now. It was quite rare in my parents' generation, but expected for my kids and their friends. Could it be that the same % of men are going to college, but it looks like less because a higher % of women are going?
It was a good read. Kind of aligns with my perception that white mediocre guys everywhere really resent the idea they might be expected to *compete* with women & minorities for what would have just been given to them by default in the past. Saves their ego to just blame everyone else & stay home.
You do realize you’re talking about 18-year-olds who are still learning and figuring out the world and who could maybe benefit from being steered in a positive direction instead of labeled as white-mediocre-minority-resenters.
I'm talking about even my experience in full on grown up jobs in America. Two decades ago it was safe to assume your manager & all the executives were white guys who were also constantly "failing up" despite being pretty inept/incompetent. You couldn't get them to hear anything useful from...
an underling who wasn't also a white guy with way more confidence than they had common sense or acumen. I once worked under a general manager who was embezzling money & had a major illicit drug problem. There were signs in his behavior at work, but everyone was expected to act like it was normal...
to have no attention span, and no short term memory, & constantly expecting other people to have the SAME exact conversation they had with him 15 minutes earlier that had reached a decision... & to refuse to sign off on purchasing equipment that was critically required for us to do our jobs...
And was basically demanded by superiors above him. I went to a regional training & explained my location was having trouble rolling out this new program because the manager wouldn't BUY the equipment & literally everyone who heard about it thought it was completely unimaginable & unacceptable.
18 is way too late for that though. Kids start making college app decisions at 16, and it is MUCH harder to apply/be motivated once you've graduated high school and are working.
If we want to help boys, it has to start in early education and especially in parenting.
It isn't hopeless for young men, but if there's anything I know about ANY 18 yr old of any gender, it's that they're stubborn. It is rare to find anyone who can "steer" young adults at all, when our whole culture is built a different way.
The women are also 18-year-olds, and yet somehow, they manage to handle the concept of learning as valuable even if people of another gender are also doing it.
But to answer your question... the drop off is steepest with young conservative straight men and not really happening with gay men at all. So no, that does not explain it.
It's also pattern that happens *after* adult men lose a majority.
I read the article; I don’t disagree with the premise per se. I disagree with others’ seeming conclusion that the problem is young men and not, as the article states, masculinity
As someone who attended college in the first half of the '80s and the early '20s I know this to be true in the ag college I attended.
In the '80s there were usually only a couple other females in the classes I took (plant & soil and animal sciences). In the '20s the P&S classes were more 4:6 M:F.
"A man will sometimes have to provide for wife/kids before he can finish college."
How many times has the story been told of the wife who works to support her husband all thru college, only to have him divorce her once he's successful.
Personally, I had 3 small children, co-farmed 1300 acres of sorghum w/ my husband, had a 35 ewe registered sheep flock whose progeny I sold for show, and my husband had a 60+ head of cattle w/ which I helped.
I limited my hours to 9 (+ labs) in any given semester, but most were jr/sr level courses.
Yes! Also many single mothers struggle to eventually get through some level of college for better pay. It’s definitely more difficult with a family but not an excuse.
In the '80s, in my Sheep Mgt class, there was a single mom, working as a convenience store clerk, working her way toward vet school.
I don't recall ever hearing a guy in any class speak about having a family. A wife, yes, but no children.
I had a baby in college, double major, double minor, worked 3-4 jobs, took more than a full load of credits and attended in the summers to finish in 3 years instead of 4. I didn't have child support or any help except a tiny bump in loans I just paid back (25 years later).
wow that comment section is a clusterfuck. Interesting article though, fits with a description of what happened with computing, which very much used to be "woman's work".
I've been working "in computing" in a University for 56 years now. The social changes have been interesting to watch. Things that required attention, ranging from data entry to coding for business applications were considered somewhat menial and therefore suitable for women while it needed a man /
to do the stuff that demanded intellect. Such were general attitudes at the time. Funnily enough the men didn't care about gender: the only thing that mattered was ability. But social attitudes did affect the jobs people tended to apply for. The film "Hidden Figures" illustrates this so well. /
But then things got worse because the technology got more complicated and harder to understand. And we started to get more people "in computing" who didn't understand what they were dealing with. And (mostly) the men who were bluffing had more credibility than the women for some reason I never /
We now have this to an extreme. The techbros control what gets done, and the small proportion of people who actually understand computing are largely relegated to being "tekkies" with no organisational authority. /
Putting a pin in this to come back to because this was an area of fascination for me that, had I not gone into art might have become an area of research had I gone into psychology or academia.
Really excellent article. Thanks for posting it, Matt! It is interesting that "masculinity" is so fragile that it cannot find value in the "helping" professions and flees from fields that put it in the minority.
Wow, so (in the US I assume?) women and gay men are increasingly the best educated, and simultaneously will not be listened to, respected, paid well, given power, because sexism / Patriarchy. Yeah, figures.
I noticed decades ago, when I attended a Conservative synagogue, female leadership turned off men from being more involved. Now, in an Orthodox synagogue, where women are limited in their roles, men are highly involved. Men are socialized to stay ahead of women in public spaces.
“What has changed is an increase in girls.” Writes the author just after referring to “men” as the contrast. Sexism is so pervasive and unconscious even this author forgets to call us “women.”
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve just found out that here in Australia, for the final high school exams that determine uni entry, the government deducts marks from the humanities subjects and raises the marks of STEM subjects bc the first are deemed ‘easier’. No explanation of this belief is provided.
It's not exactly deducting marks but the outcome effectively is that. Stem subjects are given preferential weighting in the formula used to spit out a childs numeric worth to society.
This is a great point and it cuts to the very problematic, biased, simplistic ideas and value systems that govern our fundamental (poor) understanding of pedagogy and its role in society.
I did a thread on this but while I don't question misogyny as a factor, flat out I've got to ask how much of this is because people who aren't cishet men have gotten a fairer playing field and mediocre cishet guys just took their ball and went home.
There is just no shortage of dudes who if it's not going to be handed to them, they quit and blame literally everyone else because it didn't happen for them.
I had this convo with a relative who's in a sorority recently. She estimated the frat parties have a ratio of 80/20 women/men! The men are desired and flirted *with*, not the other way around. I don't understand how the word doesn't get out and change that dynamic!
When I was in college, men had to pay to get in and women got in for free. A good idea to manage ratio imo, and there was at best a 60/40 split men/women 🤷
I remember when I was in school, men often complained about the M:F ratio being too high. If it weren't for the current political climate I'd expect men to be more eager to attend than in the past. It's so weird to see it be the opposite.
It's hard for me to tell if this is men realizing how big an advantage they already have and deciding to try less hard, or if men are seeing their advantage disappear and giving up on competition entirely out of some existential despair.
the thing is, if you've been in the favored group (by chance and no fault of your own) and have to make room so balance is reached, you still are losing something and might rightfully be miffed about it.
here's the fix: increase capacity and let in more of the formerly neglected.
I strongly recommend this interactive explainer. It demonstrates how even a slight preference to have „the same“ people around, can cause a lot of segregation.
The real reason is inability to compete with women, being so insecure and privileged that you expect life to be handed to you. The real reason is a culture that convinces white men they’re owed. Now they’re relying on their bros to make them feel better about their lives, a he man women haters club.
And of course the end game of the "education is too woke" conservative belief is that there should be ex: semiconductor manufacturing in the US, but don't you dare learn how to actually design the complex machines that make them!
Subconscious (& blatant) sexism is STILL a major social problem after >50 years of trying to create basic fairness and mutual respect between the sexes.
It's a nitpick (because there is a real gender difference), but it's kind of important that, rather than young men who previously would have gone to college are not going, they are slower to take up the increasing places than young women.
Also significant that they now seem to be playing catch-up.
Well said. And as Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz have noted, more women went to college before WW2. The current situation is a return to historical norms, not a deviation from them.
The article does address this though by pointing out it's *gay* men who are enrolling at much higher rates. That leaves the cis boys out in the cold still having their pissy little tantrum.
anecdotal but guys were much more likely to skip in-person classes in the majority of classes I was taking. Also barely any guys on the buses to/from campus
I was wondering what the proportions were. One of the genuine issues in the UK is that university used to be a sign you were special. When my parents went, maybe 5% of kids did. Now it's about 50%.
There aren't the special careers to sustain that many
I agree with your point about "special", the meaning of university as a marker has changed enormously. But there are careers to absorb the output, mostly, because the economy has also changed enormously.
The Real Reason male college enrollment dropped is that Trades pay very well and are in high demand
In trades you start working immediately at a decent wage WHILE going to school for the accreditation. . employers are sometimes even paying for the education
The first computer programmers were mostly women, as programming was just a slightly more numerical form of secretarial work. Then it became an industry and suddenly it was men's work. See also home cooks vs professional chefs.
I don't understand why boys don't do as well in k-12 as they used to. Most classrooms are more dynamic and less strict than they used to be. It seems like this would be better for boys who are often described as more energetic/physical.
I know very little about pedagogy and raising kids so correct me if I'm wrong.
But I think it's the opposite.
Men thrive with hierarchy and rigorous systems, for example, the army.
When school becomes less strict, men fail more often.
I remember being thrilled seeing some documentary where a woman was speaking as a professional about armament loads on the Harrier fighter aircraft, and thinking "It's about damned time!"
I’d be curious how this holds at more STEM oriented schools vs the whole population. I loved college, but I couldn’t blame young guys for having the perception that the humanities seems to be pathologizing them somewhat, like they’re a problem that requires solving, which is off putting.
At some point I realized that at my undergrad university with a large engineering program I picked up the perception that certain eng majors were easier. Turns out those were the ones with higher women. I don't think they were actually the "easier" degrees, that was just the perception
That’s interesting. It’s kind of an alien mindset for me. I went to business school so there was always a pretty healthy mix of men and women no matter what the class was. I can’t recall ever having a class that was heavily skewed
My field is about 85-15 so I have pretty much the opposite experience! My only classes with anything like parity were probably for my atmospheric science minor. They were probably 60-40, but that felt a lot more even than my engineering classes
I don’t get it.
I went to an engineering college where 90% of the students were males.
I chose Architecture and one of the reasons was that architecture had 80% of all girls enrolled in that college and I’m a heterosexual male and liked being surrounded by girls.
Unfortunately a whole lot of men manage to be sexually attracted to women without actually liking them as people. Seems like a shit way to exist, but there you go.
Indeed a very interesting post. Though I would light to see the male flight dissected into political orientation and research if there are some places, that became primary male over time and whether we did see an equivalent female flight then?
The reason enrollment is down is because of discrimination. This also explains why more men are in prison. This also applies doubly to trans women and racial minorities.
This makes so much since. And to your point, the first time I heard this argument. The devaluing of anything considered feminine really hit home. Imagine if day trading got labeled feminine...
This may provide insight into post-secondary ed as well. I teach for a Physician Assistant program & it’s getting harder to get men to apply, even tho the PA profession began in the military during Vietnam & was male dominated for decades. This cycle, only 15% of applicants were men.
How many of the young men who decided not to attend college visited some campuses or read
some statistics to learn that more women were students than men? I predict: none. I do not buy this essay’s argument for the long downward trend of young men attending college.
Schooling is actually based on a 19th century factory model of discipline, with some military discipline thrown in (eg uniforms). Dame schools existed but they looked nothing like the model he describes.
So this line of thinking is extremely, extremely common among men of this persuasion. Fundamentally, they’re upset they didn’t do well in school or did well enough but have failed in some way in life.
Funny thing is, I (F) actually acted quite a bit like this stereotypical male in HS. Very much “better to not study and get an A- than study and get an A like a loser.” Didn’t do homework, talked back, etc etc. My grades could have been better and I could have gone to better college
But I went to a v. good school and got a v. good job and if I ever think about it at all (mostly seeing these losers whining), I recognize it was my fault! These guys gotta self reflect and/or get over this sht a decade+ later, but neither of those things are their strong suits.
The less homework heavy classes were, the better I tended to do. But also did well if there was a way to practice at home without correctness pressure.
Can just imagine one of them at a classics academy when confronted with the fact that in Latin - the language of Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius - “schola” is also feminine. Will they rage against “woke Latin” and demand that it be changed to “scholus”?
*sits down backwards on chair* "You know there's one man who lived over 2000 years ago and accepted that he didn't know shit... that's right, Socrates."
It is particularly funny that obedience is feminine in the classroom, yet masculine, presumably, in the military. There are a lot of people teaching who shouldn't be, for certain, but the specific dynamic Mr. Bren is stroking himself to is ripped straight out of Full Metal Jacket.
> "Fvck this sh:t, I'm going to do it my way, you're wrong, I'm right, I'm not going to listen to you" that is a very masculine thing to do
It's literally not though. It's not what a man does. It's what a teenage boy does. A child tasting their first moments of independence and desperate for more.
This doesn't match my own reading of Reeves' book. To me, he suggests that the WHY for men is that they're giving up because they don't understand their role in contemporary American society. They no longer feel like they have a place.
I would pay to go back in time to have that asshole in my calculus class to hear the insults my teacher would throw at him. Then he'd say, OK, genius, you teach the class
It would only take 3 minutes before the class would rebel and yell at him to sit his stupid ass down
This is an extreme take, but the underlying prejudice is something I have seen quite often: when a girl does well at school, it is assumed that she is just good at rule-following. When à boy does well, it is seen as evidence of genius. Also when a boy does badly, it is seen as evidence of genius.
He'd really get mad if someone told him the word gender was originally coined to describe grammatical gender in several European languages (not English, it doesn't exist in any meaningful way), and worse, some languages have noun genders that have no ties to animal or human genders.
...so according to their post the most masculine thing possible to do is ignore all advice, decide you are correct and do something very stupid out of a refusal to listen to expertise?
I don't think I've ever see somebody so clearly define their own oppositional defiant disorder before. What a fascinating specimen, but unfortunate example of a human being.
I guess he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. God forbid you have to sit down, shut up and listen to someone. And then actually use your noggin to learn.
Just learned that penis is a feminine word in French...
telling all of these men they have to chop off their penis because real men have no penis because penis is a woman's body part.
It's a weird description of education that doesn't match my experience at all - I challenged my teachers in _high school_, let alone college, and still got good grades and recommendations. _No one_ at Greeley (a good public high school) or Stanford wanted me to sit down and shut up and obey.
More of that, I suppose, in the lower grades, but even there, a lot of education was trying to get extra credit assignments that would be more interesting - so, actively trying to shape what I got to learn, not just shutting up and listening.
They like to talk about evolution and male dominance. Absolutely a winning evolution trait: being obsessed with appealing to your same sex because the other sex is icky.
If that's the way they feel, women will be happy to take over receiving ALL education as well as ALL of the multitude of well paying jobs that require said education, AND take over the running of ALL businesses and government world-wide. 👍
Please stand by for significant improvements worldwide. 😀
Or just start paying minimum wage for the job, never mind that you need a Ph.D. to do it. Remembering all those "computers" from the fifties and sixties, getting paid minimum wage for the same jobs my MSFT co-workers got six figures for...
Unfortunately, as the article noted, when a profession becomes female-majority, society devalues it, resulting in lower pay, lower prestige, and even social stigma. And now it's beginning to happen to higher education itself.
These same idiots would post a picture of somebody from a century and a half ago and a picture of florida man and go "WESTERN CIVILIZATION IS IN DECLINE"
"Feminisation of education" as an excuse for underperformance & behaviour problems of boys at school has been around for decades in psychology. Just make sure to ignore the gender gap in pay & leadership positions for teachers & students long term
Feminisation of Education https://search.app/PXJZTvJtyXYkzWYu7
Look, he dropped out of Spanish class after the first day. He had no choice, it was just too feminine Io shut up, pay attention, and do what the teacher said.
Instead he joined the football team, where you shut up, pay attention, and do what the coach says, like a NAN.
Now let Chris do football coaches. It must be that football as a concept is feminine.
Then he can do military structure. Soldiers being submissive to generals and admirals.
In fairness, professors *do* have a lot of oft-unacknowledged structural power over their students. That’s why it’s so important to learn how to share power in the classroom to the extent possible!
LOL. We can't even get them to read the syllabus. Just how should we "share" power with them? at some point, they do have to learn what we are teaching them. But I suspect we will soon be replaced by AI in some format.
If I may presume to interpret your question literally & the remark that inspired it, the idea is to help students feel more responsible (ie. take on some of the power) in their learning new things at college level. Neither students nor their profs enjoy spoon-feedings. Teach via responsibilization.
Real men wouldn't be afraid to wear dresses in public. They would simply stand up and shout "Fvck this shjt. I'm not conditioned to think of a dress as a garment just for women".
Illogical. Finnish doesn't have grammatical gender (even pronouns are gender-neutral). So Tom of Finland couldn't be gay.
(Killjoy linguist: most languages of the world DON'T have sex-based grammatical gender.)
Yes, I think this all the time. “Women are obedient and that’s why they do well in school” is a core philosophy of these rightwing groups, which is very funny given thousands of years of history of militaries.
These associations were often less about femininity itself and more about reinforcing patriarchal power structures. Feminine traits, such as empathy, collaboration, and receptivity, do not inherently imply obedience.
It's hard to fathom the level of stupidity for someone to think such a thing, write it down, and put it out there thinking they did a thing
Like "first day of Spanish class for me, a white English dimwit, and my mind is already blown about this concept of gendered nouns, this changes everything"
I look forward to the next 30 years when we have no engineers left to fix bridges and tunnels because all the degree candidates have either been rounded up and deported (or worse) or harassed and abused out of STEM programs, and the ones that are left think learning is for girls.
Because they got harassed out of the program along the way. This is common actually. The gender ratio of engineering programs is more balanced upon admission than graduation. And it’s not because they flunked out.
"Disturbingly, many men point to women outnumbering men in college enrollment as evidence that feminism is ruining the world and unfairly penalizing men. Discriminating against men."
Men feel threatened that women will do better than they.
I don't need a degree to tell you that; just 7 brothers.
Very insightful. I say no action to keep men in college if it doesn't appeal to them. It's not that it's too hard or expensive (no more than for other genders). They have the opportunity and just don't want it. Let them leave.
Devaluing it while also making it more and more expensive, however, is not going to help women at all. What about putting women in lower paid roles but with higher debts? That will keep them under the thumb of the Patriarchy for sure.
As someone who was once the only woman for a 4 year degree course, I would like to give these guys the same advice that I once received: take a concrete pill and harden the fuck up.
I was on my own and you are crying about being less than 40%?
Sounds like they want to retreat to a nice safe space.
A director of the Davidson Institute warned us about this data in a speech to parents of gifted boys in Springfield, Missouri, and explained that male flight starts young. So I taught my sons how to team with girls, and to stand with them when other boys run away. Career success starts young, too.
The two explanations are not mutually exclusive. If men and women differ in their comfort with wokeness, a small increase in wokeness will lead to a small increase in f-m ratio, resulting in more wokeness, creating a feedback loop.
This is why so few after WWII took the gov't up on the GI Bill. "I just fought a war, fuck that education shit." (I'm sure there were those kinds, though.)
It's more that they tend to view equal groups - 50-50 - as being extremely female. Same goes for the number of poc, gnc, etc.-- any presence is deemed to be far larger than it actually is.
You don't even need to reach 50% to start making the cishet white boys feel like they're being swamped.
If your diagnosis is correct, what is the solution?
All male colleges? Mentoring of school aged boys to address the issue? Fix the pay issues by increasing public sector wages for professions with higher female participation?
So, the fallacy here is thinking that because women make up 60% or more of college attendees/enrollees, that must mean that men make up less than 40% at every school. This isn’t true: coed schools don’t let the ratios don’t stray too far away from 50–50 precisely for the reason you cite.
This is something I have always said - that as soon as women show proficiency in an area, men will become disinterested in it and find ways to devalue it. Happened to IT (business systems) which were then outsourced and are now done by whoever is cheapest and not best, next up - SWE/SDE
"For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied. One more woman applying was a greater deterrent than $1000 in extra tuition!" - From the author
Thanks for this. I’ve been pondering writing something for my education blog about why boys, from K-13 onward, are turning away from education and in particular, low-income boys of color. The attendance rates in K-12 for those students is troubling.
I work in a K-8 school as a substitute teacher and I've seen a lot of boys enforcing not learning on other boys and it's one of the hardest dynamics to break. There is one particularly "cool" 7th grader who ruins every class you put him in because all the other kids start to want to be "cool" too.
My school has a no phone policy and does a very good job of enforcing it. The internet is suppressed through technology, for 6-8th graders, their phones go in cell phone jail (a plastic bin that goes in a locked cabinet)
What I take that to mean is that the “traditional” masculine traits that boys are expected to have don’t vibe with a school environment. See the antibullying initiatives. But instead of reevaluating what that masculinity is, they’ve decided boys are being arbitrarily punished for it and so feminized
Yeah I agree that’s what the thinking is. But I think there’s always been a push and pull between honorable/virtuous male behavior versus acting like cavemen. That didn’t spring into existence because of “woke.”
Totally! You can see this tension in fiction from the 1800s (and earlier still) until today. Before it was “woke” it was “PC.” They wanna “eliminate woke” but there doesn’t seem to be an endgame if they catch that car.
I do believe in a level of boys-will-be-boys and girls-will-be-girls behavior that we should expect. The key is to learn when it’s okay and when they go too far. It’s like cursing. You learn when it’s acceptable and when to stop. Light roughhousing and trading? Ok. Focused bullying? Not ok. 1/
I mean it's pretty simple. Girls are raised to submissively sit quiet and demure, doing as they're told. Boys want to move fast and break stuff, push boundaries, challenge authority, experiment, make loud noises.
Which one do you suppose you'd find more pleasant to teach for eight hours daily?
I mean you raise the matter of nature vs. nurture — “girls are raised” vs. “boys want to.” I don’t support stereotypes imposed on individuals. But I think different kids have different impulses and should be accommodated, within certain parameters.
And a love of learning isn’t masculine or feminine or anything else. That is so unbelievably stupid, but what would expect from adherents to Dumb Bro Culture.
I think we have a problem with boys related to school, but I’m not sure what behavior she thinks boys are rewarded for, unless it’s what I call “dumb bro culture.”
TEXAS A&M likely sees the overwhelming emphasis on football and high school athletic accomplishments that dominate the conservative suburb culture across our state where the manly men care more about what their sons do on Friday night than what they do M-F in the classroom.
maybe because when a space is less than 40% straight male nobody is interested in straight males: Women need men to be able to do something to demonstrate their value to women and when a social space is under total female/gay male control there is no way for them to do that.
Hilarious. Learning can be seen as “woke” anyways. People learn about horrible history by reading, lectures, discussions, etc. They learn that they actually don’t know shit. That damn “Dunning-Kruger” shows up again making the ignorant so confident in their ignorance.
This was essentially my senior thesis, though I wasn’t able to get into as much detail as this. I saw the growing male/female divide in majors at my own college and how many men avoided majors considered “women’s subjects”.
If we're throwing out speculative interpretations, Republicans have been telling their voters not to go to college or send their children there (because they think college makes people vote Democratic) (it is correlated, but IDK if it's causal)
Men are more likely to be Republican....
When females fare poorly, males & the system are blamed.
When males fare poorly, males are blamed.
Like in the 1990s when self-esteem was mostly a concern only for girls while boys were ID'ed as part of that problem. The rest, teaching (sounded correct) and the system.
Your choice of the word “dominance” here interests me. Along with the assertion that commodifying and underpaying majority-woman fields somehow either represents or results from some kind of “favoritism” for them.
I’d argue one point though - men’s gymnastics hasn’t dropped because “girly”, it’s because title IX says “spend money equally” and colleges spend “men’s” money on football, basketball, etc. there’s no money for men’s gymnastics.
I think this article fails for the same reasons that the other bad answers fail, it rushes so hard to make its point that it simply hand-waves the other possibilities (particularly the Reeves point, which is compelling to me).
It arrives at an unfalsifiable problem with no inherent solution.
I don't think that's a fair description of how the article handled other possibilities, which are discussed. You got the Reeves point from the article. What do you think changed? Why are women more qualified for college now, relative to men?
Women INCREASINGLY outcompete men in school, and schools increasingly respond to this as they get fairer. This is THE fundamental difference, and it's the one Reeves makes.
Is that because women have an innate biological superiority when it comes to academics, or is it a cultural shift in how we conceptualize gender and education? The article is about cultural shifts. Why is education less valuable if women are better at it?
You should read the book, Reeves can explain himself better than me, but I'll try.
1. He argues women develop earlier, not that they're inherently superior.
2. I understand what the article is about, I just think it's wrongheaded and just-so, so as to fail to address the problem.
3. It's not?
Hard to separate cynical gender causality from plain ol' supply and demand. Is stagnating engineering pay due to a trippling if females or the 40% overall increase in engineering grads?
Or the visas they give to imported engineers who will work for lower pay so they can get a foot in the door in the US. And they cannot easily quit because their visa requires they work.
In California, over 90% of students enrolled in MA-level mental health degrees (professional counseling, Marriage & Family therapy, clinical social work) are female. It's above 60% in psychology doctorates too, at least the clinical branches.
Many colleges & universities hover around 60/40 female. My home institution is over that line - driven further by the fact that we’re a regionally important teacher prep university.
I’m ok with admins putting finger on scale to maintain a variety of activities and programs on campus… but I’m okay with all of it. Race, religion, income, viola players…
SLAC are a bit of a nightmare for balancing; imagine trying to have a football team with a student body of 1500-2500. Used to skew things male but now probably helps keep things even.
Son studies sports science and maths, and for that it’s about a 2:1 split male to female (which tbh is more female than I’d have anticipated, and pleases me as much as it still saddens me it’s not even).
makes sense, that area has always been pushed as "men-only". I was interested in that when I was younger but got repeatedly told girls "aren't good at it/don't have the brain for it" etc and never met a single girl who worked in it
That's absolutely insane. Imagine telling someone they aren't smart enough to do/learn something simply based on their gender. Sadly, I know women have to deal with it a lot. As a father to a daughter, I always try to make sure she knows she can do anything she wants to.
Another explanation that the author mentions (but doesn't develop) is that boys fall behind girls in language arts starting in elementary school and never catch up. The gender gap in grades 3-8 is at least 0.4 grade level in every single state.
True, but this has always been the case. Any kindergarten teacher can tell you that girls are generally more mature and ready to learn than boys. But that hasn't kept boys out of college until this generation.
Also, "everybody knows" that Black people are more likely to come from underprivileged households. So of course they're more likely to go to jail and less likely to go to college. Right?
Stereotyping is so unproductive. Better to help those who need it. Boys, Black people, Black boys especially.
Yes, it’s lazy. When people want to be racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic etc., rather than admit they are these things, they put the onus on the other person and try to demean them instead.
They don't want to because they wind up on second string. You have to be really good - and they don't want to have to do the work. Easier to just ban those other folks. 🙄
Onceuponatime, to spark an argument with my dad, I said, "It seems like white men, when they're young, find the black kids are better at basketball, the Mexican kids are better at soccer, and their sister is better at math. They can only compete if they don't let the others play."
Dad's reply: Yup.
2/2 If we started to be more tolerant of boys’ short attention span from day 1, they would enjoy school more. I raised 2 boys and saw & dealt with these biases throughout their educations. This, btw, is an argument for stronger k-12 ed policies & funding.
Ruth Simmons and Chris Bren are right. From kindergarten teacher have little patience with the learning style of boys so they lean towards girls- they’re easier, less trouble. Once boys get thru high school, they’re tired of the struggle. They have to blame someone so women are it. 1/2
For every teacher who doesn't have patience for the wiggly little boy or girl, I've seen 4-5 who'll do what they can in the face of an education system placing priority on testing and measurable achievement over tactile learning. Still, it adds up, more girls succeed, while more boys are medicated.
Yes, I was lucky to have some of them as advocates when needed and they made a huge difference in my sons’ attitudes. But I assume that struggle wears on the teacher as well. If we truly prioritized early education we could do anything.
In reading that article, I realized that I simply don't understand toxic masculinity. I am a straight white male. If I was having trouble meeting women (as incels claim), I would look to areas where women outnumber men to increase my odds of meeting them.
we should also notice that they extract after they leave. Charter schools, technology transfer offices, private equity or venture capital or whatever, even "public" entities like highway departments . . dudes get mad and then they bleed the rest of society dry.
our task is to not follow them. Let them go somewhere to bulldoze and frack and build digital worlds they can repeatedly destroy while we create gardens, raise children, and share medicine. They can visit us when they want to f*&#.
Comments
What are these losers thinking?
A commenter makes an intriguing note that physical therapists used to be mostly female, the profession has increased in salary and academic requirements, and now it is mostly male.
What change is cause and what is effect can be tricky to identify.
that’s much worse than the “if it’s over 1/3 women, men think it’s a 50/50 split” stuff in studies before
Hardly any guys were interested
At 40 it’s hard to get your first job.
Why is this happening in so many white middle class families??
Then their wife’s made more money and they divorce.
Fascinating to see the research prove that to be true and that once they are a plurality they move on to the next safe space, to turn it toxic.
Wonder if this happened in art history + conservation too
also
"Why can't I meet any girls?"
You're not going to get there with very significant other factors in the mix first.
And also why the job changed in its nature as the profession feminized.
*admins are extremely valuable! Don’t want anyone thinking otherwise
I'm not going there, it has too many women
Also men:
Why can't I get laid?
His reply:
"At dance school it's me, a gay guy, and 300 girls. You guys are dimwits."
In the same way men do, I hope this doesn't need to be mentioned, but I'm still Twitter-brained so 🙃
https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/lewiss-law/
"If the population of China and India is excluded, there are more females than males in the rest of the world." The ratio of boys born to girls born is 105 to 100. Equality.
People are complaining about "wokeness, socialism and communism" and obviously haven't a single clue what any of the words mean.
Ignorance is growing at an alarming rate in the US.
They (USA) are ofc in another low point. And when they're low, it seems it'll be eternal. But it won't.
And yes, this not just an American thing. Men in most fields of interest have for a long time regarding womens contributions as less important. Insane.
Yet she noticed this when the men did not. It took her decades to get recognition.
So once men are challenged, they run - they don't work harder,they undermine others' accomplishments & pretend they never wanted it
Seems men feel entitled to power and success. Women know they have to work at least 3x as hard for it.
And now that men are falling behind in education, its because its "woke" or feminism. Its never bc men dont like to be held responsible.
And where do you stand on stereotyping and prejudice against people based on their immutable identity traits?
This one post indicate you're all for it, but that's one post.
Economic factors (higher education is free in Sweden) not a major explanation.
Looking beyond US, I think that the "masculinity" factor also is a bit too simplistic. Traditional "masculinity" not as highly regarded in Sweden, for example.
https://allastudier.se/tips-o-fakta/h%C3%A4r-%C3%A4r-k%C3%B6nsf%C3%B6rdelningen-snedast-16571
I think the problem has to be solved there, not college recruitment
When they let a Koch brother come on and claim to be non-partisan, I nearly vomited. Last episode I listened to.
there is this place where you get to meet lots of babes and there is little competition from other guys they would be like
Yeah !!
Also CC had smaller classes with more of a relationship with my professors.
The root of all of it is just misogyny
They are doing this to themselves.
Only they can fix this.
📌
If we want to help boys, it has to start in early education and especially in parenting.
But to answer your question... the drop off is steepest with young conservative straight men and not really happening with gay men at all. So no, that does not explain it.
It's also pattern that happens *after* adult men lose a majority.
In the '80s there were usually only a couple other females in the classes I took (plant & soil and animal sciences). In the '20s the P&S classes were more 4:6 M:F.
Most of the Aggies were from farms.
Many women at the Vet school but they did not outnumber the men.
How many times has the story been told of the wife who works to support her husband all thru college, only to have him divorce her once he's successful.
I limited my hours to 9 (+ labs) in any given semester, but most were jr/sr level courses.
I don't recall ever hearing a guy in any class speak about having a family. A wife, yes, but no children.
We now have this to an extreme. The techbros control what gets done, and the small proportion of people who actually understand computing are largely relegated to being "tekkies" with no organisational authority. /
The university college I went to had 2 lads to 20 lasses in my year intake. Everyone was cleverer than me. Happy days! 📚 🕺 🍻 🎶 📚
He said that having sex because it "feels good" is gay. It's different with being horny for a woman.
Men naturally get turned on with women around him. If this is altered instead, that's what makes you GAY.
here's the fix: increase capacity and let in more of the formerly neglected.
https://ncase.me/polygons/
So weird.
Subconscious (& blatant) sexism is STILL a major social problem after >50 years of trying to create basic fairness and mutual respect between the sexes.
Humanity seems hopelessly closed-minded & self-defeating.
Also significant that they now seem to be playing catch-up.
There aren't the special careers to sustain that many
I agree with your point about "special", the meaning of university as a marker has changed enormously. But there are careers to absorb the output, mostly, because the economy has also changed enormously.
In trades you start working immediately at a decent wage WHILE going to school for the accreditation. . employers are sometimes even paying for the education
https://bsky.app/profile/epaulesdegeantes.bsky.social/post/3l4gawku3ms2l
Then it became an industry where beer was sold outside the home, and it rapidly became “men’s work”
But I think it's the opposite.
Men thrive with hierarchy and rigorous systems, for example, the army.
When school becomes less strict, men fail more often.
I remember being thrilled seeing some documentary where a woman was speaking as a professional about armament loads on the Harrier fighter aircraft, and thinking "It's about damned time!"
Apparently a lot of men disagree.
I went to an engineering college where 90% of the students were males.
I chose Architecture and one of the reasons was that architecture had 80% of all girls enrolled in that college and I’m a heterosexual male and liked being surrounded by girls.
If a straight man is avoiding college because there are more women than men, I question how straight he actually is
The reason enrollment is down is because of discrimination. This also explains why more men are in prison. This also applies doubly to trans women and racial minorities.
I have no reason to lie about this.
If a cis girl accuses a trans girl of assault or rape, no physical evidence is required. Her word is law. I'm sure cis boys have the same experience.
Playing mixed doubles is fine. Men will participate because there is a man on both sides.
But in man vs woman singles, the man will play as long as he wins. If the woman wins regularly, the man will cease to play her.
some statistics to learn that more women were students than men? I predict: none. I do not buy this essay’s argument for the long downward trend of young men attending college.
I had the issue of trying and getting a D and effort just seldom matching my grades. I had emotional issues that got in the way.
It's literally not though. It's not what a man does. It's what a teenage boy does. A child tasting their first moments of independence and desperate for more.
🤣🤣🤣
This is an archetype of an insecure insufferable boy.
I tried to explain a scientific concept to my mom once and she just wouldn't accept it. I don't think defiance of knowledge is 100% gender specific.
It would only take 3 minutes before the class would rebel and yell at him to sit his stupid ass down
JFC, just take instruction
'La moustache' and 'la barbe,' mustache and beard, are FEMININE in French, proving that FACIAL HAIR is FEMININE! 🙄
Quora insists you report each answer individually. I hope people shall.
But it would, no doubt, cause a short-circuit in his brain’s “there are only 2 genders” circuitry.
You don’t need to find some bullshit excuse for it.
telling all of these men they have to chop off their penis because real men have no penis because penis is a woman's body part.
Dumb, dirty, hungry and angry
Let me guess, you oppose such practices for the identity groups you like, embrace or those you dislike.
Please stand by for significant improvements worldwide. 😀
Absolutely ridiculous logic.
Feminisation of Education https://search.app/PXJZTvJtyXYkzWYu7
Instead he joined the football team, where you shut up, pay attention, and do what the coach says, like a NAN.
"Ignorance as a concept is masculine," then?
“More professors are men and students women because professors have all the power and students are expected to be submissive.”
A tidy summary of the Right’s educational and gender ethoi.
Then he can do military structure. Soldiers being submissive to generals and admirals.
What the heck is happening in our world?
Everyone knows that real soldiers wear dresses.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/british-soldiers-manning-anti-aircraft-guns-in-womens-clothes-1940/
FELLAS IS IT GAY TO BE MASCULINE???
Guys, beards are gay.
Entonces, los hombres de verdad usan vestidos y no tienen barba.
(Killjoy linguist: most languages of the world DON'T have sex-based grammatical gender.)
just to watch his head pop
Like "first day of Spanish class for me, a white English dimwit, and my mind is already blown about this concept of gendered nouns, this changes everything"
Let's get all these clowns driving sedans!
But he knows that right
Men feel threatened that women will do better than they.
I don't need a degree to tell you that; just 7 brothers.
I was on my own and you are crying about being less than 40%?
Sounds like they want to retreat to a nice safe space.
You don't even need to reach 50% to start making the cishet white boys feel like they're being swamped.
All male colleges? Mentoring of school aged boys to address the issue? Fix the pay issues by increasing public sector wages for professions with higher female participation?
What's the solution if this is the problem?
Which one do you suppose you'd find more pleasant to teach for eight hours daily?
Misogyny, in other words.
Might the attitudes and programs of the past ~30 years to advantage women have an effect? To even ask the question is socially forbidden. Blind spot.
Or drugging males?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/magazine/men-college-enrollment.html
Men are more likely to be Republican....
https://bsky.app/profile/tiredgenerally.bsky.social/post/3lep3jykfn226
When females fare poorly, males & the system are blamed.
When males fare poorly, males are blamed.
Like in the 1990s when self-esteem was mostly a concern only for girls while boys were ID'ed as part of that problem. The rest, teaching (sounded correct) and the system.
The author ignores many other explanations in favor of the one that supports her belief system.
I remember hearing years ago that men were no longer choosing pharmacy as a degree because it had too many women in it.
I didn't realize how widespread the aversion to sharing the stage with women was.
All my nephews have degrees. There must be some clustering in the data.
It arrives at an unfalsifiable problem with no inherent solution.
Women INCREASINGLY outcompete men in school, and schools increasingly respond to this as they get fairer. This is THE fundamental difference, and it's the one Reeves makes.
https://aibm.org/research/educational-achievement-and-progression-by-gender-6-key-takeaways/
1. He argues women develop earlier, not that they're inherently superior.
2. I understand what the article is about, I just think it's wrongheaded and just-so, so as to fail to address the problem.
3. It's not?
What they amount to is to simply blame the group losing out, and imply that the problem may not indeed be one.
It's not fair or useful when done to any other group, likewise here.
We’d love to be more 50/50 I’m sure, but even if we admit a 50/50 entering class, the men tend not to be retained at the same rate.
No male educators.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/boys-left-behind-education-gender-gaps-across-the-us/
Stereotyping is so unproductive. Better to help those who need it. Boys, Black people, Black boys especially.
It's exactly this sort of stereotyping that results in lower expectations and lower performance for boys.
What's your source for previous generations' grade school test data?
Dad's reply: Yup.