Are women done with men?

[Log]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/opinion/boys-parenting-loneliness.html

TL;DR - "Teenage boys now spend two hours less a week socializing than girls and they also spend about seven hours more per week than their female peers on screens"

-W

Pretty much this - there is a large subset of guys who are content to be loser NEETs and play videogames all day, because they're easier and more "fun" than the challenges of real life. Worth acknowledging though that there are also women who want to play videogames and scroll TikTok all day, so presumably those people are appropriate matches for each other.

But WOW a lot of this conversation is exhausting with the black-and-white broad thinking. Please, some nuance people. Men are not all loser NEETs with the attention spans of goldfish but somehow also conspiring to bring about A Handmaid's Tale.

I'll just leave my further complaints to a better writer than myself: [link]

ETA: More links from the same writer if you find the first one interesting: [1] and [2]

[Tyson]

I think propensity for violence exists on a continuum across the human population.  Some people are hyperviolent and others are extremely passive.  And men are statistically much more likely to engage in physical violence than women.  Hence, way more men are in prison for violent acts than women. 

It seems like the laws are pretty good for most types of violence, which is why so many violent men end up in prison (where they should be).  But, from what I've seen, the laws around sexual assault are way to weak and poorly enforced.  I was reading that 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.  That's fucking terrible and needs to be addressed with much stronger protections for women and much more severe punishments for the rapists. 

If 12% of men are regularly engaging in assault on women, they need to be put in jail so the other 88% of us normal men can be viewed as safe. 

As it is right now, women don't feel safe and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what's happening.

[Ron Scott]

If 12% of men are regularly engaging in assault on women, they need to be put in jail so the other 88% of us normal men can be viewed as safe. 

As it is right now, women don't feel safe and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what's happening.

My frustration and initial reaction is identical. But thats’s about 20M men in jail. $$$ for room and board + lost productivity, etc.

I wonder if the threat of long-term incarceration would bring that % down dramatically? Some sort of zero-tolerance approach. Or gene editing LOL.

Regardless the psychological/sociological issues at play, enough is enough. These guys need a come-to-jesus call…

[Sibley]

If 12% of men are regularly engaging in assault on women, they need to be put in jail so the other 88% of us normal men can be viewed as safe. 

As it is right now, women don't feel safe and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what's happening.

My frustration and initial reaction is identical. But thats’s about 20M men in jail. $$$ for room and board + lost productivity, etc.

I wonder if the threat of long-term incarceration would bring that % down dramatically? Some sort of zero-tolerance approach. Or gene editing LOL.

Regardless the psychological/sociological issues at play, enough is enough. These guys need a come-to-jesus call…

Well, feel free. Because they're not listening to women.

[Villanelle]

If 12% of men are regularly engaging in assault on women, they need to be put in jail so the other 88% of us normal men can be viewed as safe. 

As it is right now, women don't feel safe and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what's happening.

My frustration and initial reaction is identical. But thats’s about 20M men in jail. $$$ for room and board + lost productivity, etc.

I wonder if the threat of long-term incarceration would bring that % down dramatically? Some sort of zero-tolerance approach. Or gene editing LOL.

Regardless the psychological/sociological issues at play, enough is enough. These guys need a come-to-jesus call…

Well, feel free. Because they're not listening to women.

Right?  When women say, "we feel safer facing a bear", instead of thinking, "man I had no idea that is how so many women experience the world; how awful.  We need to do better," some men think something along the lines of, "those bitches think I'm some kind of deadly predator?  How dare they!" 

[bluecollarmusician]

But WOW a lot of this conversation is exhausting with the black-and-white broad thinking. Please, some nuance people. Men are not all loser NEETs with the attention spans of goldfish but somehow also conspiring to bring about A Handmaid's Tale.

Lol, What @Log  said....

Also:

At the ripe old age of 47, I'm probably too old to have an opinion that is relevant but I think one way or another men and women will find a way to make it work, in spite of the modern challenges in society.

[former player]

If 12% of men are regularly engaging in assault on women, they need to be put in jail so the other 88% of us normal men can be viewed as safe. 

As it is right now, women don't feel safe and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what's happening.

My frustration and initial reaction is identical. But thats’s about 20M men in jail. $$$ for room and board + lost productivity, etc.

I wonder if the threat of long-term incarceration would bring that % down dramatically? Some sort of zero-tolerance approach. Or gene editing LOL.

Regardless the psychological/sociological issues at play, enough is enough. These guys need a come-to-jesus call…

Well, feel free. Because they're not listening to women.

Right?  When women say, "we feel safer facing a bear", instead of thinking, "man I had no idea that is how so many women experience the world; how awful.  We need to do better," they think something along the lines of, "those bitches think I'm some kind of deadly predator?  How dare they!"

Of course, 12% of men as potential predators is an underestimate.

https://www.salon.com/2015/01/15/the_ugly_truth_about_sexual_assault_more_men_admit_to_it_if_you_dont_call_it_rape/

Which is to say: of course women choose the bear.

[Ron Scott]

If 12% of men are regularly engaging in assault on women, they need to be put in jail so the other 88% of us normal men can be viewed as safe. 

As it is right now, women don't feel safe and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what's happening.

My frustration and initial reaction is identical. But thats’s about 20M men in jail. $$$ for room and board + lost productivity, etc.

I wonder if the threat of long-term incarceration would bring that % down dramatically? Some sort of zero-tolerance approach. Or gene editing LOL.

Regardless the psychological/sociological issues at play, enough is enough. These guys need a come-to-jesus call…

Well, feel free. Because they're not listening to women.

Right?  When women say, "we feel safer facing a bear", instead of thinking, "man I had no idea that is how so many women experience the world; how awful.  We need to do better," they think something along the lines of, "those bitches think I'm some kind of deadly predator?  How dare they!"

Of course, 12% of men as potential predators is an underestimate.

https://www.salon.com/2015/01/15/the_ugly_truth_about_sexual_assault_more_men_admit_to_it_if_you_dont_call_it_rape/

Which is to say: of course women choose the bear.

These sentiments is completely understandable.

Unfortunately I fear things will get worse, at least in the short-term, due to a variety of causes hitting at the same time.

Men are used to seeing personal wins with significant but achievable effort. In this economy, not so much. Frustration isn’t pretty for men. Men are quick to throw in the towel when they’re not coming out on top. So they’re forgoing education, trading cheap sex for meaningful relationships, working just for the money and willing to give up on having careers.

Men seem to be leaning into the zeitgeist of the day, succumbing to the current social bottom-feeding goals of our political workers and social/mainstream media: sewing fear and anger to sway hearts and minds.

We shall see.

[Gin1984]

If 12% of men are regularly engaging in assault on women, they need to be put in jail so the other 88% of us normal men can be viewed as safe. 

As it is right now, women don't feel safe and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what's happening.

My frustration and initial reaction is identical. But thats’s about 20M men in jail. $$$ for room and board + lost productivity, etc.

I wonder if the threat of long-term incarceration would bring that % down dramatically? Some sort of zero-tolerance approach. Or gene editing LOL.

Regardless the psychological/sociological issues at play, enough is enough. These guys need a come-to-jesus call…

How about the loss in productivity to the women they keep harming!?! Rapists reoffend, over and over.  The average uncaught rapist in college, in the last article I checked, had already raped over 5 times.  You think they stop?  Why are we concerned about money and lost productivity for them but not the people who are in jail over some weed?  They should be in jail to stop them from reoffending.

[cpa cat]

My opinion is based on anecdotal evidence... But I think we're still feeling the societal effects of access to birth control. (Western) Women have had a choice about whether or not to be mothers for a relatively short amount of time. Only a couple of generations.

My maternal grandmother (came of age during WWII) wrote in her personal diary that she wasn't excited about motherhood, but felt it was her duty and that her husband was excited to be a father, so she was pleased that he was happy. She then suffered from serious post-partum depression for which there was no treatment.

My paternal grandmother also struggled with poorly-treated mental health issues. When my father was 5, she told him she really didn't enjoy being a mother, so he was going to have to step up and be the man of the house while his father was at work and take care of himself and his little sister.

If either of those women were in their 30's today, they likely never would have chosen to have children, but there was no choice for them - not only because of lack of birth control options, but because culturally there was an expectation.

In my maternal line, I have an uncle who chose to remain childfree (long term heterosexual partner, but no marriage), and my mother admitted she felt ambivalent about motherhood, but that it seemed like the next step for her marriage/relationship. She had access to birth control, but no friends or family who modelled a child-free lifestyle (her brother was younger, so he hadn't really committed at that time).

In my paternal line, I have an aunt who also had two children, but basically admitted the same feelings: that if she were one generation later, she would have pursued a music career instead of marriage/children - she became a music teacher and is still married. Neither of her daughters are having kids and neither is married in their late 30s: one is a doctor, one is a musician.

I have two siblings. None of us will be parents. One of my brothers is an inheritor of our family history of mental illness and chose to get a vasectomy in his 20s. Myself and my other brother are both married and neither of us have ever seen children as a net-positive.

That general ambivalence toward parenthood that lurked in our grandmothers' generation has turned into true choice now: We aren't unusual in choosing not to have kids, and we have plenty of access to birth control.

If my husband dies or we divorce, I would not choose to marry or cohabitate again. I'm beyond the age where children are a question, I'm financially secure - marriage brings nothing to the table for me. And cohabitation with a man who is 50+? I love my husband and all, so he can stay, but other dudes can keep their CPAPs and lifelong habits and personality quirks in their own house. We can hang out, go on vacation, have sex... but I don't need that 24/7 in my house.

[nereo]

Unfortunately I fear things will get worse, at least in the short-term, due to a variety of causes hitting at the same time.

Men are used to seeing personal wins with significant but achievable effort. In this economy, not so much. Frustration isn’t pretty for men. Men are quick to throw in the towel when they’re not coming out on top. So they’re forgoing education, trading cheap sex for meaningful relationships, working just for the money and willing to give up on having careers.

Ron, here I mostly agree with you, and agree more thoroughly as modified. Following Walt’s post, here’s my observations after teaching and advising over 100 young men and women (most in the 18-28 age bracket) at the University level. I give mid semester and end of semester progress meetings with everyone I work with. Overwhelmingly, it’s the male students that are frustrated when they get a C+/B- mark. Typical comments are “but I’m doing most of the work you assign, why don’t I have a higher standing?  Meanwhile, the overall (average) work output from the female students is much higher. When one earns a C+ they are more likely to say “yeah, I’ve only done the required work, what else should I do?”  The men expect to excel with nothing more than the minimum, the women come with the expectation that they’ll have to do more.

I’m not surprised the men get frustrated. Most seem to believe that they will continue to excel with nothing more than “achievable effort” - then they realize they are being outpaced by women who do a heck of a lot more.

[merula]

@nereo, I'm wondering if both @Ron Scott and your male students would describe that effort as "significant but achievable", because it is a significant effort to them. You're seeing a view of all of your students' efforts, and your C+/B- male students don't have that perspective, AND they've not been raised to recognize the efforts of women as equivalent to their own.

More broadly, it's a common trope more broadly that it takes women/men of color/other marginalized groups "twice as much work to get half as far", a view that's often dismissed by white men with a defensive "you're saying I didn't work for what I got? I worked my ass off".

That's privilege for you, I guess. I don't have a solution (other than teaching my son better), but any young woman opting out of those dynamics is acting in rational self-interest, and her mother or grandmother might also have made the same choice if faced with the same broader cultural situation.

[Kris]

@nereo, I'm wondering if both @Ron Scott and your male students would describe that effort as "significant but achievable", because it is a significant effort to them. You're seeing a view of all of your students' efforts, and your C+/B- male students don't have that perspective, AND they've not been raised to recognize the efforts of women as equivalent to their own.

More broadly, it's a common trope more broadly that it takes women/men of color/other marginalized groups "twice as much work to get half as far", a view that's often dismissed by white men with a defensive "you're saying I didn't work for what I got? I worked my ass off".

That's privilege for you, I guess. I don't have a solution (other than teaching my son better), but any young woman opting out of those dynamics is acting in rational self-interest, and her mother or grandmother might also have made the same choice if faced with the same broader cultural situation.

This part of the thread has been making me think of a recent visit we made to my husband's nephew's family. Nephew and his wife have two children, a boy (11) and a girl (9). We were there for five days, so, long enough to see what kind of people these young people were starting to become -- and to have a number of conversations with nephew and wife about the kids when they weren't around. Both nephew and wife said something striking: that the boy was very intelligent, but didn't really make much effort in school and wasn't all that willing to try new things or continue things when they started to get hard. Meanwhile, the daughter was not fantastically intellectually gifted, but she worked really hard and brought her A game to everything she did.

Both parents worked to encourage the boy to try harder and not to compare the two of them within earshot of either child. And they both expressed worry that the boy was not going to do very well as he matured into an adult.

They did not express the same worry about the girl.

[former player]

My opinion is based on anecdotal evidence... But I think we're still feeling the societal effects of access to birth control. (Western) Women have had a choice about whether or not to be mothers for a relatively short amount of time. Only a couple of generations.

My maternal grandmother (came of age during WWII) wrote in her personal diary that she wasn't excited about motherhood, but felt it was her duty and that her husband was excited to be a father, so she was pleased that he was happy. She then suffered from serious post-partum depression for which there was no treatment.

My paternal grandmother also struggled with poorly-treated mental health issues. When my father was 5, she told him she really didn't enjoy being a mother, so he was going to have to step up and be the man of the house while his father was at work and take care of himself and his little sister.

If either of those women were in their 30's today, they likely never would have chosen to have children, but there was no choice for them - not only because of lack of birth control options, but because culturally there was an expectation.

A former colleague of mine talked about his grandmother, early in the 20th century.  She had been married for 3 years and had three sons.  She wanted to stop there but her husband wanted a large family and one night was pushing her up the stairs so he could have sex with her and get started on number 4.  She pushed back, he fell down the stairs and died.  His death was ruled an accident and she brought up her three sons as a happy widow and never remarried.

[Log]

Was just reading through an old journal and this Sally Rooney quote I took down seems to capture something really essential about how people in the 20s-30s age bracket are feeling these days that is inhibiting romance:

We hate people for making mistakes so much more than we love them for doing good that the easiest way to live is to do nothing, say nothing, and love no one.

[wenchsenior]

My opinion is based on anecdotal evidence... But I think we're still feeling the societal effects of access to birth control. (Western) Women have had a choice about whether or not to be mothers for a relatively short amount of time. Only a couple of generations.

My maternal grandmother (came of age during WWII) wrote in her personal diary that she wasn't excited about motherhood, but felt it was her duty and that her husband was excited to be a father, so she was pleased that he was happy. She then suffered from serious post-partum depression for which there was no treatment.

My paternal grandmother also struggled with poorly-treated mental health issues. When my father was 5, she told him she really didn't enjoy being a mother, so he was going to have to step up and be the man of the house while his father was at work and take care of himself and his little sister.

If either of those women were in their 30's today, they likely never would have chosen to have children, but there was no choice for them - not only because of lack of birth control options, but because culturally there was an expectation.

In my maternal line, I have an uncle who chose to remain childfree (long term heterosexual partner, but no marriage), and my mother admitted she felt ambivalent about motherhood, but that it seemed like the next step for her marriage/relationship. She had access to birth control, but no friends or family who modelled a child-free lifestyle (her brother was younger, so he hadn't really committed at that time).

In my paternal line, I have an aunt who also had two children, but basically admitted the same feelings: that if she were one generation later, she would have pursued a music career instead of marriage/children - she became a music teacher and is still married. Neither of her daughters are having kids and neither is married in their late 30s: one is a doctor, one is a musician.

I have two siblings. None of us will be parents. One of my brothers is an inheritor of our family history of mental illness and chose to get a vasectomy in his 20s. Myself and my other brother are both married and neither of us have ever seen children as a net-positive.

That general ambivalence toward parenthood that lurked in our grandmothers' generation has turned into true choice now: We aren't unusual in choosing not to have kids, and we have plenty of access to birth control.

If my husband dies or we divorce, I would not choose to marry or cohabitate again. I'm beyond the age where children are a question, I'm financially secure - marriage brings nothing to the table for me. And cohabitation with a man who is 50+? I love my husband and all, so he can stay, but other dudes can keep their CPAPs and lifelong habits and personality quirks in their own house. We can hang out, go on vacation, have sex... but I don't need that 24/7 in my house.

This all resonates a lot with my experience, both with family and social circle.

[Kris]

My opinion is based on anecdotal evidence... But I think we're still feeling the societal effects of access to birth control. (Western) Women have had a choice about whether or not to be mothers for a relatively short amount of time. Only a couple of generations.

My maternal grandmother (came of age during WWII) wrote in her personal diary that she wasn't excited about motherhood, but felt it was her duty and that her husband was excited to be a father, so she was pleased that he was happy. She then suffered from serious post-partum depression for which there was no treatment.

My paternal grandmother also struggled with poorly-treated mental health issues. When my father was 5, she told him she really didn't enjoy being a mother, so he was going to have to step up and be the man of the house while his father was at work and take care of himself and his little sister.

If either of those women were in their 30's today, they likely never would have chosen to have children, but there was no choice for them - not only because of lack of birth control options, but because culturally there was an expectation.

In my maternal line, I have an uncle who chose to remain childfree (long term heterosexual partner, but no marriage), and my mother admitted she felt ambivalent about motherhood, but that it seemed like the next step for her marriage/relationship. She had access to birth control, but no friends or family who modelled a child-free lifestyle (her brother was younger, so he hadn't really committed at that time).

In my paternal line, I have an aunt who also had two children, but basically admitted the same feelings: that if she were one generation later, she would have pursued a music career instead of marriage/children - she became a music teacher and is still married. Neither of her daughters are having kids and neither is married in their late 30s: one is a doctor, one is a musician.

I have two siblings. None of us will be parents. One of my brothers is an inheritor of our family history of mental illness and chose to get a vasectomy in his 20s. Myself and my other brother are both married and neither of us have ever seen children as a net-positive.

That general ambivalence toward parenthood that lurked in our grandmothers' generation has turned into true choice now: We aren't unusual in choosing not to have kids, and we have plenty of access to birth control.

If my husband dies or we divorce, I would not choose to marry or cohabitate again. I'm beyond the age where children are a question, I'm financially secure - marriage brings nothing to the table for me. And cohabitation with a man who is 50+? I love my husband and all, so he can stay, but other dudes can keep their CPAPs and lifelong habits and personality quirks in their own house. We can hang out, go on vacation, have sex... but I don't need that 24/7 in my house.

This all resonates a lot with my experience, both with family and social circle.

Me, too.

[GuitarStv]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

[Tyson]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

From what I've seen, it seems like girls mature faster than boys, especially things related to executive function and behavior control.  Girls are able to focus sooner, while boys are still basically just rowdy animals. 

I do think there's a case to be made for starting boys later in school.  Or, maybe just having separate boys and girls classrooms.

[Sibley]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

From what I've seen, it seems like girls mature faster than boys, especially things related to executive function and behavior control.  Girls are able to focus sooner, while boys are still basically just rowdy animals. 

I do think there's a case to be made for starting boys later in school.  Or, maybe just having separate boys and girls classrooms.

I remember a long time ago seeing studies about how single sex education benefited both girls and boys. There's also real downsides to single sex education, so need to be careful.

[Telecaster]

I do think there's a case to be made for starting boys later in school. 

There is a case, but not a great one.   Kids learn mostly from their peers.  So boys that are held back tend to do better at first, but then the advantage goes away.   

I have no idea what the best solution is here, by the way.

[Frugal Lizard]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

From what I've seen, it seems like girls mature faster than boys, especially things related to executive function and behavior control.  Girls are able to focus sooner, while boys are still basically just rowdy animals. 

I do think there's a case to be made for starting boys later in school.  Or, maybe just having separate boys and girls classrooms.

As a parent of one boy and one girl, I felt our public school system favoured our daughter's learning style over our son's. Sitting at a desk, doing tasks that required fine motor skills without the ability to move his eye balls from left to right and top to bottom was torture for our son. I had to be a super advocate for him and his squirmy friends throughout elementary and middle school years.

If son had any disabilities or wasn't highly intelligent or quick learning or didn't have parents with the resources to advocate when needed, I could see how easily the 'love of learning' would have been beaten out of him. On many occasions a teacher would balk when I sent back notes saying "DS will not be completing X task" or "we don't do homework". My kids needed to be in nature, free playing, large motor exercise, helping with household chores music after school, not doing more school.

In addition to being well read on child development and education, both my parents, several aunts, friends and a sister in law are teachers so I had the vocabulary to advocate effectively. And the time to do it. And the currency, that came with being a reliable and frequent school volunteer.

Yesterday my DD (20) went on the Pride Ride with about 75 other folks. She had a good time apart from a carload of young males yelling at the passing cyclists dressed in the rainbow wear.

WTF.

It is disturbing. It brought back a memory instantly.

I know exactly what I, early 30s, was wearing the winter evening I left night school at 9:45pm on a week night and got called a whore when walking two blocks to the surface parking lot closest to the college building in a rougher area of the city. I was terrified because there was no one else out on the street because it was so cold. Then I couldn't figure out why I, a landscape architect, dressed in office attire, fresh out of the classroom for learning a new software, bundled in a huge coat and boots within a deserted campus district would be confused for a sex worker. I still contemplate the stupidity of those four or five young men. But unfortunately those thoughts always come after the immediate fear response.

The same one my daughter experienced last evening near the end of a joyful all ages group bike ride.

I confidently say that my son would never ever do anything like that. One of my proudest parenting moments was hearing him call out sexism on a group chat with his friends. He probably doesn't even know anyone who would do something like that. But he is only a little older than those idiots that tarnished my daughters evening and scared the crap out of me 35 years ago.

[spartana]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

Or simply the greater ability for boys and young men to enter into higher paying blue collar trade jobs and often earn much more then the average college graduated without all the incurred debt or years off full time work while in school? Many men follow this path compared to women who often choose higher education as the path that leads to more success. @usetobrtrix followed this path I believe as did others (including myself).l - a woman).

[MustacheAndaHalf]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

"In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-022-09716-5

[blue_green_sparks]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

[Metalcat]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

"In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-022-09716-5

My personal experience being a woman in university on and off over the last 2 decades is also that among the higher performers in each of my programs, there was an explicit sentiment that women needed to work A LOT harder than men to be taken as seriously.

The first PI I worked for openly stated in 2004 that he preferably took on female grad students because they would put in so much more work than the male grad students.

I've also worked with countless high performing professionals tackling pathological perfectionism, and it's been predominantly a women's issue, because they have been conditioned to perceive *any* degree of failure as unacceptable, and that working yourself to death is a given.

This is also why I deal with so much burnout among high performing professional women. Men obviously burnout as well, but the burnout I see among elite women is often catastrophic and features a lot of severe physiological symptoms, which are often irreversible because they go so hard their bodies have to start shutting down before they'll ease off the gas.

[Psychstache]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

That's a bummer. I have multiple liberal arts degrees and don't recall running into professors who explicitly behaved in this way. We had a lot of rather spirited, sometimes heated, discussions on topics where people held a range of views and don't know of anyone who was demonized over it. I even remember one sociology course where one guy and professor would routinely have long back and forths and there was no clear animosity and he did well in the class.

To the bolded, why do you think there would be a gendered split on this? Would women not also struggle in that environment?

[blue_green_sparks]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

That's a bummer. I have multiple liberal arts degrees and don't recall running into professors who explicitly behaved in this way. We had a lot of rather spirited, sometimes heated, discussions on topics where people held a range of views and don't know of anyone who was demonized over it. I even remember one sociology course where one guy and professor would routinely have long back and forths and there was no clear animosity and he did well in the class.

To the bolded, why do you think there would be a gendered split on this? Who women not also struggle in that environment?

Maybe not so much a male/female thing as an "engineering brain" kind of thing. I was not just mentally prepared or equipped to share "how I feel" about certain topics. Also, there were several cases when I witnessed STEM students being 'picked-on' by a few professors who actually had us raise our hands as he called out majors on day-one. You know, "just out of curiosity". Turns out he needed examples of future "corporate cogs" to dis a bit during his very passionate lectures. I am very liberal leaning myself but having to listen to a few of the most vocal, yet empty-headed students stroke an instructor's ego all semester was excrutiating. If I needed a lesson in ass-kissing, well there it was. 

[Metalcat]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

That's a bummer. I have multiple liberal arts degrees and don't recall running into professors who explicitly behaved in this way. We had a lot of rather spirited, sometimes heated, discussions on topics where people held a range of views and don't know of anyone who was demonized over it. I even remember one sociology course where one guy and professor would routinely have long back and forths and there was no clear animosity and he did well in the class.

To the bolded, why do you think there would be a gendered split on this? Who women not also struggle in that environment?

Maybe not so much a male/female thing as an "engineering brain" kind of thing. I was not just mentally prepared or equipped to share "how I feel" about certain topics. Also, there were several cases when I witnessed STEM students being 'picked-on' by a few professors who actually had us raise our hands as he called out majors on day-one. You know, "just out of curiosity". Turns out he needed examples of future "corporate cogs" to dis a bit during his very passionate lectures. I am very liberal leaning myself but having to listen to a few of the most vocal, yet empty-headed students stroke an instructor's ego all semester was excrutiating. If I needed a lesson in ass-kissing, well there it was.

Yeah, this sounds nuts to me, I've never experienced anything like this in my various degrees, which have ranged from STEM to liberal arts.

I've had profs who desperately need their egos strokes, I have one right now and she makes me deeply murder-y, but that usually manifests more in personal bullshit with individual students who rub them the wrong way...like me, I'm the problem, it's me, lol.

[GuitarStv]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

That's a bummer. I have multiple liberal arts degrees and don't recall running into professors who explicitly behaved in this way. We had a lot of rather spirited, sometimes heated, discussions on topics where people held a range of views and don't know of anyone who was demonized over it. I even remember one sociology course where one guy and professor would routinely have long back and forths and there was no clear animosity and he did well in the class.

To the bolded, why do you think there would be a gendered split on this? Who women not also struggle in that environment?

Maybe not so much a male/female thing as an "engineering brain" kind of thing. I was not just mentally prepared or equipped to share "how I feel" about certain topics. Also, there were several cases when I witnessed STEM students being 'picked-on' by a few professors who actually had us raise our hands as he called out majors on day-one. You know, "just out of curiosity". Turns out he needed examples of future "corporate cogs" to dis a bit during his very passionate lectures. I am very liberal leaning myself but having to listen to a few of the most vocal, yet empty-headed students stroke an instructor's ego all semester was excrutiating. If I needed a lesson in ass-kissing, well there it was.

Yeah, this sounds nuts to me, I've never experienced anything like this in my various degrees, which have ranged from STEM to liberal arts.

I've had profs who desperately need their egos strokes, I have one right now and she makes me deeply murder-y, but that usually manifests more in personal bullshit with individual students who rub them the wrong way...like me, I'm the problem, it's me, lol.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it's common in arts programs, but in my experience it does exist to some level.  I think that the nature of science and math where there's a correct answer that can be looked up or calculated makes it less prone to the problem.  This is actually the main reason that I majored in an Engineering program rather than English.  I ran across an English high school teacher who wouldn't give me good marks for anything that I wrote.  And wouldn't give me any actionable advice to improve.  There was nothing at all I could do to improve my mark in her class, just had to take it on the chin and hope for a different teacher in the next English class (which I did get, and then had no problems getting great marks).

[Metalcat]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

That's a bummer. I have multiple liberal arts degrees and don't recall running into professors who explicitly behaved in this way. We had a lot of rather spirited, sometimes heated, discussions on topics where people held a range of views and don't know of anyone who was demonized over it. I even remember one sociology course where one guy and professor would routinely have long back and forths and there was no clear animosity and he did well in the class.

To the bolded, why do you think there would be a gendered split on this? Who women not also struggle in that environment?

Maybe not so much a male/female thing as an "engineering brain" kind of thing. I was not just mentally prepared or equipped to share "how I feel" about certain topics. Also, there were several cases when I witnessed STEM students being 'picked-on' by a few professors who actually had us raise our hands as he called out majors on day-one. You know, "just out of curiosity". Turns out he needed examples of future "corporate cogs" to dis a bit during his very passionate lectures. I am very liberal leaning myself but having to listen to a few of the most vocal, yet empty-headed students stroke an instructor's ego all semester was excrutiating. If I needed a lesson in ass-kissing, well there it was.

Yeah, this sounds nuts to me, I've never experienced anything like this in my various degrees, which have ranged from STEM to liberal arts.

I've had profs who desperately need their egos strokes, I have one right now and she makes me deeply murder-y, but that usually manifests more in personal bullshit with individual students who rub them the wrong way...like me, I'm the problem, it's me, lol.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it's common in arts programs, but in my experience it does exist to some level.  I think that the nature of science and math where there's a correct answer that can be looked up or calculated makes it less prone to the problem.  This is actually the main reason that I majored in an Engineering program rather than English.  I ran across an English high school teacher who wouldn't give me good marks for anything that I wrote.  And wouldn't give me any actionable advice to improve.  There was nothing at all I could do to improve my mark in her class, just had to take it on the chin and hope for a different teacher in the next English class (which I did get, and then had no problems getting great marks).

Yes, I've obviously had courses where the marking is more subjective, I'm currently in a program where there are no exams, only papers.

What I haven't had are instructors who are blatantly, publicly biased against groups of students due to absurd ideological reasons.

I've had plenty of instructors who are petty for personal reasons, I've been hated by more than a few because I'm an asshole, but that's personal.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

I've also worked with countless high performing professionals tackling pathological perfectionism, and it's been predominantly a women's issue, because they have been conditioned to perceive *any* degree of failure as unacceptable, and that working yourself to death is a given.

I forget the full list of traits that go with conscientiousness, but perfectionism is one of them.  You mentioned nurture ("conditioned to"), but nature probably plays a role as well.  Most psychological traits have non-zero heritability according to the book "Blueprint" (by Robert Plomin, one of the most-cited psychologists of the 20th century).

[Metalcat]

I've also worked with countless high performing professionals tackling pathological perfectionism, and it's been predominantly a women's issue, because they have been conditioned to perceive *any* degree of failure as unacceptable, and that working yourself to death is a given.

I forget the full list of traits that go with conscientiousness, but perfectionism is one of them.  You mentioned nurture ("conditioned to"), but nature probably plays a role as well.  Most psychological traits have non-zero heritability according to the book "Blueprint" (by Robert Plomin, one of the most-cited psychologists of the 20th century).

Yep the interplay between predispositions and nurture is pretty complex. I've been studying this kind of thing for a few decades and what's fun is seeing so many of the previous interpretations of research fall apart as we better come to understand just how little we actually know.

I have a few psych degrees and used to work in developmental neuroscience, and now work in mental health (with a little detour into the blood and gore side of the medical world for awhile), and the more I learn, the more I see how fantastically limited our grasp of these things is.

Which is kind of fun, actually.

[Ron Scott]

"In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-022-09716-5

You left out the typical disclaimer is this kind of research, which was contained in the next sentence:

“In recent decades, female students have been more successful…..levels of conscientiousness among women. Using Structural Equation Modeling on data from 4719 Dutch university students, this study examined to what extent conscientiousness can account for the gender gap in achievement.”

This kind of research is exploratory and often goes round in circles.

[Log]

I guess another idea to bring into this convo is the gender equality paradox.

This is the finding that in cultures with the highest levels of gender equality (Iceland, Norway, etc.) that gender differences become more pronounced, not less so. The US might not be an international leader, but we have certainly made enormous progress on gender equality in the last few decades, so it’s fair to say that a large portion of men and women’s current struggles to understand each other/get along is a natural consequence of our success, in that we’re more different from each other than ever before.

This is very unintuitive and frustrating for the kinds of activists who thought gender differences would evaporate with equality.

[partgypsy]

There exists a marked gender gap between girls and boys as far as education goes.  This is measurable, and happens from a young age (has been shown to start by the age of 5).  Right now, women are 7-14% more likely to hold a bachelor's degree in all US states than men.  Boys are about 7% less likely to graduate on time from high school than girls.

Are we attributing this to a culturally instilled laziness on the part of boys, a sex related problem with the way the educational system works, or an inherent male intelligence weakness?  Or some combination?

"In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-022-09716-5

My personal experience being a woman in university on and off over the last 2 decades is also that among the higher performers in each of my programs, there was an explicit sentiment that women needed to work A LOT harder than men to be taken as seriously.

The first PI I worked for openly stated in 2004 that he preferably took on female grad students because they would put in so much more work than the male grad students.

I've also worked with countless high performing professionals tackling pathological perfectionism, and it's been predominantly a women's issue, because they have been conditioned to perceive *any* degree of failure as unacceptable, and that working yourself to death is a given.

This is also why I deal with so much burnout among high performing professional women. Men obviously burnout as well, but the burnout I see among elite women is often catastrophic and features a lot of severe physiological symptoms, which are often irreversible because they go so hard their bodies have to start shutting down before they'll ease off the gas.

(raises hand) when I was a female post doc, I had this mindset. You push yourself. You disregard your body. I had a medical event, then put on a medication for the medical thing. Unknown to me I had a sensitive toxicity reaction to the med, that kept getting worse and worse over the course of less than a week.
I just kept going to work. On a day I should have just stayed home, Short story went into work, couldn't actually work, tried to get back home, fell in the street and ended up in the hospital for 4 days being monitored for the real danger of my heart going into arrhythmia or into a coma from the med levels in my system
This mentality was not gender specific.  There was a male post doc in the same program who was being looked askance at having terrible headaches that sometimes interfered with his work. he had a brain tumor! Basically took almost no time off, either, getting that taken care of.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

"In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-022-09716-5

You left out the typical disclaimer is this kind of research, which was contained in the next sentence:

“In recent decades, female students have been more successful…..levels of conscientiousness among women. Using Structural Equation Modeling on data from 4719 Dutch university students, this study examined to what extent conscientiousness can account for the gender gap in achievement.”

This kind of research is exploratory and often goes round in circles.

Has it gone around in circles for the past 100 years?

"Evidence from more than 100 y of research indicates that conscientiousness (C) is the most potent noncognitive construct for occupational performance."
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1908430116

Or is your problem that I didn't cite enough studies?

"Conscientiousness as a key to success for academic achievement among French university students enrolled in management studies"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S147281171730407X

"Previous research has established that a relationship exists between the personality trait of conscientiousness and academic achievement."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267827175_Conscientiousness_and_Academic_Performance_A_Mediational_Analysis

"Cognitive ability is the most powerful predictor of academic achievement. However, increasing attention is being paid to the role of personality traits in students’ academic achievement. Results indicate incremental effects beyond cognitive ability, especially for conscientiousness."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08902070221127065

[Sugaree]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

I graduated from a small public university in 2012 with a Computer Science degree.  My experience was that aside from the first two programming classes, which were required for the math education majors, I was one of only two, maybe three, females in my classes. 

Funny (?) story.  When I went back to school, I already had one degree so a lot of my general ed classes had already been taken care of.  For the first couple of semesters I was limited in what I could take because of pre-requisites.  So, during my first or second semester, I took a game design class.  This was a class that didn't have any pre-requisites and was open to a variety of majors (the ideal makeup of the group for the final project would have included an art/graphic design major and a music major).  For the first month of that project, I was relegated to the artwork for the game.  I don't know if it was necessarily because I was the only girl in the group or if it was because I was a newer student, but I told them from the beginning that I was a programmer and that I suck at artwork.  About two weeks before the project was due, the project leader realized that without major help it wasn't going to be finished by the deadline.  I think he'd also decided to drop the CS major and focus on whatever other degree he was trying to double major in, so he was even more checked out than he had been during the rest of that cluster of a project.  I finished the game with little to no input from the rest of the group, turned it in, and got an A.  Out of the 4 other group members that we started with, only one of them even acknowledged that I'd saved their ass on that one.  To be fair, the music guy did eventually email us to let us know he'd been in jail and that's why he hadn't been in class.

[Tyson]

Electrical engineering at my state university back in the 80s ...there would be one maybe two females in my classes. It is still mostly males but there are many more females in STEM fields these days. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the few female engineers at my company were exceptionally productive and rose through the ranks. I can't attest to the level of sexual discrimination they may have suffered.

We did have a few humanities courses included in our first two years. In one class, the instructor was not too subtle: if you did not agree with his political bent, you would not be getting high marks. I was dumbfounded. In one social study course your grade was linked to how vocal you got during discussions. Really? Later I went for an MBA. It was a lot of the same pandering. When the subject matter got the least bit technical (FV of money, probability, buy/lease, etc.), it would often get glossed over and go largely untested on midterms and finals. The stuff I loved. This was all to maintain the average GPA and pass rate, no doubt (in engineering they had no issues with failing 66.667% of the class.)

I would become frustrated, bored and do very poorly in a liberal arts program if this is the way they are administered. I do not think a public university should take any political stands or have professors who are so biased with their instruction. You are there to learn how to think, not to be told what to think. And to pay that much money for a degree? Why aren't the professors fighting against that? I can understand why some males at least, do not do very well in that environment.

I graduated from a small public university in 2012 with a Computer Science degree.  My experience was that aside from the first two programming classes, which were required for the math education majors, I was one of only two, maybe three, females in my classes. 

Funny (?) story.  When I went back to school, I already had one degree so a lot of my general ed classes had already been taken care of.  For the first couple of semesters I was limited in what I could take because of pre-requisites.  So, during my first or second semester, I took a game design class.  This was a class that didn't have any pre-requisites and was open to a variety of majors (the ideal makeup of the group for the final project would have included an art/graphic design major and a music major).  For the first month of that project, I was relegated to the artwork for the game.  I don't know if it was necessarily because I was the only girl in the group or if it was because I was a newer student, but I told them from the beginning that I was a programmer and that I suck at artwork.  About two weeks before the project was due, the project leader realized that without major help it wasn't going to be finished by the deadline.  I think he'd also decided to drop the CS major and focus on whatever other degree he was trying to double major in, so he was even more checked out than he had been during the rest of that cluster of a project.  I finished the game with little to no input from the rest of the group, turned it in, and got an A.  Out of the 4 other group members that we started with, only one of them even acknowledged that I'd saved their ass on that one.  To be fair, the music guy did eventually email us to let us know he'd been in jail and that's why he hadn't been in class.

This is something my daughter (now son, he's trans) also struggles with.  High intelligence plus conscientiousness means he has to shoulder the majority of the work in any group project.  It's not fair and he knows it.  But he also knows, from experience, that it's the only way to actually turn in quality work. 

[jrhampt]

Ha.  haha.  Yes, "group" projects.  I was one of only a couple female engineering students in the entire program, and group projects generally ended with me doing most of the work since I actually wanted to get a good grade vs. fail out playing whatever video game was going around 24x7.

This may be a bit of a metaphor for life actually...we're tired of doing all the work re raising kids and keeping house etc on top of the full time job, and we're opting out of that because it's supposed to be a team effort.

[Metalcat]

Ha.  haha.  Yes, "group" projects.  I was one of only a couple female engineering students in the entire program, and group projects generally ended with me doing most of the work since I actually wanted to get a good grade vs. fail out playing whatever video game was going around 24x7.

This may be a bit of a metaphor for life actually...we're tired of doing all the work re raising kids and keeping house etc on top of the full time job, and we're opting out of that because it's supposed to be a team effort.

Same. I've always done all of the group work, it got to the point that I just proactively did it and let the guys in my group coast on my work because trying to manage them was more effort than just doing the work myself, and yeah, I cared a lot about my grades and wasn't willing to accept the grades they were okay with.

[Michael in ABQ]

Ha.  haha.  Yes, "group" projects.  I was one of only a couple female engineering students in the entire program, and group projects generally ended with me doing most of the work since I actually wanted to get a good grade vs. fail out playing whatever video game was going around 24x7.

This may be a bit of a metaphor for life actually...we're tired of doing all the work re raising kids and keeping house etc on top of the full time job, and we're opting out of that because it's supposed to be a team effort.

Same. I've always done all of the group work, it got to the point that I just proactively did it and let the guys in my group coast on my work because trying to manage them was more effort than just doing the work myself, and yeah, I cared a lot about my grades and wasn't willing to accept the grades they were okay with.

I would guess almost everyone on this forum (male and female) was the member in their group project that just did all the work and got mad at the freeloaders. Low-achieving freeloaders aren't exactly the type to strive for FIRE.

[bluecollarmusician]

I would guess almost everyone on this forum (male and female) was the member in their group project that just did all the work and got mad at the freeloaders. Low-achieving freeloaders aren't exactly the type to strive for FIRE.

Second this statement....

[Telecaster]

My personal experience being a woman in university on and off over the last 2 decades is also that among the higher performers in each of my programs, there was an explicit sentiment that women needed to work A LOT harder than men to be taken as seriously.

I spent my career in a male dominated industry, and 100% for sure women had to work harder to get take seriously.   I don't think it is nearly as bad as it used to be, but the Boys Club is a thing.  All things being equal, if I need a medical professional my age I would select a woman every time because I know she outworked her male colleagues.

[dividendman]

Earlier in the thread there are several posts referring to males who watch tiktok, porn and play video games as "losers" just getting their dopamine hits... I'm curious as to why these are "loser" activities and what are the "winner" activities for these folks?

[Metalcat]

Earlier in the thread there are several posts referring to males who watch tiktok, porn and play video games as "losers" just getting their dopamine hits... I'm curious as to why these are "loser" activities and what are the "winner" activities for these folks?

I did a quick search and found a single poster who characterized men like this as "losers" and one other poster who characterized abusive men as "losers." But I wouldn't say that this thread has an abundance of consensus on men who watch tiktok, porn and play video games as "losers."

I've seen people comment that excessive consumption of social media, porn, and video games is probably contributing to a decline in young men's social skills, which is a legit concern.

[RetiredAt63]

Ha.  haha.  Yes, "group" projects.  I was one of only a couple female engineering students in the entire program, and group projects generally ended with me doing most of the work since I actually wanted to get a good grade vs. fail out playing whatever video game was going around 24x7.

This may be a bit of a metaphor for life actually...we're tired of doing all the work re raising kids and keeping house etc on top of the full time job, and we're opting out of that because it's supposed to be a team effort.

Same. I've always done all of the group work, it got to the point that I just proactively did it and let the guys in my group coast on my work because trying to manage them was more effort than just doing the work myself, and yeah, I cared a lot about my grades and wasn't willing to accept the grades they were okay with.

I would guess almost everyone on this forum (male and female) was the member in their group project that just did all the work and got mad at the freeloaders. Low-achieving freeloaders aren't exactly the type to strive for FIRE.

This happened to my daughter too.  In elementary school.  One boy straight out told her he knew she wanted a good grade and would do the work and not to expect much from him.  It starts young.

[Metalcat]

Ha.  haha.  Yes, "group" projects.  I was one of only a couple female engineering students in the entire program, and group projects generally ended with me doing most of the work since I actually wanted to get a good grade vs. fail out playing whatever video game was going around 24x7.

This may be a bit of a metaphor for life actually...we're tired of doing all the work re raising kids and keeping house etc on top of the full time job, and we're opting out of that because it's supposed to be a team effort.

Same. I've always done all of the group work, it got to the point that I just proactively did it and let the guys in my group coast on my work because trying to manage them was more effort than just doing the work myself, and yeah, I cared a lot about my grades and wasn't willing to accept the grades they were okay with.

I would guess almost everyone on this forum (male and female) was the member in their group project that just did all the work and got mad at the freeloaders. Low-achieving freeloaders aren't exactly the type to strive for FIRE.

Oh, of course, but the point of the multiple women posting is that it's considered very normal and acceptable for men in groupwork to dump work on women. It's not just that it happens, it's expected.

I'm currently in a female-dominated grad school program and I still do the bulk of the group work because I have no patience or interest in managing my classmates, but it's like pulling teeth to get them to let me do it. The difference from my male-dominated program days is stark.

[bluecollarmusician]

Oh, of course, but the point of the multiple women posting is that it's considered very normal and acceptable for men in groupwork to dump work on women. It's not just that it happens, it's expected.

Considered very normal, acceptable, and expected by whom?

I don't think @Michael in ABQ was discounting the experiences that women on this forum have shared.  He said (and I agree) that in this self-selected group that the majority are not "free loaders."  Most here were probably higher performers who picked up the slack in group work situations- so maybe a lot of men who also relate to the "everyone knew I was a hard worker and slacked off in the group and I ended up doing most of the work."  I don't mean to speak for him, but that was my experience as well.

[Metalcat]

Oh, of course, but the point of the multiple women posting is that it's considered very normal and acceptable for men in groupwork to dump work on women. It's not just that it happens, it's expected.

Considered very normal, acceptable, and expected by whom?

I don't think @Michael in ABQ was discounting the experiences that women on this forum have shared.  He said (and I agree) that in this self-selected group that the majority are not "free loaders."  Most here were probably higher performers who picked up the slack in group work situations- so maybe a lot of men who also relate to the "everyone knew I was a hard worker and slacked off in the group and I ended up doing most of the work."  I don't mean to speak for him, but that was my experience as well.

I wasn't saying he was discounting anything I was just clarifying that a lot of us have experienced being the only woman in an academic group and work being dumped on us. When there's a female gunner in a group project, it's kind of default that work gets dumped on her.

I've heard this said out loud by men many times, like "score, I'm in a group with Grace!" Because these women are so nakedly aggressive about getting too grades, it becomes known that if you work with them, you can just phone it in.

In every program I've been in, the most aggressive grades gunners have always been women, so it's normal and expected that they'll readily take over group work to secure an A+.