Sexism in Higher Education

The 2010 national breakdown in the United States: for every 100 men, 142 women graduated with a bachelor's degree; 159 women completed a master's degree, and 107 women earned a doctoral degree. Trend lines indicate that the imbalance is only getting worse. Go here for details. I agree with one of the commenters to the thread. The pump that produces the inequality is primed in middle school if not before. Since I work with 7^th and 8^th graders, I see it with my own eyes. Boys are not socialized in a way that allows them to compete on a par with girls in a knowledge economy.

It’s part of a larger problem in which the specific contribution of men to particular niches of social ecology – the family, the workplace, church and synagogue - is not valued whereas the specific contribution of women is. There are exceptions to this rule, but that's what they are: exceptions.

Our culture no less than previous cultures is crisscrossed by routinized patterns of gender complementation. Patterns of imbalance are, according to old-school social theory, indices of social oppression. That is an oversimplification, but one thing is clear. Current trends in the socialization of boys disadvantages them in countless ways.

Feminists and anti-feminists alike continue to fight yesterday’s wars. A pox on both their houses. Neither offers even a first approach to the real issues of the generation of boys and girls I see coming through the pipeline. 

Comments

[Mike Aubrey]

I'd be curious what that difference looks like in terms of degrees in religion, particularly Mdivs, Dmins, or any PhD in Biblical studies.

[Colin Toffelmire]

A pox on both their houses indeed. I have long felt that what we need now, what we need in a culture that has done a lot of very good things to create the possibility of equality between women and men, is a new definition of what it is to be a man. I think that a big part of the reason that boys are not socialized in a way that will allow them to compete is that our notion of male-ness is all out of whack. And it's not just that to be a man I need to watch UFC, eat pure lard out of a vat, and hang a pair of steel testicles from the trailer hitch of my pickup truck. There is another problem, which is that if I don't accept that gross stereotype of manliness, then I can't have any identity at all that is based upon gender. There are few alternate accounts of "man." I want my son to grow up to love and value women and to see them as equals in every way. But I also want him to grow up to see the value of being a man, and to think of himself as a man in the most positive of senses. I think that we've come a long way in moving beyond caricatures of femininity, and that it's time to do the same for masculinity.

[john]

So what is this 'first approach'?

[JohnFH]

Hi Mike,

I imagine there are comprehensive studies, I'm not familiar with them.

It is clear that the picture is differentiated in the extreme, and the velocity of change is often breathtaking. In some liberal Protestant and liberal Jewish contexts, the feminization of the traditionally male occupations of pastor and rabbi, respectively, has already led to imbalances in the seminaries of the kind the statistics above bespeak. That's with respect to degrees that figure among the requirements for ordination, not just degrees that set one up to teach in higher education. In the latter case, it is an advantage in a large part of the job market to be a woman, though in some conservative settings, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox, it makes one unmarketable.

For example, I attended the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. Yes, there are a few nuns that teach and a few nuns that earn degrees at the Greg, but for the most part, it is priests teaching priests. I note this without any intention to criticize.

In many settings, old exclusions are re-contextualized in a social ecology in which highly trained women do as much as if not more work than the men. For example, that is how it works in most bustling Catholic parishes I am familiar with.

[Justin R]

Its funny that you just posted this. I just had a conversation this morning with a coworker about how there is a trend in modern comedies that define married men as bumbling ooofs. There was a time when men like Bill Cosby were portrayed in the media as strong competent fathers. The wifes were equally strong and competent in unique ways as well. I suppose the best male figure we can hope for today is a Homer Simpson whose has an endearing kind of stupidity.

Cultural sexism extends its borders far beyond the academic world it seems.

[JohnFH]

Hi Colin,

I agree with everything you said about the need for specifically male socialization that is not (only) about trucks and guns and whatnot, just as female socialization has long since moved past being (only) about ballet slippers and everything pink.

But I'm not sure that girls and women have workable models they aspire to, or shoes they seek to fill. They find the path to excelling in school mostly downhill, at least in a middle to upper class environment, and for that I am thankful, even if, perversely, the downhill for girls seems to built on the uphill for boys. It is not too much to think of it as reverse sexism.

My daughter Betta whom you know, shadowed a pediatrician for a day because she is thinking about becoming a pediatrician. She asked to do so with a pediatrician who is a woman with children - her own pediatrician, a man, was rather ticked that she didn't shadow him - and was heartened and disheartened at the same time.

Things work for this pediatrician because she can be on call and be subject to the crazy hours of a pediatrician only because her husband is a stay-at-home Dad or close to it. Not surprisingly from a sociological point of view, the setup, while not traditional, is based on inequality and imbalance no less than the traditional one.

So what if you marry someone who is just as gung ho about having a profession as you are? It makes no sense at all to paper over these difficulties. They are real and the cause of many trials and tribulations.

It may help a little if one is an egalitarian on paper. But in practice, egalitarians run into the same problems as non-egalitarians and are often blindsided by them, because egalitarianism was wrongly thought to solve such problems at the root. Not so. In a sense, they exacerbate them.

[terri]

Do you really think that it is because of a lack of socialization?

The problem with that argument is that it privileges higher education and academic/professional careers as somehow being what everyone aspires to.

What I mean is that there are various occupations which are still dominated by men ranging from the physical/trade types: mechanic, electrician, contractor, etc.to the business/managerial type. Despite the awarding of degrees, I would be interested how the actual occupational statistics play out.

I would predict that many of those degrees that are showing up in the female statistics are still in gender-stereotypical occupation, teachers, nurses, social workers...etc.

I'm not saying that women can't or don't earn degrees in the hard sciences or stereotypical "male" professions.

What I am saying is that the options for women are different. A man can learn a trade without pursuing higher education and still make quite a bit of money....probably more than many professionals. Women could always do that too, but I would venture to guess that most of them don't stop and think, "Hey, I could make a great living as a plumber!"

If a woman wants to make a similar amount of money as an un-degree-ed man, she's going to have to get an education because there are less trades for her to do that. Being a hair dresser/stylist would probably be the only equivalent stereotypical trade.

I don't think it's good socialization of women versus bad socialization of men as much as it's gender socialization playing out in higher education

[JohnFH]

Hi John,

From my perch, I work hard, but not hard enough, at calling boys and men to responsibility, to the use of their gifts, and to the joys of masculinity. At modeling things like fatherhood, thoughtful decision-making (rather than being lazy and delegating that to women in a passive-aggressive sort of way), authority on-behalf-of (rather than authority based solely on an objective criterion - a trap women, paradoxically, fall into even more than men, outside of kinder-kuche-kirche).

It takes extra work because girls and women by and large tend to be pleasers in a way boys and men are not. There is instant gratification from the work of authority-giving to girls and women. Boys and men are more difficult to read. Part of the problem is that we live in a highly sexualized society, such that we respond to opposite-sex signalling, and often inappropriately, whereas we have forgotten how to read same-sex signals. All signalling, from a phenomenological point of view, has an erotic dimension, which poses a host of concomitant difficulties. Somehow we have to recover the "I'm your brother, you're my brother" form of eros. If I'm being too cryptic, let me know.

[JohnFH]

Justin,

You're right. What full-bodied positive role models are there for men (or women)? Specifically, for men (and women) in the knowledge economy?

That show "The Office" is hilarious in that respect. There is a lot going on in the various shows that deal with crime investigation, law, and medicine. But hardly any of these people are raising a family, being faithful to a spouse, with an active spiritual life and a commitment to a community of faith and giving back to the community through volunteer work. TV and the movies are escapist by definition almost. But I keep hoping for better. In some ways, "The Good Wife" this year was refreshing, but I think the writer ran out of good ideas halfway through the season.

[Seth Sanders]

Colin, don't disrespect Trucknutz (TM) or I will have to go all Internet Tough Guy on you.

I'd add that the gender-typical role of social 'pleaser' seems to create a bizarre pattern in academics where it is easier for women to begin scholarly careers but harder for them to follow them through. Keeping the human aspiration for family off the radar, careerwise, is terribly problematic; from a traditionalist point of view because it devalues child-rearing, and from an egalitarian point of view because it effectively discriminates against women.

[JohnFH]

Hi Terri,

First of all, what people aspire to do is a product of socialization. In particular, men are being socialized to think that they are not cut out for "caring" professions, all of which, to one degree or another, are knowledge-based more than ever.

A weird case in point is how the profession of veterinarian went from being predominantly male to predominantly female in a very short span of time. I think of caring professions as ennobling to the extent that equal socialization to caring professions is a justice-based goal and a contribution to the common weal.

While I do not equate imbalances in occupational aspirations to structures of oppression, I think gender inequality in both degree-ed and undegree-ed occupation bears analysis. How does socialization codetermine inequalities? What kind of (in)equalities do suggest structural oppression? What are the social costs involved in the current configuration, and who bears them? As usual, I have more questions than answers.

In terms of social centrality, self-esteem, purchasing power, and other quality of life issues, the sector of the economy that is knowledge-based and requires a college degree has much in its favor. So I think these statistical trends raise a lot of red flags.

[JohnFH]

Seth,

Something like that happens among women clergy too. My wife Paola wrote a masters' dissertation on the topic for McCormick Theological Seminary.

Furthermore, a growing number of men now compromise their careers in order to "spend more time with their family." That is not always a euphemism for having nothing more to say or having been laid low and getting out of the way before things get even worse.

Plenty of unresolved problems out there. I don't think a sort of steady state or equilibrium point has yet been reached.

[Sue]

This is certainly due to socialization. There is an enormous gender wage gap for those without advanced degrees. If women became plumbers, electricians and firefighters, the imbalance would begin to level off.

However, in this country it will never level off because although women could be plumbers, they simply do not have the physique for the oil rigs or logging.

I have many colleagues with a university degree happily paired off with plumbers, firefighters and oil workers. I have never read any statistic that says that such a union is less to be desired than two phds getting together.

[Sue]

As it happens my plumber does have a degree in education, but he found that the many years spent at a low pay as a teacher on call made it difficult for him to become a full time teacher and he retrained as a plumber to make a better living. His wife is an engineer and somewhat older. They are rather happy and a mutually respectful couple with a newly adopted baby. I can't really find fault with this model.

If it were easier to be hired as a teacher, there would be a lot more men in the job, no doubt. At this time many teachers are married women who were able to work at a lower wage for many years before getting a full wage.

[Sue]

Here is what I was looking for,

"According to Statistics Canada data for 2005, for full-time, full-year workers in Canada—the most common measure of the gender gap in income—women earned just 70.5 per cent of what men earned, a number which hasn’t improved since 2000. When all types of work—including part-time and other non-standard work—are looked at, women earn just 64 per cent of men’s salaries.

In part this disparity is because most employment for women continues to be concentrated in a handful of traditional sectors, with two-thirds working in teaching, nursing or other related health care fields, clerical positions or sales and service jobs in the retail sector. Meanwhile, women still hold just seven per cent of jobs in transportation, trades and construction, and just a third of all manufacturing jobs.

With women holding only 7 per cent of jobs in the trades, the gap is gargantuan.

[JohnFH]

I'm surprised, Sue, that you defend the status quo of socialization if it involves men, however well-paid, playing the role of Martha rather than Mary, so that women can have the role of Mary.

On other occasions you have shown sympathy for the felt need for more male teachers at the elementary school level. Here in the upper Midwest, furthermore, elementary school teachers have an excellent set of benefits and a degree of job security that rivals or beats most manufacturing jobs. What is true in Canada is not generalizable to the US. I would suggest once again that socialization AKA gender-stereotyping pressures are the constant. All of this bears analysis rather than an apologia.

I have trouble with apologetics in general. It's no different here. It's as if you are offering a theodicy / ideological justification for the status quo of socialization.

A pox on feminism when it comes to the question at hand. It has yet to show that it cares about men.

Money doesn't make up for socialization that tends to confine one gender to a life of the body as opposed to a life of the mind.

Happiness and unhappiness come in many flavors. What matters most of all is that a relationship is suffused with the qualities spoken of in 1 Corinthians 13.

Yet, even if we know that all notional (as opposed to relational) knowledge has a limited shelf life, a life of the mind is not a minor good in life. I am very impressed by one of my brothers-in-law who, though he was making excellent, excellent money as a lineman for a public utility, after marrying my sister who is an RN went back to school and became a chiropractor. It was an act of love on his part so that they might have more in common. He was the first and only one of his siblings I believe to get a college degree and leave the trades behind.

I would be the last to deny that he chose the better part. He is a socially central figure in the life of his community in a way he could never have been if he had remained a linesman.

[Gary Simmons]

I would like to see this Great Wall of labor imbalance be torn down. I refer both to the difference in pay between sexes and the disparity in education. I'd be cautious to assume we should stop affirmative action to aid female college students, but I wouldn't mind getting some scholarships myself. Money happens to be the deciding factor for me at the moment. Hopefully I'll get a job soon and can start saving toward a car... then I'll be able to work out something about finishing my undergrad degree.

John, I hate to be a beggar, but do any ideas spring to mind?

[Sue]

Money doesn't make up for socialization that tends to confine one gender to a life of the body as opposed to a life of the mind.

I simply don't share your presuppositions here.

Here in the upper Midwest, furthermore, elementary school teachers have an excellent set of benefits and a degree of job security that rivals or beats most manufacturing jobs.

That is also true in Canada. However, it can take several years of working on call before on gains a full time position. Many men do not feel that they can afford this if they feel the need to earn a living right away. Women often become teachers in order to earn the second income in the family. I would like to see more men in teaching, but at the moment I understand completely why there are so few. I wish the conditions could be changed. There is some movement recently to improve the pay of the teacher on call. It is a step in the right direction.

I am not defending the status quo, with regard to the gender imbalance in trades or in education.
However, I do defend the capacity of the tradesperson for a "life of the mind."

[JohnFH]

Is it the case, Gary, that female college students have access to a disproportional amount of scholarship aid? If so, given the statistics at the top of this post, a political issue of significance is lurking here.

I would be in favor of a combination of equal opportunity and affirmative action measures with a view to reversing current trends with respect to the knowledge-based economy and the caring professions, in the context of an informed debate on the topic in the public square. I think a reversal of current trends is in the best interest, not only of men in particular, but of society as a whole.

One of my nieces was just accepted into a very expensive and very good nursing program at Marquette University, a private Catholic school, made possible by an ROTC scholarship. Another possibility in many states, join the National Guard and go through school on that basis. I realize these options are unpalatable to many, because they are not part one's family tradition, because of issues of conscience, or both.

From that last point of view, however, I might very well wish that more people of conscience chose to serve in the military.

Two Sundays ago there was a baptism, one of the godparents, very young, very earnest, cornered me after the service. "I have to ask you about something." "What's up?" I asked. He said that he would be shipping off to Afghanistan in a couple of weeks. He drew a deep breath and asked with difficulty, "Is it wrong to kill?" I looked at him with as much compassion as I could muster and said, "It is always wrong to kill. Always. Yet you may very well be asked to kill someone in order to make it less likely that others will be killed. You should feel really bad about the prospect of killing someone, and it is to be expected that you will feel miserable if you do." It was like a great burden lifted from his shoulders. I had given him permission to feel awful about killing. It's that kind of soldier I want fighting in Afghanistan, not the "kill the bastards" kind.

[Sue]

I'd be cautious to assume we should stop affirmative action to aid female college students, but I wouldn't mind getting some scholarships myself. Money happens to be the deciding factor for me at the moment. Hopefully I'll get a job soon and can start saving toward a car... then I'll be able to work out something about finishing my undergrad degree.

Gary,

I don't think we have affirmative action for women in Canadian universities. I am incredibly grateful for my opportunity to go to college and as a mother it is my foremost preoccupation to provide this for my children if they desire it. I regret for you that a university education is so expensive in NA and especially in the USA.

However, I also respect those who work in the skilled trades. I think in Europe tradespeople have much higher prestige than in North America. I regret the difference in prestige found in NA and I believe it is unhealthy.

[JohnFH]

Sue,

You say:

I do defend the capacity of the tradesperson for a "life of the mind."

Of course, but we are talking about sociological trends, not individuals who are exceptions to what trends say is the rule. Social policy needs to base itself on trends. The trend is that people in the trades are less likely to cultivate intellectual and spiritual pursuits than those who are plugged into the knowledge economy by occupation. At least, that is what I see around me in supply and demand situations.

A similar point might be made with respect to being a caregiver in life and being plugged into the caregiving economy, by vocation or "avocation" (often, on the basis of religious convictions).

[JohnFH]

I also think it is very important to talk to people in the trades, skilled and unskilled. Much depends on whether they are in business for themselves, or a cog in a corporate machine or public bureaucracy where people's chief delight is ripping off the system.

Unskilled laborers deserve the greatest respect of all. I know what it is like. I worked the night shift as a janitor for a busy hotel one summer. I always chat them up, wherever and whenever. Most people ignore them. They might as well not be people. But it's hard to find a janitor who hopes his son or daughter will follow in his footsteps. There are quality of life issues at stake.

[Sue]

John,

I am not sure that women are more plugged into the knowledge economy than men. I really don't know if that is true, but I would not deduce that simply from university attendance.

I also don't know who will be plumbers if someone succeeds at shifting men away from this profession. Perhaps if there were affirmative action to increase female participation in the trades from seven per cent to something higher the stats could be shifted. Is this what you are proposing?

I too would like to see more men in the care giving vocations. However, salary increases in these professions have not kept up with salaries in more masculine dominated fields like computer science and engineering.

I am not sure if any of this is indicative of current social trends which disadvantage boys. Longitudinally the university participation of males is much higher than it used to be, but the participation of females has simply increased at a faster rate due to their lack of other opportunities in trades, labour and military.

[Sue]

a cog in a corporate machine or public bureaucracy where people's chief delight is ripping off the system.

I am sorry but I cannot keep up with your stereotypes. I bow out.

[Sue]

http://betterbibles.com/2006/09/12/a-heart-of-compassion/

This is a post I wrote about a conversation I had with our school janitor. But I did not think of it as "chatting him up." Okay, now I will try to bow out. This conversation is getting odder and odder.

[JohnFH]

LOL, Sue. "Chatting someone up" in my neck of the woods is an expression for initiating a friendly conversation with someone.

As for stereotypes, they are the coin of the realm of sociology. For example, it is typical of sociology to work on the assumption that college degrees and the knowledge economy go hand in hand. The knowledge economy by definition requires advanced degrees in order to get a job therein. To say so is a form of stereotyping, but a necessary form of stereotyping.

It was Marx and Engels who talked about the importance of owning the means of production and the alienation (their word) that occurs when such is not the case. Sorry if it rubbed you the wrong way insofar as I write as if they were insightful on this score. In this sense I am certainly old-fashioned or, to use your language, odd. I take your characterization as a compliment.

At the moment, in the US something like 1 out of 5 males between the ages of 25 and 55 out of work without any decent prospects for a satisfactory change in situation. President Obama's point man on the matter, former Harvard dean Larry Summers, has set a goal to reduce that to 1 out of 6. This government's response is weak by their own admission.

I don't believe for a minute that the Republicans care more about people outside of the knowledge economy than do Democrats, but the enormous discontent with the current Administration's priorities has already and will continue to manifest itself politically in a shift to the right. When the left abandons the working classes from their point of view, this is the usual scenario.

[Sue]

The knowledge economy by definition requires advanced degrees in order to get a job therein. To say so is a form of stereotyping, but a necessary form of stereotyping.

But having an advanced degree does not guarantee a job in the knowledge economy. There should also be some acknowledgement that women earn 64% of what men earn. I don't see how this scenario can be styled as the "disadvantaged males".

The verb CHAT UP has 2 senses:

1. talk or behave amorously, without serious intentions
2. talk to someone with the aim of persuading him

There is, in my understanding, something slightly unpleasant about "chatting someone up." It indicates objectifying the other person in some way, and not treating them as a friend and equal. That's just how I understand the word and it seems to be supported by popular definitions. But I will accept that you don't really mean that, although you still don't think of these people as having a "life of the mind."

Certainly there are problems in the economy, but styling males as disadvantaged in comparison to females, has some difficulties.

[terri]

Umm...parts of this conversation strike me as unwittingly elitist.

The life of the mind is not better than the life of the body. Hopefully everybody learns to have a little bit of each at some point in their lives, but an academic/professional who doesn't know how his car works, or can't change out an outlet, or replace his window screens, or handle basic repair issues is no better than a plumber who doesn't ever read a book, or have discussions about things that aren't plumbing-related.

There is great satisfaction in making things, fixing things, building things and knowing how to solve very practical problems. I don't think anyone should be looked down upon because they enjoy that type of work .

Also, tradesmen aren't just sweating away all day. They have to understand how to work with people, how to solve problems and please their customers. It may not require a "life of the mind" but it does require being able to work with people, understand what their customers want, and negotiate the terms of their work.

Tradespeople are not idiots with a bunch of muscles, who are only good for keeping the "knowledge economy" going.

Trust me, when you find a great mechanic, plumber, electrician or contractor...you have found gold.

[JohnFH]

Sue,

I'm glad you are willing to accept that not everyone uses the expression "chatting someone up" in the same way. The Urban Dictionary definition #1 goes like this: "a friendly conversation between friends." Perhaps in your urban environment this definition does not hold. It works in mine. I go by the principle that a stranger is just a friend I've never met. I really do chat strangers up all the time.

It's also comforting to see that you have dropped the polemic against stereotyping.

You say:

"Certainly there are problems in the economy, but styling males as disadvantaged in comparison to females, has some difficulties."

Actually, there is a growing body of sociological literature that makes the same point I am making. That the analysis "has some difficulties" in your eyes encourages me to blog more often on this topic.

[JohnFH]

Hi Terri,

You have an interesting point of view. You say:

"an academic/professional who doesn't know how his car works, or can't change out an outlet, or replace his window screens, or handle basic repair issues is no better than a plumber who doesn't ever read a book, or have discussions about things that aren't plumbing-related."

I think it's wise for men *and women* to be able to handle basic repair issues, but I don't think it is elitist to suggest that the ability to have discussions that aren't plumbing-related is a quality of life issue of incomparably greater importance.

If it is elitist to think so, I'm happy to be referred to as an elitist.

A distinctive of Judaism and Christianity has been and still is an unusually high commitment to the life of the mind. This has all kinds of translations in real life, from higher literacy rates to a commitment to higher education.

I find it astounding that there are people who are not concerned about the gender imbalance and trend lines with respect to higher education at this time. You have not said you are not concerned, and I don't want to assume that you do.

But frankly, I think it is elitist of people who have had the benefit of a well-rounded liberal arts education and pursue an active intellectual life of the kind only someone who is sufficiently well-read can pursue to suggest that they are not privileged after all.

[terri]

I think the word "privileged" is a misnomer.

Using my own life as an example:

I come from a working class family with a father who was a mechanic, and a mother who was a factory worker. I got my liberal arts education through a combination of academic scholarships that were unrelated to gender, some student loans and working my behind off waitressing/serving 30-40 hours a week while I went to school full-time.

I went to college because I was somewhat intelligent and I enjoyed, and do enjoy, a "life of the mind". It is the way I am wired.

However, what has that life of the mind brought me? I am quite satisfied with my life even though I have no prestige from my higher education. I have stayed home to take care of my children. I have worked in early childhood education. I have worked for a non-profit doing presentations in elementary schools.

These are all low-prestige, low-paying jobs. Many of those choices were personal choices made in the context of family life and working in ways to do what was most important in my life at the time.

They do not reflect all that I am as a person, or my self-worth. From the outside, I am sure it seems as if my life is a disappointment, as I have had certain relatives intimate. Everyone expected great things from me.

Now a person can either let other people's expectations rule their lives and force themselves to pursue a career with high-prestige, or if they know the kind of life they want and they manage to achieve it, they can recognize that they have become personally successful.

Not everyone wants to pursue higher education. Certainly, one doesn't want people to be told that they don't need a "life of the mind", that it is unimportant, or that they are not good enough or smart enough to have it.

I am not "concerned" in the same way that you are about the issue..because what is more important is that men and women have ample opportunity to find employment of any type that they find satisfying.

I could only be "concerned" if it seemed like men were less likely to find employment than women.

I don't think that these stats really show that.

[JohnFH]

Terri,

First of all, we have a lot in common in terms of the prestige thing.

I have turned down offers to pursue a strictly academic career on several occasions. I prefer parish ministry, though it lacks the prestige of being a professor. It is also a choice that we have made as a couple. Understandably, my choice raises eyebrows. Understandably, knowing how darn smart you are, your choice raises eyebrows.

Like you, I'm not about to be ruled by other's expectations.

But socialization is a very powerful force. There is no such thing as a free market when it comes to employment or much of anything else. As researchers insist, sexuality is a social construct. Occupational aspirations are a social construct.

The women in my extended family who are nurses may think it was nothing more than their personal choice to become nurses. The men who are doctors may think likewise. The women who are doctors know it's not that simple. On the contrary, personal choice on average is far less determinative than the choices society makes on behalf of its members.

Viewed in that light, these statistics are worth pushing back against as a society. When the stats were imbalanced in the other direction, they were cause for concern among more forward-thinking people.

People who would normally think of themselves as liberal or progressive have taken to not being concerned about inequalities of this kind. I don't get it.

[terri]

"People who would normally think of themselves as liberal or progressive have taken to not being concerned about inequalities of this kind. I don't get it."

Because it's different. There is a difference between a society that refuses to let certain groups into higher education, and the "natural" drift that happens as a result of subtle socialization.

What would be the remedy in this situation? In order to change this "drifting" you'd have to create a bit of social engineering, consciously trying to steer certain segments of the population towards specific goals.

I can't think of a good way to do that without becoming oppressive and culturally shaming people about what the "best" type of occupation is.

We are definitely shaped by our society. I am an egalitarian who has lived a very complementarian-ish life.....domestic bliss(ok..maybe not bliss) and all.

However....I always knew that I had a choice....and having a choice is what makes the difference. I don't feel any less feministic simply because I have dabbled in a relatively gender-traditional mode of living.

[Gary Simmons]

John,

I agree wholeheartedly that the military could use more persons of conscience within the ranks rather than just the rank-and-file we find now. However, I refuse to participate, even as a chaplain, though I had considered the option before. Honestly, I doubt they would be cool with chaplains to tell soldiers that killing is always wrong, racial profiling and epithets are always wrong, and Sarge isn't always right. Survival at all costs is wrong, as a JWT would agree, and I would point that out. The military doesn't hire chaplains that preach the "war is failure" (Yoda) approach, do they?

Besides, one must have a master's to be a chaplain and I refuse to be a combatant. My approach politically is to work from the outside in, much like John the Baptist living on the social fringes but making forays inward to contact people. Working within the system would cramp my style.

[Gary Simmons]

Sue,

I'm sorry they don't have affirmative action for Canadian female college students! I don't think that there's a significant scholarship bias in the U.S. Tuition is high for a private Evangelical school, and it's frustrating because I have 3 years of mostly Bible classes which will not transfer to a state school. Ugh. If I went to a state school, I wouldn't quite have to start from scratch, but it would be a setback.

Everyone,

Honestly, I'm one of those academic-types who doesn't have practical skills. I don't have a car and I don't know directions well. That makes me extremely dependent, and I need to fix that. It would be nice to learn basic repair skills, also. I agree that there needs to be moderation, in that tradespeople could learn some literature and eggheads could learn some practical skills.

I wish that our education system reflected the need for this diversity. Although supposedly public education is about helping you find your niche and gain exposure to several different disciplines, the truth is that the arts are just hobbies that nobody takes seriously. Math, science, and sports are the important things in school, while other things are just hobbies.

My German club placed in state for Volktanzen two years running and we never got a letter jacket, but the trainers for the athletes did. That's plain discrimination. Language arts matter, and that's that.

[JohnFH]

Terri,

You hit it on the head. It's the natural vs. unnatural distinction. But this distinction has *no* basis in reality. It is pure ideological cover. It used to be natural for men to be nurses, until that changed with the Civil War. Necessity became the mother of invention.

I am totally in favor of making people conscious of their choices. I am no less insistent that our choices are not made in a vacuum. Every choice, looked at from a non-subjective point of view, can be explained without remainder as the result of pressure from "external" factors. Behavioral psychologists proved that long ago. It is the working assumption of evolutionary psychologists to this day.

Though you and I and everyone else know that the working assumption is false, subjectivity is an imponderable from the point of view of experimental science. No less than God, subjectivity can and should be left out of equations. To do otherwise is an "x" of the gaps approach.

No matter how true it is that the ductwork of reality is filled with God and subjectivity and other ghosts in the machine, the discussion of such things belongs, not to experimental science, but to para-science aka philosophy and theology; not to psychology, but to parapsychology.

If that has a Calvinist ring to it, I make no apologies. That's the way things work. I'm not a libertarian either.

Many people are libertarians, consciously or unconsciously. Libertarianism is only possible from a position of privilege. Sorry to go all Marxist on you. The diagnosis of Marx and Engels has a lot of truth to it. The cure they offered was worse than the disease. That said, I am still in favor of affirmative action steps in social policy. In this instance and many, many others. All of which has biblical precedent.

I have a bold thesis: for a woman who has benefited from a college education to suggest that it is not necessary to level the playing field on behalf of men in the realm of education smacks of unawareness. It reminds me of a woman who votes and earns a living as a CEO who says she doesn't need any of that "feminist crap."

[JohnFH]

Gary,

I think that says the world of you that you draw the line as you do on war and peace. I regard you as a soul-brother of the 20 year-old who now feels free to go to off to war and agonize about the whole thing because I told him that killing is always wrong, something he already knew in his heart.

Yet he will very likely pull the trigger or press the button that sends a "smart" bomb from a drone in order to kill mass murderers hopefully, their wives and children, regrettably.

*We* should agonize about those very same things, since we elected the people who are authorizing them, and if we voted Republican rather than Democrat we know that if GOPers were calling the shots, it's doubtful that there would be any less killing.

We are behind the orders given; that makes us more culpable than the ones who obey the orders and pull the trigger and push the buttons.

I think a chaplain who knows all of this would be a great chaplain. But I don't know whether the Army thinks so. I would love to start an online discussion on this, with mil people participating.

[terri]

Grry,

I wasn't trying to make you, or anyone else, feel bad about a lack of repair skills! ;-) My husband and I both have had to learn a lot of things over the years, things that we used to be completely clueless about. As you age, and especially as you own a home and wind up having to fix things, or have them fixed, you'll eventually pick up some more "practical" knowledge.

Unfortunately, almost everything us "life of the mind" people learn usually comes at a high cost. Everything I know about cars comes from having driven crappy cars that have needed constant repair. WHile I probably couldn't repair my car, I know what the major components do, how they work together and, most importantly, how expensive each repair is. Lessons learned the hard way!

John,

I am aware that I am not aware of everything! ;-)

I put "natural" in quotes because I realize that it is a very subjective connotation.

I ask you.....how would you "level the playing field" for men? I guess I am still not convinced that the playing field is completely unlevel.

You seem to be bothered that men are not being socialized in a very specific way...a way that you think is "better" than whatever is happening right now. How would you control that?

Affirmative action, of any type, should only be used in specific, temporary ways. It is meant to help formerly oppressed groups begin to overcome systematic impoverishment, or a systematic denial of opportunity.

Eventually, though, it has to be phased out. It is not good for any group's well-being and self-image to constantly be given advantages over and against another group.

It's for that reason that I can just as easily get irritated with feminists who always speak of women as victims as I can with troglodytes who degrade women.

At some point....victimhood....even it has had a basis in reality...must be left behind.

But...that could just be my Puritan Work Ethic showing! ;-)

[Gary Simmons]

John,

Yes, I can certainly sympathize with soldiers of conscience. I think there are more of them out there than people realize, and they bury those thoughts as cowardly -- to their own detriment. I also sympathize with veterans who come back and feel shunned.

I cannot help but feel partly responsible for society's ills. Not just the fact that we are in the Middle East (I voted Bush, but I repent), but also for the labor exploitation that keeps Walmart going, or the way animals are treated that gives us our food. What product exists that doesn't come down to some injustice, violence, or exploitation? (That said, if there were truly such a thing as "free range" chickens, I could have a clean conscience.)

It is for this that I trust and hope in Christ's redeeming work for me. In a world where all food is sacrificed to idols, must I refuse to eat?

No. I believe that I must in some way partake. But we must work to redeem society as well as individuals, since salvation and damnation certainly also have a corporate element. Yet this is tricky, since we cannot simply enforce morality. As Resident Aliens says: Christian morality does not make sense outside of the story of God's redeeming work.

Last night I mulled over the LRA Disarmament Act and why I chose to support it. I don't pretend I have the moral high ground simply because the bill simply charges the President with coming up with a plan. I know that the plan he comes up with will likely involve military intervention in some form. I don't come off with clean hands in this just because I passively allow him to make that declaration.

To sum up my note, I've come to believe that justice is found in our willingness to suffer for others. A few hundred students sleeping outside a Senator's office to get him to release his hold on a bill has been enough testimony to show that we can get this nation involved in something other than self-interest, and prophetic testimony can still be heard by the powers and authorities of today no less than in Israel's Kingdom period.

It seems to me that we absolutely cannot let ourselves dissolve. We are to be like light in darkness, not pure water mixed with poison. Distinction, but juxtaposition. Contact but not intermixture.

[Gary Simmons]

Terri,

Don't worry -- I didn't take your comment as directed at me. I'm frustrated with myself for not being more independent. I chose to focus on academics so much that I tend to lag in practical pursuits sometimes. If I at least knew directions and had a car, I would feel better even if I didn't know repair skills.

John,

I would strongly discourage Christians from joining the military as combatants as a matter of policy, but I know that won't dissuade everyone. When I said "contact, but not intermixture" I was referring to prophetic ministry from without. Yet this requires some people (Christian or otherwise) to be "within" the system. I do want to qualify that I would consider joining the military to be "intermixture." It does contaminate, I think.

And I realize I've already made the point that we are "contaminated" by sin through society's influence, such as through not questioning whether child labor produced the socks we wear, etc.

It may be an arbitrary one, but I make a distinction between being part of the actual power structure and being part of the society more generally. I haven't fully thought this out, though. This bill has impacted my theology significantly in my understanding of justice.

[Douglas Galbi]

Having 42% more women than men receiving bachelor's degrees is a major inequality with huge implications for the future. Reactions to this inequality are rather predictable. Consider, for example, the NEA's concern about the decline in literary reading in the U.S.:
http://purplemotes.net/2007/07/15/reading-at-risk-seriously/

For contrast, consider how top educational administrators have rallied to raise concern about...the ratio of female to male science and engineering professors:
http://purplemotes.net/2006/10/01/carnival-of-the-bureaucrats-3/

[JohnFH]

Terri,

There are plenty of ways to incentivize men to train for jobs in which men are needed. For example, elementary education. There is a lot of scholarship money that foundations, corporations, and individuals make available based on "race." As part of a larger recruitment drive, a pot of scholarship money earmarked for males would be a step in the right direction.

It might also be argued that this is necessary in denominations that were among the first to allow women to be ordained ministers. A concerted recruitment of men to ordained ministry would now be appropriate.

The alarm about the feminization of religious life has sounded the loudest among Reform Jews. This is not surprising, since Reform Jews in aggregate are relatively accommodating to ongoing cultural trends.

When a particular occupation trends female, not just male, it bears analysis. The question needs to be raised: what is at stake here?

Quota systems have a poor track record. Nonetheless, they can play an important political role. For example, among United Methodists now, it is expected that at least some of the Trustees (those responsible for the physical plant) are women. This has worked out to the advantage of everyone. If people believed in it, a similar rule might be put in place for Sunday school staffing.

[JohnFH]

Douglas,

Thanks for chiming in here, with helpful links.

Gary,

It's one thing to work out one's deepest moral convictions within an institution. It's another to do that in a freewheeling movement sort of way.

Part of the joy of having played a decisive role in the process of seeing a bill pass through Congress, working on the campaign of a political candidate, or participating in a mass demonstration, is that you feel like you are writing the script as you go. Since I have done all of the above in the past, and do not exclude doing them again in the future, I obviously consider adventures of this kind in a positive light.

But I have also come to believe that institutions are the arena in which our moral mettle is more thoroughly tested. Things like the institution of marriage and things like working in and for a denomination with which one has a number of disagreements.

Things like working as a chaplain in a killing machine (that is what an army is) knowing full well that killing is always wrong. There is much more to be said for that than campaigning and then voting for Obama who then surges the killing machine in Afghanistan and drops smart bombs from drones in Pakistan at unheard of rates and then calling it a day.

Like it or not, the first bath in political action for many very fine, very idealistic - I mean that in the best sense of the word - has amounted to just that. Thinking back on my first baths in political action, I do not claim superiority. Politics, after all, is overwhelmingly about the law of unintended consequences, with the rest about intended but dubious consequences. If anything good comes out of political action, that would be sheer grace, or occurs through apolitical dimensions attached to the politics of it.

I'm exaggerating a bit, but not by much.

[Gary Simmons]

Light only expands when it pushes back darkness, and so testing one's elemental beliefs in a trial by fire is worth its weight in gold. Oh, I love wordplay.

I agree that it is sheer grace that any lasting good comes from politics. Part of what makes the killing machine so sickening is it designed to kill enemies, but it is fueled by taking the lives of its operators in the process.

John, have you posted lately about the difficulty of keeping 18-35 year old males in church? In churches with contemporary worship styles such as the Vineyard churches this is especially the case. Even if we are emphatically complementarian, it doesn't change the fact that the emphasis in worship is relational (the "bride of Christ" metaphor becomes more erotic than it should) and meeting throughout the week in house churches is done in a small-group relational manner that just feels... feminine.

I realize that we're moving from non-sequitor to non-sequitor, but your comment on the inclusion of women in ministry led me to other thoughts of the feminization of religious life.

[Sue]

John,

I don't see how you can make more men want to be in elementary education without raising the pay and prestige of that vocation. However, if there were an incentive program for women plumbers then the ratio would necessarily shift. Fewer men as plumbers - relatively speaking, and fewer women as elementary teachers - relatively speaking.

As I get older, I find that I enjoy being my own handyman. I enjoy fixing fences, painting and on occasion a little plumbing. I discuss both Shakespeare and handyman issues with our school janitor. I also enjoy the life of the body. As I shift my focus in that direction, my risk of hypertension, diabetes and a host of other ailments is dropping dramatically. I consider that I owe it to my children to keep in excellent health.

At this point, I can't really follow the thread of the comments, so I wish everyone a good evening.

Gary,

I wish you well.

Terri,

As far as I can see we agree on quite a bit. It's nice to read your comments.

[JohnFH]

Sue,

I would carefully distinguish between pay and prestige. They do not always correlate. That said, in my neck of the woods, elementary teachers are well-paid and they are also accorded honor; nonetheless, men are not socialized to think of themselves as future elementary teachers, nurses, office managers, and so on.

I am against creating incentives for women to become construction workers, plumbers, or assemblymen in manufacturing. Even in China, not just in North America, the number of people who make a living in these sectors is in free fall. I am not interested in seeing not only 1 in 5 men but 1 in 5 women chronically unemployed.

Your words about balancing a life of the mind with a life of the body are full of wisdom. Your perspective, of course, is typical of someone who makes a living in the knowledge economy. For people in the trades it is different. Without physical fitness they can easily lose their job. If they are lucky, they may work for a firm that will kick them upstairs into a desk job if their back goes out.

[JohnFH]

Gary,

It's been a long time since I posted on the problems that the feminization of religion poses. It's worth taking up again.

One of the things I enjoyed doing in the last year is starting a small group for men 75 and older. About half are widowers. It was not my idea; the daughter of one of the men, who doesn't even go to my church, proposed it. It is very well-attended. I enjoy being a fly on the wall as they evoke memories, discuss the issues of the day, and articulate their faith.

[Sue]

The difficulty is that men, since they make up 93% of all those employed in the trades, are more vulnerable to the present economic situation. But in a boom economy, these men had employment. Women, in the caring professions, are more insulated from this effect. But figures in a Alberta study found that women earned 60% of what men earned.

"Alberta is more unequal than in Canada as a whole, with women who worked full-year, full-time in 2006 earning just 59.3 per cent of men’s salaries, down from a peak ratio of almost 71 per cent in 1995."

This reflects the oil fields and the trades. I am not actually suggesting that women be given incentives to enter the oil fields. HOwever, can we shift men away from this kind of employment?

[JohnFH]

It is imperative to socialize boys to think of themselves as future contributors to a knowledge-based economy. Not just for their own sakes, but for the sake of the families of which they are a part and society as a whole. There are no significant economic downsides to doing so.

It is also imperative to socialize boys to think of themselves as caregivers, not only as recipients of care.

These things are part of a larger necessary change in world view, for which biblical faith and biblical emphases have much to offer.

IMO feminism, modernism, and individualism, a package deal these days, have on the contrary exhausted their ability to bring positive change in the developed West.

[Sue]

The gender gap has been around for considerable time, men in the trades and women in care giving - several millenia, I would hazard a guess. The difference now is that care giving usually requires a BA. Can we rewind this?

[JohnFH]

I don't think we should rewind it. I'm in favor of increasing rates of participation in higher education, regardless of occupational destination.

[Sue]

You mean then that those who end up in the skilled trades should get a liberal arts education first. That makes sense but how would that be implemented? Wouldn't it have to be enforced by some kind of qualifications board? Doesn't it seem like an added burden in this economy?

I note that it is only at the BA and perhaps MA level that women outnumber men in university participation. At the Phd level the numbers are even and there are still more males than females as full time professors. If we consider this the "knowledge economy" then males still have a significant edge over females.

I think the gender gap reflected in the pattern of 'men in skilled trades and women in care giving' has been around since the begining of recorded history and owes little to feminism, individualism and modernism.

For my part, I was pleased yesterday to receive a phone call that the young man whom I had been mentoring has now been accepted into a teacher education program.

[JohnFH]

Sue,

Congratulations to you as mentor and the young man on acceptance into a teacher education program.

Correction: it is not the case that in the knowledge economy males "still have" a significant edge over females. The opposite is the case. The statistics that serve as a point of departure for this thread are very clear.

There are still more males than females who are full time professors, but that is the result of decades long gone, a hangover from the days in which socialization and societal expectations advantaged men rather than women in gaining employment in the knowledge economy.

The logistics of reconfiguring the educational process in a less sexist direction is not the difficult part. It is recognizing the need. It is recognizing that sexuality as socially constructed at the moment deserves analysis and critique. Few people do.

The Jewish and Christian traditions have within them important resources from which to draw in addressing these issues.

You on your part seem to find it impossible to accept the fact that the triple whammy of feminism, individualism, and modernism has created gender imbalances, injustices, and crystal hells of its own.

The knowledge economy, I would also emphasize, is short hand for something other than the teaching professions. It is shorthand for that sector of the economy that requires degrees in higher education.

Reconfiguring education to privilege the life of the mind and make it just as attractive to men as to women to cultivate it and make it foundational to a vocation is not rocket science. It needs to begin in elementary school, middle school, and high school. For example, things like the study of the classics, the classical languages, the Bible, and philosophy, could be re-introduced to the middle and high school levels. In the wasteland of American education, I find it necessary to send my teenage children to college beginning their junior year in order pick up things like philosophy and Latin. We read things like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky on the side, authors considered to be too deep and too long for high schoolers. This is absolutely not the case for at least a third of the students, but they are being disadvantaged in a one-size-fits-all socialization process.

We have a guidance counseling system in the US that could be activated in this sense. It's a matter of parents, teachers, counselors, and ministers calling boys into knowledge-based, care professions.

There are excellent male elementary school teachers. Ditto with male nurses. They are never asked to come in and "model and recruit." The need to do this is not felt society wide, and certainly not by the liberal minded powers that be who are still fighting the old wars. But I can't say that non-liberals are any better.

[Sue]

"The logistics of reconfiguring the educational process in a less sexist direction is not the difficult part. It is recognizing the need. It is recognizing that sexuality as socially constructed at the moment deserves analysis and critique. Few people do."

Teachers have been studying this gender imbalance for some time. I am familiar with it. I simply don't see how your "triple whammy of feminism, individualism, and modernism" has created it, except that there is now universal education for girls.

"It is shorthand for that sector of the economy that requires degrees in higher education."

Okay, I am stupid. I thought it was Peter Drcker's term for those who produce knowledge. In that case, the average nurse and elementary school teacher are not really part of the knowledge economy.

But originally the "knowledge economy" was a term which applied to an entirely new class of worker, as described by Alvin Toffler.

Another use of term is for computer scientists, overwhelmingly male.

Here is a useful discussion,

"As the concept was taken up in management and business, and in particular deployed as a key objective of public policy, knowledge came to be defined as scientific and managerial. The knowledge economy was thus equated with scientific research, information technology and management, including finance, which were seen as the productive sectors of the economy. Though research itself might be subsidized by the
state, the bulk of these activities were market-based and increasingly deregulated and
globalized. And, of course, these were, and remain, male dominated sectors.

Although, some definitions of KBE encompass a broader occupational distribution to include all those with higher educational qualifications, and, thus, professional employment in welfare sectors, the latter are reproductive rather than
directly contributing to production, and hence subordinate."

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:66sfSXqHoyEJ:www.phaenex.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/SSJ/article/download/401/348+gender+%22knowledge+economy%22&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj2q5g64C_atg5cU3e0IqUbGNgka_rtTFVxDajKpj1m2R2hj2sdNVGsqW6_mCVREw5SzxEFUsOBYQsHezQ6oBnPTyDLuMOK91htYH2rHg-7IUBlBcENqU0nmM90hf4mwb9z9NEd&sig=AHIEtbT9cmtSEe7-0EaiNb9sgY3X1t2QQg

Our understanding of the "knowledge economy" is rather different, as I am familiar with the classic sense introduced to me in the writings of Drucker and Toffler. I did not know that the term has since be degraded and generalized. Oh well.

I still don't see how one can blame the "triple whammy" for men and women participating in the job market in a gendered way.

[Sue]

(Re)introducing Tolstoy and Dostoevsky into the high school curriculum is no guarantee of keeping boys in school longer. I am not sure that Latin would do the job either. There were a few boys in our high school Latin class but it was not a big draw.

I really am having trouble following your arguments. As a teacher who is reading your post as an outright criticism of the school system and femininism as well as individualism and modernism, I am having real difficulty figuring out how you are connecting the dots.

Blaming feminism and the education system is neither a new nor subtle approach to problem-solving.

[JohnFH]

Sue,

You don't seem to be interested in following my arguments. This is well-known and has been remarked on by others. You have your agenda and you relentlessly pursue it. Fine, but I invite you to do it on your own blog.

No one was talking about guarantees. For you to introduce a discussion of guarantees at this point is a typical example of your gift for mischaracterization.

It is your prerogative to make fun of proposals to introduce elements of a European style of high school education this side of the pond. I am completely used to parochial, small-minded attitudes of this kind. Anything that the Germans, the French, and the Italians do, I guess, can't work over here. But I didn't expect such provincialism from you.

The very notion that the matter is decided because a particular subject is not "a big draw" reveals the abyss between your kind of reasoning, which is pragmatic and supply-and-demand oriented, and my kind of reasoning, which is prescriptive and orientative. Whether you realize it or not, you are an apologete of the status quo.

I don't expect anything will change your mind on the causes of "the boy crisis." I have never seen you willing to advance even measured criticism in the direction of feminism or modernism.

Maybe it's something in the water that is disadvantaging boys. The comment I've heard that I like best: "Girls are superior. Get used to it."

I prefer that playfulness to your defensiveness. It is very unlike the attitudes I'm used to in educators and feminists around me. They do not regard qualified criticism as anything but salutary.

I have to concur with Douglas Galbi upthread. A defensive reaction is all too predictable. A stance like yours is what one would expect from a teachers' union or something like that. Not from a thoughtful individual.

There are plenty of us who recognize the good that God gave with feminism, modernism, and individualism. Nonetheless, these same trends have a lot of negative fallout. I would think that that is a truism.

The version of Christianity from which you exited puts a premium on apologetics. I think you have conserved that feature of your past even if you have chucked much else.

The case for the position I am presenting has been made in technicolor by others. If you are interested in pursuing the discussion, here are a few places to start:

Christina Hoff Sommers, "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men" (Simon & Schuster, 2001)

http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2010/05/boy-crisis-in-china.html (note comment thread, which includes a translation of the relevant article from the Chinese; a commenter rightly decries the denial that characterizes women's rights advocates on this issue)

http://www.soc.duke.edu/~cwi/gender_paper.pdf

That's a famous paper, by Sarah Meadows et al, which purports to show that both the "it's a girl crisis" feminists (Gilligan et al) and "it's a boy crisis" researchers (Sommers et al) are wrong. The unconfessed assumption of this study is that in 1987, the base year, things were a certain way and that, since the data sets the study looks at show marginal improvement without regard to gender since then, things are great and stop complaining.

That will not ring true to most people who work in the trenches, so to speak, with youth. I'm in the camp of those who see the truth in Gilligan's claim that there is a girls' crisis, but also in Sommers' claim that there is a boys' crisis. I think the move to blame anything but the major cultural trends of our age for the crises - the triple whammy of which I spoke - reeks of yesterday's wars and apologetics. At some point feminists have to own what they have accomplished. To use a metaphor, they can't go on forever blaming Bush and Cheney for the ways things are.

You also said,

"In that case, the average nurse and elementary school teacher are not really part of the knowledge economy."

But to be a nurse or elementary teacher in the US and in most parts of Europe, a degree in higher education is needed. Canada cannot be that different. Gone are the days in most of the developed world, I would have thought, for an elementary school teacher or a nurse not to have 4 to 6 years of post-secondary education.

Furthermore this needs to happen in the case of educators who works with ages 0-5. Those are extremely crucial years, yet we treat them as if they were about emotional development, not intellectual development. An enormous mistake. Investment in post-secondary training for preschool educators, and pay and prestige to go with it, ought to be the obvious way to go.

For the rest, you guessed the root of your misunderstanding: the term "knowledge economy" is used in a variety of ways today. Probably always has been. I refer you to a comment in the thread of the post to which I linked:

"The Mancession is a wake up call that the female empowerment is a crushing success. The era of special privilege status should be over for females, but will it be?

Bottom Line: This is basically a knowledge economy now."

Thanks, Sue, and everyone else, for the discussion. I'm closing it off now, with a promise to take up the argument again in the future,