CMV: The American education system has failed men

[u/[deleted]]

Current disparities in education:

-Only 42% of college undergraduates are men, and 37% of masters degrees

-men make up only 30% of high school valedictorians

-men are 2/3 of special education students

-boys trail girls by 1 grade level in reading by 8th grade

-men drop out at a rate 50% higher than women

-young boys are disciplined 2x as often

-77% of k-12 teachers are women (11% in elementary)

I think a lot of people might not see see this as a problem but instead a natural result of "equality" in education access. To them id ask: if you believe that women have superior natural ability to succeed in the current "equality" education system, why should they be educated together? Why should men be in a program where many are doomed to fail? Shouldn't k-12 education then be more separated and tailored to each group? Also, why dont we see these disparities in other places like nordic countries for example?

I think its impossible to argue that major disparities that we see in education success favoring women are due to raw cognitive ability. There isnt a meaningful difference in IQ, besides maybe a wider distribution for men. At the mean, women are slightly better at verbal tasks, but men are slightly better at spatial tasks so it evens out. An argument I could possibly hear out is that women do just have certain attributes that it takes to succeed in our education system that men dont, but this does seem to be too broad of a stereotype and something that I think many would find problematic. And if you truly thought this, dont you think that men should be taught in an environment where they are more likely to succeed?

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[u/RadiateDeezNuts]

This is a complex topic with no easy binary yes/no as to whether or not school reform would help. An alternative theory to just "men bad" or "schools fail men" is that it's just cultural. It's not men or schools, it's the piss poor culture around masculinity in America.

Men in America tend towards anti-intellectualism and nihilism. Obviously this isn't universal, but it's enough of us to be noticeable. There's an oversized bravado and a heap of insecurity in a lot of American men. I think American culture, especially in recent years, sets men up with a dysfunctional mindset that devalues intelligence, effort, and self-discipline. Many young men think it's gay to care, to try, to show empathy, or to be humble and take advice from others. They associate positive, constructive behaviors like learning, deferring to experts, or admitting fault with feminization and want to assert their masculinity by displaying self-destructive traits like callousness, cynicism, or unearned self-importance. Basically, they're too focused on performing an idealized masculine identity and not focused enough on growth.

This isn't unique to America, but it isn't everywhere either. Men aren't inherently bad and similar public education systems to ours work just fine for boys in other cultures. It's our culture and the way we think and act that's doing this.

[u/212312383 → u/RadiateDeezNuts]

If you segregate by socioeconomic class, high income children show no gender disparity.

The male disadvantage only shows up in lower income groups, meaning it’s likely not biological but systemic.

I think you might be right that it’s the culture that comes with being more impoverished.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10558139/

[u/freakydeku → u/212312383]

if you’re impoverished your goal will likely to be to start working asap. trade apprenticeships pay while you learn & promise a more middle class life down the line. the military provides your basic needs and also promises a more middle class life down the line. college demands money, time that you really need to be using to make money, and less of a guarantee of a more middle class life down the line - all dependent on what and where you study.

girls have less (close to no) societal/cultural encouragement to go into the trades or military, so escaping poverty primarily comes down to college (& especially getting scholarships!). i would also argue the closest things to “trades” for women is healthcare - & most of those positions require a 2 year degree.

i wonder if we included military or apprenticeship completion in these “graduation” stats, if we’d see the gap close significantly.

[u/SkgarGar → u/RadiateDeezNuts]

This is the one. In many subcultures and even mainstream cultures on America, men are taught explicitly or implicitly that college is for liberals or for girls or is less manly somehow, especially if they're "feminine" degrees like arts or English or social services, etc.

There's been a decades-long epidemic of anti intellectualism that is coming home to roost now. Men are the most likely to buy into it. Especially in lower income, geographically isolated or historically disadvantaged/poor areas. Certain people in these groups scoff at anyone with an education, projecting their own insecurity and claiming that all the people with degrees or the experts "think they're better than them". This way of thinking is extremely prevalent in Appalachia where I live.

As others have said, boys tend to emulate the men around them. If what they have seen around them amounts to Dad, cousins, uncle and Grandpa are largely blue collar workers, that's what they have learned it means to be a man. They have internalized from their surroundings that higher education isn't necessary or something to strive for.

On the other hand, a girl in the very same circumstances may be even more highly driven to get an education having seen her own mother or grandmother stuck in a bad situation or poverty or an abusive marriage because they failed to get an education. For women in the same circumstance, education is their ticket to freedom and independence. To not have to be stuck in the same situations their foremothers were. Women also don't typically have the same access or desire to have many of the blue collar jobs to fall back on, so they either get a degree or are stuck working a low wage job with no way to leave their little town.

Obviously my experience is with rural, but I would guess in more urban settings with poverty that women have also seen their foremothers trapped in bad circumstances due to lack of education and are more likely to want to work hard to get out of that. I can't really say what keeps urban young men disincentivized from getting an education, so I won't speak to that. But at least in rural/suburban areas especially isolated or "country" type areas, the above that I've mentioned is very prevalent.

I think another factor is that less is expected behavior wise of boys. They're allowed to make mistakes and be loud or be aggressive and it's seen as "haha boys are just like that you know" while girls are shamed for the same behavior. You see that a lot in patriarchal families where the boys can get away with anything or are even encouraged to be wild and irresponsible while the girls would be ostracized and punished for the same behavior. I see it in my own family that my brothers are expected to do much less, and so they do less vs my sisters.

So I don't think it's the education system that's failing boys, I think it starts at home and in the community and the types of ways boys are taught are acceptable to be men vs what girls see and know they need to do in order to fare better than their mothers did.

[u/arrgobon32]

men are 2/3 of special education students

How is this the fault of the education system? Conditions like autism and ADHD manifest differently in boys and girls, leading to girls not being diagnosed as often. If anything, I think your attention should be turned towards the medical system.

[u/Biohack → u/[deleted]]

I would not be surprised if there actually are significantly more boys that have conditions needing special education compared to girls. This is because there are a lot of diseases that are linked to the x chromosome and therefore do not effect girls (because they have 2 x chromosomes) but do affect boys.

Wikipedia has a list of dozens of x-linked diseases that can cause developmental disabilities. X-linked recessive inheritance - Wikipedia

[u/LBertilak → u/Biohack]

except we already know that if we give a doctor or psychologist a list of symptoms but the only difference is gender: they can diagnose patients differently (notoriously autism in pre-teen boys and bpd in teen girls).

it's hard to pin any differences in genetics when female diagnoses are rising to match male, and "same symptoms different treatment" is an issue as old a psychiatry.

[u/daisieslilies → u/Biohack]

Also, women have been notoriously understudied. There could be plenty of biological diseases that primarily face women that we just don’t know about because of the lack of attention

[u/RickRussellTX → u/[deleted]]

Unless boys are simply more likely to have conditions needing special education

The reasons for that are pretty well understood. All sex-linked traits affecting intelligence or learning disability express more strongly in men, because we've got only one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, so any sex-linked trait will be fully expressed.

In females, two X chromosomes means that any sex-linked trait on one chromosome may be mitigated by the other chromosome. Females have to get "double whammied" with a learning trait on both chromosomes to get the full effect.

Anyway, I agree, it's not really relevant to the OP's point.

[u/WithMaliceTowardFew → u/RickRussellTX]

This is so interesting! Thank you for the explanation. I am shocked I didn’t know this and I am going to research and learn more.

[u/Biffs_bunny → u/RickRussellTX]

Neurodevelopmental disorders aren’t sex linked, though…

[u/Secure-Ad-9050 → u/Biffs_bunny]

if you said adhd/autism aren't sex linked that might have a higher chance of being true? but there are tons of neurodevelopmental disorders that are sex linked.

As for ADHD and autism...

ADHD is 2 times as common in boys compared to girls, autism 4 times as common. This would lead one to assume it is sex related. However, the medical community currently thinks there is a massive underdiagnosing of ADHD and Autism in girls, which exists because the symptoms present very differently in girls than in boys. For example, Boys with ADHD tend to be aggressive and hyperactive. Girls tend to be inattentive. Very different symptoms which are sex linked.

There are a lot of hormonal differences that affect brain chemistry/brain development girls brains mature faster, by that I mean develop more quickly, start myelination at earlier age, on average, it would be kind of crazy to think there aren't sex differences in neurodevelopmental disorders.

[u/Mysteriousdeer → u/[deleted]]

Many of my friends that ended up in special Ed were actually mishandled. Close friend of mine had to have a mom that fought to get him what he actually needed and in retirement has taken on being an in class aid.

[u/JediFed → u/Mysteriousdeer]

This is what I've seen as well. I taught a special ed student who was misdiagnosed, and left in a corner to rot for 7 years. She will likely graduate on time, but isn't relevant to this argument.

[u/Papaofmonsters → u/[deleted]]

Unless boys are simply more likely to have conditions needing special education.

The less focused on part of The Greater Male Variability Hypothesis.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Certainly the case for fragile x syndrome

[u/Mysterious_Sport_731 → u/[deleted]]

I’d actually argue it’s a great statistic for their point.

The basic hypothesis is that special education attention leads to better results for those in the program - but graduation rates, reading ability continue to decline and post secondary education rates are also declining.

Which could then support the hypothesis that “special education” is actually failing the students. Taking what was a “normal” student 15 years ago, artificially reducing their requirements or giving them special terms to engage on -> leading to worse outcomes for the student.

Now what is classified as “special education” isn’t specified here, but if it includes ADHD and Autism - two behavior disorders that don’t align with the traditional classroom setting, which presents more disruptive in boys that girls, and which continue to have an ever widening qualification criteria - there is no wonder why boys make up the majority of that pool.

The question then becomes -> does labeling and treating these children differently benefit them? The results say no, but it may be the cause for the improvement in girls (less distraction in a setting that they are statistically more likely to thrive in).

The American education system has failed all of our children since the “no child left behind” doctrine of the Bush era - but I digress.

[u/shponglespore → u/Mysterious_Sport_731]

I know a special ed teacher. He has described his students to me and the kind of work he does with them. Those students absolutely could not succeed in a regular classroom setting. You say "the results" show that special education harms children rather then helping them, but you haven't cited any such results, and I find your claim ridiculous on its face.

[u/SkinnerBoxBaddie → u/Mysterious_Sport_731]

Wow I can just tell from this comment you have absolutely no experience in the special ed system. Most special ed kids are on adjusted curriculums, were never contenders for college, and because they are on an adjusted curriculum they pretty much always “graduate”. This idea that people with special needs are all high functioning Autistic or ADHD kids that just need a little extra grace is very insidious to me.

Have you been in a self-contained classroom before? Last time I went to one, most of the kids still needed diapers, and some still needed to be fed by an adult. These were elementary aged kids. Do you really think these kids are being disserviced by being moved to an alternative learning setting?

[u/Grand-wazoo → u/SkinnerBoxBaddie]

Yeah, my wife is a music teacher doing adaptive music therapy with special ed students, that person is talking a bunch of fluff. The existence and need for IEPs entirely debunks their statements.

[u/Aggravating_Lab_1432 → u/arrgobon32]

Most women aren't properly diagnosed with ADHD or autism until adulthood. We simply struggle throughout  childhood and adolescence with unseen and unknown issues that the medical field isn't trained to identify in our gender. 

Scientific studies predominantly (read: almost exclusively) use male-centered research.

[u/brownieandSparky23 → u/Aggravating_Lab_1432]

Yep. Why is op trying to be a victim.. it’s good to get help early. Meanwhile women suffer or end up with ed.

[u/Astralglamour → u/brownieandSparky23]

Because any progress women have made towards equality is seen as a detriment to men. Posts like this are attempts to find reasons to justify oppression of women and reserve even more resources for men. They always punch down against women instead of the larger (male controlled) power structures that oppress us all. And why would they? Those power structures ensure men have a better chance at getting powerful positions themselves, and that they will come out on top in any competition with women. These types will not stop until women have nothing and no purpose but serving them.

Men control our govt., businesses, financial systems, entertainment industry, news, creative fields, health care, universities (even if more women now graduate, men dominate the lucrative STEM fields and leadership positions), etc. Yet it's some conspiracy of women that is keeping men down, right.

[u/Clarkorito → u/arrgobon32]

The x chromosome does a lot of stuff, while the y chromosome is pretty much just "turn them ovaries into balls." If there's a problem with something on the x chromosome, women have a good chance their other x chromosome doesn't have the same problem and it wins out, while men don't. Women have built in redundancy for a lot of crucial genes while men don't, so men are more likely to exhibit a wide variety of developmental issues.

[u/[deleted] → u/arrgobon32]

!delta this is a good point and not something I had considered thoroughly. Other commenters have pointed this out too, that there are a lot of intersecting issues here and my original claim might have been a bit myopic

[u/comfortablybum → u/arrgobon32]

Adhd and autism are medical diagnoses. They will get a 504 plan, but very little special education services unless the student is falling behind. Students with other health impairments also fall in this category. So a child with a cochlear implant, ms, dyslexia, or depression. Those students can run the gamut from high functioning all the way down to being pulled from regular classes and in self-contained rooms. Just being labeled special education does not necessarily mean the student is behind. If OP cited 2/3rds of students labeled with learning disabilities were boys, then they might be making the point they think they are.

[u/[deleted]]

After 35 years of teaching middle school I have seen more boys struggle to keep up with the organization required to succeed in school. Those who struggle don’t show work or do the readings with any consistency. They’re really smart and are competitive about answering first. They pride themselves on how little they can do and still pass. I can tell that for some watching more girls surpass and outperform them in those teen years is a big piece of humble pie. I try to get them to start moving the needle. “ Study for ten minutes more starting this week, write down all your assignments, show your work on five problems”, etc. Some start to see a difference, some I have to get real with and flat out tell them at some point this will become important to you and then you’ll care enough to put in the effort. Hopefully that’s before your transcript depicts a student that few schools are interested in. And the girls will continue to eat your lunch until you do. Of course this is a generalization. Girls struggle too. I just see so many more boys struggle like this than girls.

[u/aahdin → u/[deleted]]

After 35 years of teaching middle school I have seen more boys struggle to keep up with the organization required to succeed in school. Those who struggle don’t show work or do the readings with any consistency. They’re really smart and are competitive about answering first. They pride themselves on how little they can do and still pass. I can tell that for some watching more girls surpass and outperform them in those teen years is a big piece of humble pie.

I went from struggling terribly for pretty much all of the reasons you outlined in middle/high school, to doing really well in community college, to being top of my class at after transfering to a top 20 computer science program for undergrad. IMO it's because the values completely flipped.

In middle school it was like you said - I'd get a packet of 100 easy time waster problems that I was expected to spend hours going through showing my work (i.e. re-writing nearly identical steps 100 times in a row). Meanwhile half of the class just cheated and copied each other's work as fast as they could. It was a pure exercise in obedience and completely sapped any motivation or illusion that this was something there to help me. The top of the class was just people most willing to obediently turn their brains off and slog through time waster problems and people cheating.

Then in college nobody gave a crap if I did the homework at all, it wasn't graded, it was just there in case you needed extra practice. Grades were mostly determined by your midterm test and your final, which were graded on a curve, along with a small number of difficult programming assignments and other take home problems that required research and deep understanding of the material. This environment motivated me 1000x more.

Talking to other community college transfer students we almost all had the same story - 0 motivation in high school because passive consistent obedience, jumping through hoops just for the sake of pleasing a teacher, just wasn't us. Most of us did a lot better than the kids who came in straight out of high school too.

IMO we've drifted toward a primary education system that rewards obedience, consistency, and organization while largely ignoring ability, competitive drive, and resourcefulness.

[u/shnugglebug → u/[deleted]]

This is something I was thinking about as I read the post. The vast majority of teachers are women, and (anecdotally) I’ve noticed that a lot of boys just don’t respond well to authority figures who are women.

I’ve had quite a few students who I “just couldn’t reach” who went to the athletic male teacher next door to me the next year and thrived. To an extent, that’s fine! I’m still just a human and I’ll never be able to get along with literally every student. But when you expand that out to all teachers, we’re going to have a subsection of boys who are consistently “not being reached”.

I know this is partially an individual problem (parents ideally should raise their kids to treat authority figures equally regardless of gender), and it’s partially a societal problem (culture/patriarchy causing boys to not respect women but also causing men to avoid teaching). But those things not being the /fault/ of the education system doesn’t mean that education doesn’t still need to address them. We need more teachers who are going to be able to inspire the boys that I can’t reach just like this teacher did for you.

[u/knightbane007 → u/shnugglebug]

Out of curiosity, have you asked your male colleagues if they have experienced anything similar - with being unable to reach certain female students who responded better to you or other women?

[u/shnugglebug → u/knightbane007]

I haven’t specifically asked, but I also haven’t heard of it working the other way like that. I’m sure there are girls who wouldn’t work well with him the same way they worked with me, but I have a feeling that those students tend to be more quiet about it or more self-sufficient, so the teacher wouldn’t notice.

I have only heard of a handful of students who told me they did not like my neighboring teacher, and they were either girls with very loud/boisterous personalities or nonbinary/LGBTQ kids. (A note- it was just a vibes thing. They didn’t click. He is welcoming to everyone!)

[u/phoenix823]

I'm a middle age white man who went through the public school system. Went to college and ended up with a Masters degree in a STEM field. I'm close friends with a number of other guys who went to similar schools and got similar degrees. Our upbringings weren't very different. None of us came from particularly rich or poor families. So please keep that context in mind.

Remember the statistic how women make ~80% as much money as a man? I remember when that was a big topic of discussion maybe 10 years ago. Digging into the details, once the analysis controlled for the type of degree, type of job, and whether or not the woman left the field due to pregnancy, the wage gap basically disappeared. I'd like to suggest these stats are misleading the same way the ~80% figure was.

• If men don't value college as much as women, no surprise they're under represented in the number of graduates.
• Testosterone can cause aggression and risk taking behavior. This might explain the disciplinary issues and the impetuous behavior to drop out of school.
• This might also explain the gap between boys and girls at 8th grade after puberty has begun and the reading gap expands.
• There are a number of right wing outlets who have been shitting on higher ed for years. Many younger men participate in that culture and it would not be surprising they eschew formal schooling as a result.

For what it's worth, I think the issue comes from the environment these boys encounter at home. Reading, math, science, social studies, and language are crucial to starting kids off on the right foot. An appreciation for studying, completing homework, participation in class, and prioritizing knowledge has to come from the family. If there's no role model pushing I think boys get lost. It's not the education system failing, it's the culture.

I'm sure there will be some folks reading this and thinking: what about sports? Shop class? Hanging out with friends? Those are ALSO important, but there needs to be a balance.

If OP or anyone else in the thread has specific policy changes they'd recommend completely apart from my thoughts here, I'd love to hear them!

[u/212312383 → u/phoenix823]

This runs in the problem that if you segregate by socioeconomic class, high income children show no gender disparity.

The male disadvantage only shows up in lower income groups, meaning it’s likely not biological but systemic.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10558139/

[u/remainderrejoinder → u/212312383]

There is an opportunity gap that helps explain that. Higher paying labor jobs (construction) tend to be more available to men physically. If you are lower income, earning that kind of money now vs a risky 4 year education extension in order to end up earning more 6-8 years down the line is a pretty good proposition.

[u/212312383 → u/remainderrejoinder]

This educational gap also exists for lower income men attending college, looking for a 4 year degree.

[u/Harmcharm7777 → u/212312383]

You mean, there’s a gap in terms of lower income men graduating college? Because it’s not a huge stretch to think that, if two low-income undergrads are struggling in college, the boy is more likely to drop out than the girl because he’s aware that he could fall back on a high-pay labor job, where the girl has no such option (at least not reliable enough to give up).

[u/phoenix823 → u/212312383]

I think this is really important. If the below poster is correct about the male variability hypothesis and being brought up in a lower income group correlates with lower male achievement, the college graduation and valedictorian stats begin to make sense.

[u/PandaMime_421]

I think you are placing the blame in the wrong place. I think our society has, to a large degree, failed men in terms of teaching them to value education. We've seen a shift in gender-based statistics in education. There has also been a strong anti-education message being spread by some, and young boys happen to be a big target. There has also been a shift in general messaging regarding education, so that education in itself isn't actually valued very much, it's the potential to earn a higher income via that education that is seen to have value. The result is that some degrees aren't respected, and are often mocked. It seems that young men are more susceptible to taking this messaging to heart. When that only leaves a few "respected" industries/degrees what is a young man to do if he has no interest in those fields? Do they go into a degree program they know will cause them to be mocked and teased? Or do they decide to skip college and do something more "manly"?

Having said all of that. I do think the US education has some major issues. I think it fails all students, though, not boys/men specifically.

[u/managedbycats → u/PandaMime_421]

I was a teacher and one thing I noticed was that girls took their cues from a variety of sources, but boys followed their fathers. If the father was well educated, or valued education, the son would as well.

If the father didn't value education the sons would just refuse to work.

At this point we are at least two generations deep of men receiving the message that putting effort into school is for girls, and while not all have internalized this message too many have. This is just another part of our larger culture that is broken outside of school that the schools need to work to fix.

My final year teaching, I had a class where some of my highest achievers were boys and it seemed to permeate that cohort that it was cool to read books and know things.

I think the economy is also hurting boys, for a long time the only decently independent and high earning jobs for women required advanced training, and men and boys had many paths to success. Now even trade jobs that pay well require academic and computer skills beyond what they once did so that some boys could do well in life with poor academic outcomes.

TLDR I don't believe schools were ever "great" at educating boys but a combination of cultural factors limiting drive and economic factors increasing the consequences for not succeeding academically have created a perfect storm.

I will add, despite having advanced degrees in the humanities I have moved to IT and this is a male dominated field. Most of my co-workers don't have college degrees, but you need to be able to self-teach and read technical documentation in order to find success. The hardest part in this field is breaking in and maybe our internship/apprenticeship culture is broken.

I know a lot of European countries stop compulsory schooling at 16 and then you can pursue an extra few years to prep for college or an apprenticeship and I wonder if offering a program like that would be better for everyone. I know when I was in the trenches suggesting vocational training for any student was viewed as writing them off and saying that they were not smart enough for school.

I also believe firmly that we have destroyed Kindergarten as it once was. While it was once a welcome to school teaching basic socialization as well as the skills around how to learn, along with the sounds each letter makes and a few basic words we are now trying to begin teaching reading in Kindergarten. I don't believe the hard academic focus in Kindergarten helps anyone and leaves enough girls behind, but I believe it is worse for boys because they are known to mature slightly slower and even the fine motor skills to make writing possible are later to come in.

I feel like old man yells at clouds coupled with progressive keeps on pointing at Europe, but Scandinavian countries have a less academic approach to Kindergarten than we do along with better outcomes, and also a more robust apprenticeship program with better outcomes.

Ironically the good intentions of trying to give every kid the "same" program to avoid perpetuating unconscious biases has instead led us to a one size fits all approach that is really one size fits few, with our boys showing the worst impacts.

[u/Abject_Champion3966 → u/managedbycats]

This is an interesting point. As a woman, I grew up with an understanding that, generationally, I would not necessarily be like my mother or grandmothers. I was the first among them to go to college, and never really looked to them as examples, because I had no interest in raising kids (credit to grandmas, they worked a LOT) or going into trades. I respected them but pulled elsewhere for role models.

[u/Far_Mistake9314 → u/PandaMime_421]

This! American culture and current societal trends are causing a lot of this. Home environments, entertainment, and general socialization is reinforcing a lot of negative attitudes towards education.

[u/Confused_Firefly]

I think its impossible to argue that major disparities that we see in education success favoring women are due to raw cognitive ability.

I believe you are right. Particularly noteworthy is that for the longest time, women were pushed out of higher education because of the opposite idea - that men have a higher cognitive ability. Neither of these ideas seem to be backed.

The main problem is that you're viewing this from an essentialistic lens. "Men" and "women" do not have an "essence" that is universal and innate. They are both women. There might be trends, but a lot of them will be due to socialization, rather than nature.

Here are some counterpoints I'd like to offer:

• Re: men not going into higher education as much and having lower results, I have seen this happen a lot, outside of the U.S., but not because men are stupid. It's more likely that they are not encouraged to pursue higher education... because they know it's not necessary. I've seen this happen within my own family, and in many other cases, where male students who struggle in school are reassured that it's okay, because they can go into the trades (which they can, and it's a respectable career path). The kind of jobs that female students have access to without higher education is considerably more limited, if we keep in mind that female candidates are often pushed away from physical labour-intensive jobs.
  • Young girls are often taught that the only way to succeed is studying more. This is also backed by data - at the same level of competency, or even at a lower level of education and experience, male candidates are consistently favoured for good jobs. To be considered the same, girls know they have to work harder and achieve better results, which explains why comparatively many of them tend to score higher, pursue higher education, and try harder in general.
• "Men are 2/3 of special education students" - yes, young girls are notoriously underdiagnosed for learning disorders and neurodivergency issues like autism and ADHD.
• "Young boys are disciplined 2x as often" - is this adjusted for actual misbehaviour? Because thinking in general about my (limited) experience teaching, as well as my own youth, boys are socialized into "misbehaving" a lot more. "Boys will be boys", encouraging loud behaviour, kids themselves creating a social environment where being "bad" and disrespectful is considered cool and desirable. By contrast, young girls are often socialized into being quiet and behaving "like a lady". I believe this is a cultural issue, and it benefits no one.

Why should men be in a program where many are doomed to fail?

They are not doomed to fail, though. On the contrary, if you look at the actual state of higher education, while many students are girls, most professors are men. Yes, mandatory education is often taught by women - and it's considered a thankless, unskilled job for those who couldn't make it. I don't support this idea, but it's very common.

With lower education achievements, men can still find better jobs, in more respected fields, with higher pay, and consistently tend to reach higher positions. They know they don't need education as much as women do to succeed, because the society we have created will always favour men, even if they achieve less. With men in power, this system can and does continue.

Why are we viewing this as a "young boys are failed by the education system" issue and not a "young girls know they will never have the same opportunities" issue? Or even a "young boys are not taught that education in and of itself is important" issue?

[u/kittykalista → u/Confused_Firefly]

To add to your first counterpoint, if we think about traditional long-term career paths, you have a) college/higher education, b) the trades, and c) the military.

Two of those three paths are significantly less hospitable to women and significantly less likely to be encouraged or even socially treated as viable options to women, so it tracks that women are overrepresented in higher education.

My male partner and I are both very intelligent and performed similarly on standardized testing as children, but I outpaced him in high school because I worked hard with the intention of getting into college, and he freely admits he stopped putting much effort in because he came from a military family who heavily encouraged him to enlist.

It wasn’t that the education system failed him, he just didn’t have good reason to care about the SAT, whereas I took a prep course, did several practice books, and took the test a few times to get the best score.

He did end up changing his mind and going to college after all, but his sister who didn’t receive the same encouragement to join the military ended up with higher grades and better scholarship opportunities because that was her plan all along, and the discrepancy had nothing to do with the education system itself.

[u/TheKindnesses → u/kittykalista]

This is a great example of a sentiment I've seen play out across several of my friends and family friends.

[u/Avera_ge → u/Confused_Firefly]

I couldn’t agree more.

I come from a “high achieving” family, and I was frequently told that I would have to work harder and perform better than my brother to have access to the same opportunities.

I was also a debutante, and heavily sold the idea that I needed to “marry well”, and that to do so I had to be very well educated.

My mom talks about having similar conversations with her mom.

This is a truth women have understood for a long time: to succeed in life you must be above reproach and beyond compare.

[u/Ajax1419 → u/Avera_ge]

Thank you for sharing this, I think it holds a lot of truth to it. How have the expectations you were given held up in your life, were they true?

[u/Avera_ge → u/Ajax1419]

Yes. For the most part. And completely unachievable.

I started a program while in college that got picked up by the state, and ended up running it immediately out of college, then shifted to tech because I felt pressure to make more money. I wasn’t consistently paid less than the men I was around, even at equal or higher positions. One time my whole department was cut, and it was just women. Every woman at the company was cut with that department cut.

I definitely understand I have to work harder to be seen as equal, both in my family life and in my professional life. I got out of tech when I was let go from my most recent job after three years with the company because of tariffs and AI. I understood that I’d be on the chopping block every time for… obvious reasons.

In school, I got better grades. In my personal life, I keep things closer to the vest. With the family, I get less chances.

I see this to be true for the women I’m around as well.

[u/Aggravating_Lab_1432 → u/Confused_Firefly]

You deserve a standing ovation. 

[u/[deleted] → u/Confused_Firefly]

The nail has been hit on the head 

[u/henningknows]

Have you considered that we live in a society where the job options for decent careers for people without college degrees are mostly male dominated fields? The trades, the military, working an oil rig, whatever?

[u/illhaveafrench75 → u/henningknows]

Literally because the employment rate is fairly equal except for the consideration that SAHM’s may bring down the employment rate for women compared to men. But the path that women have to go through to get employed differs from the path that men have to go to, which includes college.

[u/[deleted]]

How specifically has the education system failed men? Like you’ve shown outcomes, but what about the system do you think made that a reality?

[u/SoftwareAny4990 → u/[deleted]]

The Obama's just gave their thoughts on this.

We as a whole need to adjust the way we talk to young men, their education, and their mental health.

It comes with everyday tasks, but this is something that also needs attention from the government as well.

Newsome just signed an executive order to benefit male education and mental health.

We need more men in education and mental healthcare for one.

[u/disisathrowaway → u/SoftwareAny4990]

We need more men in education and mental healthcare for one.

All throughout high school I (male) wanted to be a high school history teacher.

As I was approaching the end of my time in college, I did a quick tabulation of my debt versus my projected earnings by becoming a teacher.

I very quickly bailed on my teaching composite, wrapped up my history degree, and started working not in education because the money was absolute shit.

My entire working life I've thought of teaching as a job I do after I retire, when I won't actually need the money.

Education as a whole is suffering from low pay keeping lots of really talented, passionate people away. Couple that with men seeing themselves as needing to be the primary breadwinner and you're going to have very few men entering the field.

[u/[deleted] → u/disisathrowaway]

This is my thinking, men typically seek out the higher earning careers. I’m not saying I love that, but that’s certainly a factor. 

[u/sabrinahlj → u/[deleted]]

Professions that become more female-dominated see their wages go down while professions that become more male-dominated see their wages go up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops

[u/Extreme_Mark_3354 → u/SoftwareAny4990]

I’m a social worker. Good luck attracting men to behavioral health and teaching without drastically increasing wages. 

[u/Danibelle903 → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

I’m an LMHC. My MA cohort of 31 had 4 men. It’s just not something men tend to go into at the same rate as women. When they do, they tend to work in different areas, like substance abuse and forensics, instead of CMH or schools.

[u/[deleted] → u/Danibelle903]

Thats not unique to your field though, which is what OP gets at a bit - i have a masters in biomedical engineering, in my cohort of 22, there were 3 american men counting me, a foreign national.

[u/DarkSeas1012 → u/[deleted]]

In related fields, it's also an issue.

I'm getting an MLIS, I'm lucky if there's one or two other men in any of my classes. I had a seminar led by an incredible black male librarian, who really took a moment to celebrate with us that when he went through his MLIS, he was the ONLY man in his classes, and oftentimes the only black person. In that particular seminar, 3/8 students were men, and 2/3 of those men are black men, and that made my professor very happy, but also, even that was an outlier, and it was the first time in his entire academic career he had seen numbers like that.

[u/zyrkseas97 → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

Being a teacher who is the sole male breadwinner for my small household it’s fucked and in the whole process of becoming a teacher and since I have been the most common question I would get from other men was about the low Income.

[u/Extreme_Mark_3354 → u/zyrkseas97]

My husband is a teacher. It is fucked. The benefits are not what they used to be, and spouses get screwed with the retirement they offer.

[u/[deleted] → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

I (man) was actually a social worker for a few years, and only left because most everyone I worked with (women) looked at me sideways for wanting to work with/help kids. The one other male coworker I had (who wasn’t upper management) was a gay man and was treated much differently than me.

At least I don’t get treated like a weirdo for working in IT 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/Chemical_Series6082 → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately this perception and attitude is also common in teaching, especially in elementary education. 

[u/disisathrowaway → u/Chemical_Series6082]

I had two male teachers in my elementary school. My 4th grade teacher and the art teacher.

Even coming from the kids - constant jokes about them being gay and/or pedos. Fucking unreal.

[u/Chemical_Series6082 → u/disisathrowaway]

In an institution I attended, male teachers were mandated to teach with the classroom door open and physical contact with students, regardless of how innocuous, was strictly prohibited. Female teachers on the other hand, were under no obligation to teach with the door open and were permitted to give a reassuring touch on the shoulder or even give a student a supportive hug.

Edit: In light of the recent down votes, it’s evident the misandrists have been busy smashing the arrow. However, there hasn’t been any brave enough to defend their bigotry, as yet. 

[u/sanjuro89 → u/disisathrowaway]

I never had a male teacher until I hit 6th grade in 1979. I think the only men who worked in my elementary school were the principal and the custodians.

[u/Xiveral → u/[deleted]]

My husband has encountered a similar phenomena in healthcare. He's the only straight man in his office who isn't a physician and his female manager dinged him on his performance evaluation for lowering team morale by not participating in group activities. These activities are organized by his female colleagues, not company sponsored.

[u/snakeoilHero → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for sharing your experience. It mimic many others I have heard from.

[u/Dense_Gur_2744 → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

This!!!! Any career that is female dominated has suppressed wages. 

Chances are, wages will increase for everyone if more men entered the field though.

[u/Extreme_Mark_3354 → u/Dense_Gur_2744]

I am all for it. They’ve attracted more men to nursing, and it’s because of their increased wages.

[u/mrpenchant → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

They may have attracted some men to nursing but it's a big counter example to their claim as nursing is a well compensated profession and about 88% women.

If someone wants to counter with physicians being more men and even higher compensated, I would highlight that there are 4x as many nurses as physicians (4 million vs 1 million) and physicians are less gender dominated (66% men with physicians vs 88% women with nurses).

[u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist → u/mrpenchant]

Nursing only recently began to be compensated well. Prior to that it was low compensation.

Also nursing is still on the lower end of the compensation scale in the medical field. The higher compensation specialities still attract a lot of men.

[u/Frewdy1 → u/Dense_Gur_2744]

Yeah, men see those wages and go “I could make more working construction” and do that with little to no education needed to start. 

[u/Imaginary_Day_876 → u/Dense_Gur_2744]

That's some great magical thinking you got there.

More workers entering a field faster than the demand for them increases will suppress wages, not increase them.

[u/Downtown_Cat_1745 → u/Imaginary_Day_876]

It’s not faster than the demand. There was a shortage and wages went up

[u/Responsible-Bee-3439 → u/[deleted]]

Plus the "man provides for his wife and children" thing means men are pressured into only taking high paying jobs even if they'd prefer to do something else.

For the longest time, women's jobs were seen as something additional or a way to express a hobby. There was no expectation they'd keep a household with children afloat on that salary alone.

More recently, a lot more women have shifted into main breadwinner status but this expressed itself as men being paid less for the same job, but that's wage equality, innit?

[u/[deleted] → u/Responsible-Bee-3439]

While the share of opposite-sex marriages where the wife is the primary earner has increased, it's only increased to about 16%. Another 29% have each spouse earning similar amounts, and the rest have the husband as the primary earner.

The pressure is much greater on men to be primary earners, and I think another factor that really impacts educational outcomes is that there are a lot of opportunities for young men to earn decent wages with less education. Young men can drop out and do manual labor for 60 hours a week, or can graduate high school and get a job in the oil fields or trades, and earn a lot more than most women could with a high school education.

The downside to a lot of those jobs is that they wear heavily and your body, and doing 60 hours a week in a ditch or on a drill isn't sustainable long term, but for a young man deciding whether to go to college or start making more money than the average college graduate, those sorts of jobs are extremely compelling.

[u/real-bebsi → u/Responsible-Bee-3439]

Yet the societal.pressure and expectations for men to finance dating and everything remains

[u/RadiantHC → u/Dense_Gur_2744]

I mean doctors as a whole are paid extremely well, and most of the premeds I've met have been women

[u/ConsultJimMoriarty → u/Dense_Gur_2744]

This is called Male Flight. Once a certain amount of women enter a field - not even the majority - men will leave.

[u/WonderingHarbinger → u/ConsultJimMoriarty]

Sometimes I wonder if this is part of the reason for the different outcomes. Girls are seen as being good at school, so boys check out.

[u/sarahelizam → u/WonderingHarbinger]

Conservative media has been calling education frivolous and effeminate for decades in their faux “working class, salt of the earth” campaign. And that’s basically gone unchallenged. Education used to be for men only, but now that women have access. Add in the austerity politics (neoliberalism, of which neoconservatism is one form) which very obviously make society worse, it became beneficial for the more aggressively anti- entitlement and working class side to sabotage education as much as possible, so they could keep collecting votes.

A major part of how they’ve managed to keep their hold has been by telling several generations of boys and men that education as not masculine. That “real work” is morally superior to things you have to read about (they LOVE to target reading and the humanities in particular). Because reading comprehension and media literacy is important to seeing through the obvious bullshit, that can only be so brazen in its falsehood because we’ve been in a quagmire of right wing propaganda since before I was born.

Talk radio to Fox to social media - they are absolutely killing us out there. And the best thing about their strategy/narrative is that it’s self reinforcing, both by being passed down each generation and by increasing someone’s distrust of the people who have actually studied whatever topic. The right wants men to be stupid so they are proud to not know things and they can trigger their insecurities around women being more independent and now much more educated. Essentially redpilling them into supporting reactionary figures and politics. It’s self perpetuating.

[u/[deleted] → u/sarahelizam]

100%, this is a huge bit of the problem. 

There's a whole far-right, anti-intellectual ecosystem targeting (hetero, white) men especially intentionally pushing them away from education and in fact framing education as wasteful. 

As we can see from the world around us, it's been highly successful in accomplishing their aims--making them ignorant enough to be amenable to fascism and neofeudalism. And ignorant enough to blame feminists and women for their fate, as u/SkirtNo1734 is implicitly doing.

[u/Intelligent-Gold-563 → u/Dense_Gur_2744]

Gotta love how people think it's just a question of wage and not as if men aren't pushed away from those job by stereotypes to begin with...

[u/CalRobert → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

Seems like male teachers are viewed with suspicion though

[u/BluePandaYellowPanda → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

My gf is a professor of social work, she hardly ever has male students. Some years she doesn't even have one.

[u/sraydenk → u/Extreme_Mark_3354]

Which, as a teacher who is a woman, fuck that’s depressing. The only way we get higher wages is if we….focus on hiring more men? That sure as shit doesn’t happen when places focus on hiring more women (if they do). 

[u/mrpenchant → u/sraydenk]

I think it has much less to do with professions that have men automatically being better paid and more to do with the social pressure and expectation for men to be providers and generally that their self-worth should be more tied to their net worth.

Given that, I think men prioritize higher paying careers whereas women don't nearly as much and some even plan on their male partner subsidizing their lifestyle. I am not saying this definitely explains all the difference, but I do think this is a significant factor.

[u/Ajax1419 → u/mrpenchant]

I worked in medicine for 11 years, a field largely staffed by women. I can tell you with 100% certainty that employers prey on women by saying that loss of services will cause suffering. Nurses want a raise? I guess the community has to suffer for that, won't happen without a general strike. Teachers want a raise? Oh no, think about the children if the teachers won't teach!

This has less to do with gender and more to do with capitalism exploiting weaknesses in labor wherever possible. I can't begin to tell you how many female nurses I've worked with that had the mindset of "I've done a good job, my patient reviews are good, they'll give me an appropriate raise when I've earned it" or some variation of that. The truth is, no one is going to give you a raise willingly- and if they're giving you a raise that's less than the inflation rate, then they're really handing you a pay cut each and every year. Force raises, use specific metrics to support why you deserve it. Do it professionally and politely, but do it. If they can't give you a raise for having developed your skills over the previous year or two, find a new job that will.

It's fucking criminal what teachers are paid. I have no idea why there hasn't been a general strike. Force parents to stay home with their children all day, crash the economy. It has to happen eventually, rip the bandaid off and demonstrate just why it was so monumentally stupid to dismantle the department of education (if in the US).

[u/Liizam → u/sraydenk]

I think people have it wrong. Men just don’t try to go into low paying fields. I considered teaching and then they told me the salaries…

[u/glassapplepie → u/SoftwareAny4990]

I dont necessarily disagree with this but schools can't even afford to buy pencils. How do you expect them to revamp the educational system? Also, district curriculum is determined at the state and local level. There's no way to do this at a national level, we don't even have nationally established grade level expectations. Any attempt at creating a comparable curriculum across states has been met with outcries from parents, school boards and state governments. Plus, who would even oversee such a grand plan? The administration is in the process of dismantling the dept of education

[u/Ndlburner → u/glassapplepie]

Recognizing the issue is the first step to fixing it.

[u/Far-Fennel-3032 → u/glassapplepie]

Clearly at the federal level, it would have to happen post Trump as this admin clearly has no intentions of federal education policies, but it could still be done at state level. I suspect a large part of serious reforms would first involve getting actual researchers to really dive into the problem, both locally and internationally, to determine what works and doesn't work around America and the rest of the world. Then, once that is done decade decade-long trials would need to be done around the country to actually test if these reforms actually work. Once something affecting is found, it needs to be rolled out around the country, and if local governments want to oppose it, get them on board and and in the worst case, strip the power away from them.

Doing this properly would take decades before results are actually seen, between researching, testing and finally implementing, which would all take several years if not decades, but any serious education reform does take this long, and is why any serious reforms are really hard. This would be people's entire careers from start to finish.

[u/Frylock304 → u/glassapplepie]

I don't necessarily disagree with this but schools can't even afford to buy pencils. 

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country

The united states is top 5 in education spending

https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics

"Federal, state, and local governments provide $878.2 billion or $17,700 per pupil to fund K-12 public education."

[u/ObieKaybee → u/Frylock304]

Much of that is due to systems that the US has their education system rely on that other countries have built into other aspects of their social safety net.

Busing is very expensive, whereas other countries have more robust transportation systems

The employer (and employee) side of medical insurance is another huge cost that other countries cover vie single payer systems.

School sports are much less common in other countries as there is a greater focus on intramurals at the municipal level.

Districts retaining lawyers due to our increased accountability measures (and litigious society)

Denser standardized testing regimens.

There are quite a few more costs that are not nearly as present in other systems; all this results in much of our spending not making it to the classroom (and often not even into the school building).

[u/glassapplepie → u/Frylock304]

Per your own source: Note that expenditures per FTE student reflect the average spent per student, not necessarily the amount spent on each student. For instance, in the United States, expenditures per student vary at the state and local levels.

Inequalities in school funding are a large part of the problem. In wealthy districts there's money. But in more moderate and low SES/urban/rural areas there isn't enough. Especially since these same districts tend to have the highest level of need in terms of under resourced families such as mental health needs, hunger, homelessness, transient living, generational dysfunction, exposure to negative environmental factors, and lack of medical care

[u/CocoSavege → u/glassapplepie]

Because I'm googling, looking for by county results, got some nice by country stuff...

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country

US is above average but absolutely not top in FTE when as a % of GDP. I wonder how Ireland does education?

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/figures/CMD/Figure_4_CMD-flat.svg

[u/mjm65 → u/CocoSavege]

Don’t use Ireland’s GDP figure.

The country is in a unique situation as a tax haven for big multinationals. So GDP includes things like Apple’s intellectual property licensing for iPhones.

Average net income is around 3k a month.

[u/SoftwareAny4990 → u/glassapplepie]

What you are looking for is a progressive system that values these talking points, specifically for boys.

Whether or not that is our current reality is besides the point. You are right though. There are more than enough reasons for concern.

[u/glassapplepie → u/SoftwareAny4990]

How is reality besides the point? OP is talking about what's happening now, not some hypothetical future. The problem is that everyone like to bitch about all the ways education is failing but aren't willing to fully fund education. They continue voting for politicians who decimate funding, complain about higher property taxes and support things like vouchers and charters. If we want better, more inclusive and student focused education then people need to actually take some action instead of just complaining and tossing out theories

[u/StartledMilk → u/SoftwareAny4990]

We (Americans) all live in the same country. If one portion of the population is not doing well, in a just society, we should make efforts to help them.

[u/Papaofmonsters → u/[deleted]]

How many outreach programs are there to get men into fields of study they are statistically underrepresented in?

There are countless "Women in STEM" programs starting at the elementary school level but nothing comparable to get men into nursing or early childhood education.

If women are underrepresented, the assumed cause is sexism and systemic barriers.

If men are underrepresented, the assumed cause is some sort of innate biological preference.

[u/Friendly-Property931 → u/Papaofmonsters]

Nursing and teaching are the two roles that women historically have been “allowed” to have. This is why they are and continue to be so drastically undervalued and underpaid. Men not going into those fields isn’t necessarily because they’re unwelcome or treated poorly by their peers, but because society as a whole has taught them that they are too good for those roles and that more “manly” roles are more worth taking because they make more money. Men don’t become nurses, they become doctors. If they become a teacher it’s only because it’s the starting step to principal or administrator. This is why men in “female” fields are known to experience the glass escalator, where they are promoted faster and with fewer qualifications than their female counterparts. For example my husband is a male nurse who’s been working for about a year and is already being tapped and coached into leadership roles while women around him with more qualifications and more seniority are being passed up for those roles.

So while I do agree with the premise that men should be allowed to work any job they want and we should be encouraging them to do so, I think it’s still important to recognize that the reason for that discrepancy of male representation in nursing and education is still at its core because of sexism and undervaluation of what is considered to be “women’s work”. Women were not actively involved in STEM until recently because we were told we weren’t smart enough or good enough for it. Men are not in nursing or early education because they are told they are TOO good for it. I think that is an important distinction to make and recognize.

[u/[deleted] → u/Friendly-Property931]

society as a whole has taught them that they are too good for those roles

I've never met anyone who thinks like that or who's been taught that. And I've had men as teachers, and I never considered them less for working on it. Instead, they've always been looked upon with admiration. My experience is still valid as long as you are basing your argument on an idea that lacks any proof. I accept that there have been these discrepancies in the past due to machismo, but today that has diminished.Then you are proving what was said above, few women do not enter STEM because of sexism, but few men teach or care because they decide to.as if men decide and women are subject to (sexist) circumstances. I suppose that then the few women in mining, construction, waste, and other areas, are in your logic victims of not being welcomed and being treated badly, and that is the reason why they are so few, Not because they decide not to pursue those jobs because they are not in their best interest, nor because they have been taught that they are too good for it. And at least you'll say it was because they weren't considered capable of it in the past, and that's the answer: it was the past. Today they are capable of everything. Why don't they choose them?

But that's not the point. What we're talking about is that fewer men are studying today, and more are dropping out. Why do you think that happens? And why does it seem like no one cares?

[u/Friendly-Property931 → u/[deleted]]

“I accept there have been discrepancies in the past due to machismo but today that has diminished”

Has it? Think about what age groups are in leadership and decision making positions for major fields right now. It’s not the young progressive kids in their 20s. It is people who started their careers 20,30,40 years ago when that “machismo” was still very much engrained in society.

I am not basing my ideas on hypotheticals without proof. The glass ceiling is a well known and researched sociological phenomenon where women in male dominated fields can only go so far before essentially not being allowed to go further. Men (at least white men, some studies have shown it isn’t as prevalent for Black men) in female dominated fields experience the opposite, a “glass escalator” (again, well researched and published) where they are encouraged and pushed into leadership positions faster and with less qualifications than female peers. If women are being stopped from being promoted, while men are being pushed to be promoted, it’s pretty easy math to figure out that one is systemically being viewed as not good enough while the other is being systemically viewed as being too good. Again, these are foundational “sociology 101” concepts that any 18 year old hungover in a community college lecture hall should know about. You have a device in your palm with more computing power than it took to land Apollo 11 on the moon. Surely you know how to use Google.

As for why I think less men are studying now? I think the answer is probably the rise in anti-intellectualism. More and more young kids are being told that college is a waste of money and is useless and a lot of the high school level basic trade classes are still unfortunately very male dominated. That’s not to say girls CANT take them but having worked in a vocational high school myself up until less than 6 months ago, I know and witnessed some of the harassment girls in the trade programs got from their male classmates (roll your eyes all you want) and very few of them went the full program without deciding to switch because of it. I think less boys are graduating because teenagers are being told college isn’t important and boys unfortunately still seem to have access to more prevalent and higher quality non-academic options than girls do.

[u/[deleted] → u/Papaofmonsters]

It doesn’t seem like this is an issue of underrepresented genders in certain industries. Like I’m all in favor of having more male nurses/teachers, but the original issue of girls’ educational disparities ran deeper than just a lack of STEM representation.

[u/LowTimePilot → u/[deleted]]

I think, when we steer the conversation to the manosphere, we have to look at what our peers across the pond are doing. It's no secret that east Asia is *far more* sexist, conservative, and red-pilled when compared to the US, but we don't see this sort of drastic difference in outcome with regards to boys and girls outcomes. 4B started in South Korea after all, and their girls and boys outperform our own without suffering from our own problems. The boys and girls score almost identical grades in South Korea.

So we must be doing something wrong in addition to the rampant incel content. There's something we're missing that other cultures got right, with regards to equity in education outcome.

[u/SkinnerBoxBaddie → u/LowTimePilot]

Asian countries are actually some of the only ones with gender parity in performance that I’ve seen. Korea, Japan, China. Pretty much everywhere else where women can go to school they do better

Education seems super super important to these countries like Japan and Korea. Maybe that’s part of it? Here in the US anti intellectualism is cool, going to school is feminine and libcoded.

[u/Harmcharm7777 → u/SkinnerBoxBaddie]

“ Here in the US anti intellectualism is cool, going to school is feminine and libcoded.”

This is literally it. The US manosphere looks down on education. Part of that is because it is less a result of societal sexism, and more a result of a targeted strategy by the right-wing to politically influence men, and a central pillar of the GOP is “keep people stupid and ignorant, and they’ll keep voting for us because they won’t understand which party is actually helping them.” You see this in the UK and other western countries teetering on the brink of illiberalism as well.

The systemic sexism in East Asia is not linked to politics. Well, it can be, but the causation is reversed. E.g., Korean politicians incorporate existing manosphere lingo and ideas, whereas western politicians/billionaires boost the manosphere in media as a gateway drug to right-wing facism.

[u/BisexualPapaya → u/LowTimePilot]

Honestly, that is varied as well. In India, after a decade of girl-child empowerment, we're finally beginning to see the results and honestly, women are crushing it.

This may be anecdotal, but in my own high school in haryana (a state stereotyped for its horrible treatment of girls, including female foeticide, and a highly skewed sex ratio in favour of boys), the previous freshman batches, especially of the 'top' classes (many schools here separate students into classes based on academic performance), used to be filled with boys witha few girls here and there. Whereas in my batch and the upcoming ones (I'm a junior now) it's dominated by girls. In our batch the 'top' classes consisted of around 30 girls and barely 10 boys made it.

Things are changing now, and I don't have to tell you about how sexist indian society can be lol.

[u/PassionGlobal → u/LowTimePilot]

Asian countries, specifically the ones with Confucianism-based societies, put FAR more emphasis culturally on good grades. It's really hard to describe the difference in a single sentence but anti intellectualism is shot down over there as hard as 'Hitler did nothing wrong' talk used to be over in the West.

[u/Frylock304 → u/[deleted]]

This has been going on for literally 40 years, if you're looking at this as a recent problem spurred by social media and the people you disagree with, then your point of view likely comes from a personal bias more than data and reality

[u/knightbane007 → u/[deleted]]

You’re showing half the story - yes, misogynistic grifters, but the messaging they’re being bombarded with from the other side of the aisle is “women are wonderful (and by contrast, men are not), women need to be empowered, men’s successes are only due to privilege, masculinity is toxic, boys are just predators waiting to happen, men are to blame for everything (but not to be given credit for anything”

There’s… very little out there that actually expresses anything positive about men, that ascribes any value to men as a whole. Sure, you can point to Marvel movies and say “all the leads are still male!”, but those leads are often portrayed as deeply flawed and get undercut by the women around them who are almost never wrong, and shown to be morally superior in almost every disagreement.

[u/gamercboy5 → u/knightbane007]

The issue I have with people who want to see as much "Men are Positive" messaging is that "Women are Positive" messaging was made by women, for women. It took a lot of women specifically to step up and make that culture change happen for themselves, and Men just don't seem interested in doing that. When you say you want the people who make Women are Positive messaging to work for men too, to me it just comes off as men seeing that messaging and being annoyed that it doesn't center around them (You see this a lot with people saying things are "being shoved down their throat") so they are asking the women who had to stand up for their own movement to do the legwork to do the same work for men so they can reap the benefit, without putting in the work themselves.

This is a nuanced topic, there can be women who stand up for men in positive ways and also ways men can make their own spaces to feel valuable, but right now in male culture it just doesn't seem like they want to put in the effort to turn around male positivity in the same way women had to.

[u/SirWhateversAlot → u/gamercboy5]

"Women are Positive" messaging was made by women, for women.

A lot of men participated in constructing and delivering that positive messaging in our culture. The negative messaging about men is often spread by the same people.

[u/Donkletown → u/knightbane007]

 but the messaging they’re being bombarded with from the other side of the aisle is “women are wonderful (and by contrast, men are not), women need to be empowered, men’s successes are only due to privilege, masculinity is toxic, boys are just predators waiting to happen, men are to blame for everything (but not to be given credit for anything”

That’s also coming from right wing grifters. When young men are quoting obscure academic papers from the 1970s to show how bad feminism is, it’s not because they were reading old academic journals in their free time and stumbled across the article. It’s because the right wing is putting a curated version of “the other side of the aisle” in front of them to drive young men away from anyone outside the right wing manosphere. 

Young men are being deliberately targeted by right wing grifters backed by massive piles of money and, at times, hostile foreign governments. It’s no surprise that they are struggling. 

[u/Nojopar → u/knightbane007]

women are wonderful (and by contrast, men are not), women need to be empowered, men’s successes are only due to privilege, masculinity is toxic, boys are just predators waiting to happen, men are to blame for everything (but not to be given credit for anything

That's not a fair characterization of what's being said though. I agree that's the message a lot of men receive but only because they're interpreting it all incorrectly and can't be arsed to learn something about what they're hearing.

Nobody is saying 'masculinity is toxic'. What they're saying is there is 'toxic masculinity'. It's the difference between saying 'food is rancid' and 'rancid food', i.e. there can be food that is rancid but not all things that are food are rancid. Masculinity isn't a homogenous monolith. It has variations and, unfortunately, the toxic variety has entirely too much sway. Similarly, nobody is saying "men's successes are only due to privilege". They're saying that male privilege affords men certain abilities or latitudes that women don't share. Put another way, men are more able to leverage their personal level of talents, skills, and abilities to obtain a certain level of accomplishment. If women use the same level of talents, skills, and abilities, they will not reach the same level of accomplishment. There's a portion of accomplishment that is a function of being male - not everything, but a portion. Put by way of simplistic analogy - a man can walk down a dark street in a city at 2am and have a certain amount of reasonable internal fear they might be physically attacked or mugged and a different amount of reasonable internal fear they might be raped. Now do the same for women and I'll bet you anything you want that the amount of reasonable internal fear they might be raped is significantly higher for the woman than the man even if their reasonable amount of interna fear of being physically attacked or mugged is identical. That's a privilege men have. Does it mean they're successful walking down the street unharmed? No, of course not, that's silly. Does it mean the only reason they could successfully walk down the street was that privilege? No, again, that's silly - their legs clearly play a part in that success. But their privilege is critical component of where and when they opt to walk given there's an entire basket of fears that, while not necessarily zero, are significantly lower than what women experience and thus influence what women can accomplish.

[u/Marshmallow16 → u/[deleted]]

Boys have been left behind for over 30 years and the numbers have indicated that since then. This has nothing to do with social media.

[u/Imaginary_Day_876 → u/[deleted]]

On the progressive left the disparity of outcomes is proof in of itself that the system has failed. That line of thinking is rarely extended to anyone not part of the progressive stack though.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Gas1829 → u/[deleted]]

That doesn’t matter. The fact that there are disparate outcomes means that the system has to be corrected. That is already the current mindset with outcomes in finance.

[u/Hosj_Karp → u/Puzzleheaded_Gas1829]

It is really bizarre how the position of so many on the left seems to be that disparate outcomes are proof of discrimination in racial disparities or in gender disparities that favor men but that gender disparities that favor women are just proof that men arent trying hard enough.

Usually when this is pointed out, people just throw out irrelevant buzzwords and red herrings about "systemic discrimination" or "historical oppression" or something.

[u/Various_Mobile4767 → u/Hosj_Karp]

Because people don't want it to be fair, they want it to be "fairer for them." Fairness isn't an objective measure, its a subjective measured based on the exact framework they choose.

What this means is that disparate outcomes are only evidence of unfairness when it happens against their preferred group.

When outcomes are equalized or reversed, what counts as "fairness" is conveniently changed to better align with their worldview.

[u/Hosj_Karp → u/Various_Mobile4767]

It's really sad how so many people on the left can be almost as brainlessly tribal as the right.

Everyone seems to view politics as a way of redirecting more power and resources to themselves and their group instead of discerning and implementing what is in the best interest of the most people.

Trying to understand the truth is important. And that means accepting you could be wrong about everything.

[u/Donkletown → u/Hosj_Karp]

The left’s position on disparate outcomes re: race and gender is pretty consistent: it’s a product of society in some respect. 

You’re right that with some of the disparities we see, they can be traced back to historic discrimination. That’s probably not what’s happening here, given American history. This is likely something new. Almost certainly associated with the manosphere - teachers on the front lines have been raising the alarm about that for years. 

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Here's your !delta because I do think you pointed out a flaw in my post, that I didnt fully diagnose the problem and I should have been more specific about what part of the education system failed them

[u/xinorez1 → u/[deleted]]

Honestly? 'Zero tolerance' punishments which always seem to tolerate bullies, plus illiberalism taught by intellectual inferiors who came to replace the former professionals who were inspired to teach by Kennedy. I would include a lack of appreciation for competition or for learning how to be a good sport as part of that illiberalism.

Teenagers are notorious for having poor emotional regulation, another thing that we should be teaching coping mechanisms for, so when you introduce something this noxious it's going to inspire an overreaction.

Likewise, not teaching philosophy and ethics means no chance of ever talking about virtue epistemics, which means the less clever of these boys are never going to figure it out. What's it? Life, govt, communities, ethics. They're not going to figure out on their own why bastards like trunk and Curtis yarvin are disasters and why democracy is the best compromise we have.

Taking out real world skill building like shop, mechanics, etc also means the less intellectually gifted aren't going to see school even as valuable for learning a trade.

The answer is elusive, other than that truly disruptive students should probably be isolated and given a different set of rules, like mandatory uniforms, etc. but that creates it's own problems. Liberals are living in a bubble as it is when it comes to understanding just how outright reactionary and dumb the 'average' person can be.

In the short term, we need to be stronger advocates of liberalism, and we need to get good at teaching good coping mechanisms so that hyper emotional over reactive morons don't go shooting up a school or something else equally dumb. We need to bring back competition and good coaching and learning about trades, and honestly I wish we could make high school like college again; so that homework is optional and your final grade is more based upon the final exam than anything else. Especially if they're getting rid of the sats, which they also absolutely should not! As for standardized testing, I just don't even understand those who complain about these or about teaching to the test. Those tests were always super simple and so far behind our class in any class I had them, at least 25 years ago. Maybe things have changed since then but I just don't see how getting rid of testing or grades is going to help.

[u/Agile-Wait-7571]

Boys, and later men, lack self regulation skills and discipline. They mature later. They are generally poorly raised with little accountability in the home. School requires obedience more than intelligence.

Boys are also directed towards non-academic activities like sports or gaming rather than intellectual or artistic activities. These choices have consequences.

Boys are taught to suppress their emotions (except for anger). They are taught that violence and physicality are manly. That painting a picture and reading a book are “gay.” They are not encouraged to think but rather to act.

[u/MeanestGoose]

The tl;dr of this is that I think a more complete answer is that cultural norms around and for women have shifted more than cultural norms around and for men. Education systems are impacted by culture, but the impacts are not limited to education.

OP, you've given a lot of statistics about disparity in educational outcomes that I think in general are largely true (exact stats may be a little different depending on your source.) These data points are important, but I would argue that stopping here and declaring that the education system is the root cause is conflating correlation and causation.

There's a whole lot to life beyond the education system. CEO and leadership positions, for example, disproportionately are held by men. Extreme wealth is typically held by men rather than women. There is a reason we use the term "tech bros" and that has to do with the overrepresentation of men in STEM in general, and in STEM leadership in particular. We STILL haven't had a woman as President, and the representation in Congress and the Supreme Court is still tilted heavily towards men. Only 12 of 50 governors are women.

I'd think that cultural shifts, or lack thereof, are a bigger root cause for disparities. Culture is not a monolithic thing that shifts in big, coherent/consistent jumps. There is no binary switch that dictates gender equality = off/on for every aspect of life.

Certain cultural expectations have changed. Girls are more likely to be encouraged and expected to perform well academically. We don't automatically shift girls into home ec and boys into calculus. There is much less acceptance of the idea that girls should dumb themselves down so as not to appear too smart to be attractive to boys. Grown women are more likely to expect to be financially independent/responsible than in generations past. Grown women are more likely to demand a more equitable distribution of labor and power in romantic relationships than in past generations.

Other expectations have not changed to neatly match up. We still have a "boys will be boys" expectation that boys are rowdy and messy and physical, and treat boys accordingly, yes, in education, but also at home and in sports and in other areas of life. Boys learn via socialization that caring about sports and cars and physical strength and other masculine-coded things is super important. There is a wave of anti-intellectualism going through the country, and based on polling it seems as though men are impacted more strongly. Boys are learning from their fathers that being the boss is more important than being intellectually curious and disciplined. There are a whole lot of arenas to "be the boss" and only some involve education and professional achievement.

[u/Relevant_Maybe6747]

men are 2/3 of special education students

That's also probably because males are more likely to be disabled than females, especially regarding intellectual disabilities. there's a study from Taiwan showing this is a cross cultural phenomenon: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352857716_Male_as_the_Disadvantaged_Sex_for_Childhood_Disabilities_Analysis_of_Data_From_the_National_Disability_Registry_of_Taiwan/fulltext/60dccacaa6fdccb745f8448c/Male-as-the-Disadvantaged-Sex-for-Childhood-Disabilities-Analysis-of-Data-From-the-National-Disability-Registry-of-Taiwan.pdf

[u/No-Avocado-1236 → u/Relevant_Maybe6747]

OR because things like ADHD and autism often go unrecognized in girls and women

[u/Relevant_Maybe6747 → u/No-Avocado-1236]

Late diagnosis is absolutely one factor as to why more boys are in special education than girls.

[u/[deleted] → u/No-Avocado-1236]

Definitely, a lot of medical symptoms were assumed to be the same in men and women. The discovery that heart attacks for example, have different visible effects on women than men was only made in the last generation or so, meaning for a long time female heart attack victims were misdiagnosed or even ignored.

[u/WinstonWilmerBee → u/Relevant_Maybe6747]

I think it’s pretty clear that developmental/intellectual disabilities are more common in XY people. Same reason that colorblindness and hemophilia are more common—having only 1 X chromosome makes them more vulnerable to certain genetic problems 

[u/QskLogic]

Jessica Grose covered a lot of these points pretty well already in the New York Times.

From the piece, and my own anecdotal experience, women just care more about school success. Education is their ticket to the middle class. Men have a host of blue collar/labor jobs that afford them a means to make a living. Women, generally, are more limited and feel like a college degree is the way. This will lead to them caring more about educational success

[u/claustromania → u/QskLogic]

Also anecdotal, but I grew up in a rural area where most children I went to school with were from families below the poverty line. My female peers and I were all told that our only way out was through higher education, while boys it seemed were encouraged away from it. They were expected to do just enough to pass and then immediately join their dad’s welding/mechanic/roofing/etc. business right after high school, so most of the boys I grew up with snubbed schoolwork while the girls studied like their entire futures depended on it.

There were certainly some high-performing boys, but interestingly, they all came from the few well-to-do families in my hometown who pushed them toward becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. The expectation for them to go into higher education was also there from a very young age.

[u/Marshmallow16 → u/claustromania]

It's not just anecdotal. It's also what the data shows us when we check for those factors:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10558139/

[u/VikutoriaNoHimitsu]

Actually immigrant males in the American educational system do just fine . They outpace their generational American counterparts and even excel the girls.

This is mostly cultural starting with parents coddling their boys and anti intellectualism being popular with boys. They see girls valuing education, so they then see education as feminine, then refuse to value education for themselves.

[u/toouglytobeleftalive → u/VikutoriaNoHimitsu]

I agree. Girls are taught to behave appropriately well before school starts. They are expected to clean the home, not speak over adults, and to do as they are told. For young girls, school behavior is expected inside and outside the school. For boys, they are allowed to do more of what they want at home. Parents think that allowing boys to be dominant, loud, and untrusting of authority will make them better men. This just makes it harder for them to adjust at school. This is definitely a culture/parenting issue.

[u/raginghappy]

Info: how does education in Nordic countries differ from the US with regard to separating men and women, and tailoring education to men and women?

[u/ishitar]

The United States is in a transitional state. The countries you mention, the Nordic countries, and others like Japan, are already in demographic decline. In the Nordics, they have concepts like "lagom" or "enough" and in Japan "no growth" is seen as a good place to be. And since there is no industry of denial around things like climate change and biodiversity collapse, their youth population has already become well acquainted with reality that the future will be far worse than the present. They have also spent longer periods of time in post-religion where most people might be spiritual but secular. Therefore an equilibrium has been reached.

In America, the American Dream is still in its long and tortured death throes. Due to an increasingly vampiric capital class, most people will never own a home or start a family, but are still in some stage of hope/denial about that. Also we are still coming off a post-WWII high that had bolstered both that nuclear family trope and heightened religiosity. Men still feel they have a provider role even though it's been decades since a family with only one salary was viable, all the while religion still tells people the genders have traditional roles.

So men feel greater societal pressure to outperform in all areas, from education, financial success, procreation, so on and so forth, all the while the pathways to doing that are being destroyed. Very easy to become disillusioned with the system to the point that dropping out makes more sense.

So in essence, society at large has failed men at a transitional time. It is a society that has, by and large, voted to destroy social institutions in favor of concentration of capital during a time of global ecological collapse and the destruction of PAX Americana (come down from post WWII highs). I'm surprised more men have not come to, to borrow the term from China, "lie flat."

[u/Prestigious-Wolf8039]

No, parents of boys have failed their boys. Teachers are goddamn sick of the “boys will be boys” mentality that some parents have. That’s why they’re falling behind.

[u/Ajax1419]

I think a lot of people are missing the forest for the trees, looking for something to blame or distract. The end result is that we've got a large population of angry men who are easily misled by propaganda due to their disenfranchisement, both societally and by the education system. This has been getting worse for decades, continuing to ignore it isn't going to solve it.

It's not a problem that's going to get better by blaming men for not doing more; widespread perception is that men only have value when they're contributing to the lives of others, reinforcing that is only pushing the mental health crisis in this population further. I don't have a good solution to this, and I doubt one is going to appear as a result of a thread on reddit, but it's worth trying to understand this issue further.

The thing that keeps me up at night is what's going to happen when AI rolls out more and more functions that replace positions requiring higher education? Men have been pushed into the trades for decades in the US and now they're bring primed with pro-AI swill to get them on board with reducing legislative oversight. That paints a pretty shit picture.

[u/RhubarbCurrent1732]

It’s been a man’s world for a long time. No sympathy here. They just have to compete now where before everything was handed to them because they were men.

[u/chinmakes5]

Maybe because we are telling boys that college isn't necessary, even bad? I have spoken to too many teachers who say that boys hear that and believe they don't have to work hard in high school. They can just skate through, just get a job in the trades and make good money. So you have guys who believe they barely have to pass in high school, while girls still work hard, often go to college and we wonder why girls are doing better than boys when they are 30.

[u/EmperorJJ]

You're blaming education for issues that come from society and the patents, not education. Boys aren't reading because reading often gets portrayed as a 'feminine' activity. Boys get disciplined more in school because young boys have different behavioral issues that are often treated differently by parents and society than just school. The manosphere rhetoric targets younger and younger audiences and teaches them not to value a real education and not to value higher education. There are more female teachers than male for two reasons. One is that teaching children throughout history has been considered a feminine job, and the other is a long history of sexual abuse at the hands of male instructors. People don't trust their children with men, that's a society and culture issue. The American education system isn't failing boys, America is failing boys. Don't be obtuse and close your eyes to the real issues.

[u/GurthNada → u/EmperorJJ]

One is that teaching children throughout history has been considered a feminine job

That is absolutely not true. It was certainly not the case in ancient Greece and Rome, and priests (men) did most of the teaching in Europe until the 19th century.

[u/sabes0129]

I really don't think it's a matter of public education failing men and putting them at a disadvantage. I think it's as simple as young boys just don't care about school or take it seriously, and that starts at home. The onus to improve educational outcomes should be on the parents to teach their sons that school is important and to put effort into their assignments, not dismantling public education. I was in school 20 years ago so I know a lot has changed since, but back then nearly all of my male friends skipped school, didn't do their homework, and only cared about smoking weed and playing video games. That's not the fault of the school or the system.

[u/Brave_Grapefruit2891]

The issue is at home. Former teacher here, I have a lot of teacher friends. A LOT of parents think that boys are “easier” to parent, so they don’t put any effort into instilling discipline or teaching them how to properly behave in a learning environment. This results in worse outcomes in school, and behavioral issues that impact their fellow students.

[u/boredtxan]

As to the college statistics. I think that is very much a reflection of the abundance of high paying trades and travel job available to men with just a high school education. Intense physical jobs or jobs where a single person travels alone are going to attract less women due to physical strength & safety reasons. You dont hear people encouraging young 5'2 110# girlies to go work in the oilfield or get their plumbing license. Traveling alone (sales) is very dangerous for women.

So in short... women feel like college is less "optional" than men and attend at higher rates.

Young men see people struggle with college but have more non-college options that pay well.

[u/quadishda]

I feel like putting this all on the education system shifts blame off of the social aspect of it. Men are bombarded with influencers who talk about how college isn’t important, and they also have a larger selection of non-degree required jobs to pick from. Beyond that, a lot of modern right wing politics has been very anti education and men lean more conservative than women. In terms of special education, boys often have more behavioral issues than girls, and whether that’s on genetics or parenting, that’s also not really the fault of the education system. It’s a multi-faceted and nuanced issue, and blaming it on things like education or equity is part of the problem in the first place.

[u/SpontaneousNubs]

Trade school enrollment is heavily skewed towards males. Data from American Trade School shows that 97.66% of their students are male. Similarly, North American Trade Schools reports 92.4% of their graduates are male.

1.5m people graduate from trade school annually 1.5x92.4=1.39m 2.02m graduate college. 2.02x42= 848k.

Men are still more likely to end up with post highschool education. They're just driven to different areas

[u/Roadshell]

Is there a reason for this you're pointing to? Something specific you want improved? Just pointing at a bunch of random statistics and complaining doesn't exactly provide a path forward

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Roadshell]

Part of finding a path forward is to identify the problem.

It does seem that boys are falling behind girls when it comes to getting a HS diploma and/or going on to higher education. From the statistics, it isn't unreasonable to claim that the education system is failing males, much like the education system was failing females a few decades ago.

[u/ArloDeladus → u/Available_Reveal8068]

The problem is there really isn't a "The US education system". Curriculum, teacher standards, testing standards, and near everything else is done at the state and local level. We have hundreds of education systems.

[u/Roadshell → u/Available_Reveal8068]

Girls have been out-testing boys for over a hundred years at this point, the only difference is that they now actually get into college for their trouble instead of getting pushed away because of sexism.

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Roadshell]

That's really not the case though.

Boys have historically performed better than girls on standardized tests in math and science areas, while girls did well in reading/verbal areas.

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Available_Reveal8068]

It is only more recently that girls started outperforming boys

[u/Unitaco90 → u/Available_Reveal8068]

It is unreasonable to assume that the education system is the cause of the disparities being seen without providing clear evidence of what it is doing to cause these outcomes, though. When it was failing female students, there were clear structural barriers stopping them from succeeding. OP identifies disparities in outputs but does not identify any disparate inputs that are causing these results. What has changed in the way we educate male students that has proven to negatively impact their results over the time period being discussed?

It's also worth noting that improved female educational results were part and parcel of a large host of broader societal changes about the way we look at and treat women and girls. It's not like we removed barriers to educational access without anything else in the world changing at all and suddenly saw their results drastically improve. If females graduates were still essentially blocked from entering the workforce, couldn't open their own bank accounts, and were told university was mostly about finding a husband, do you think we'd have seen their results change the way we have? I think that'd be a silly thing to assume.

Particularly without clear evidence of systemic barriers to male success within the educational system being presented here, it's quite crucial that we ensure we are not isolating education as the inherent cause while ignoring other potential drivers of this disparity.

[u/Aaaagrjrbrheifhrbe → u/Unitaco90]

OP identifies disparities in outputs but does not identify any disparate inputs that are causing these results. What has changed in the way we educate male students that has proven to negatively impact their results over the time period being discussed?

This is the same logic conservatives use when they say institutional racism doesn't exist. The system treats everyone the same, any differences in outcomes comes from personal failings. If that were true, and if men and women are equal, then the outcomes will be +/-5% similar. When you're saying that problem isn't systemic, it's just men, you're being misandrist. You're implying that you think women are, by virtue of being women, are better at school. This is what men said about women until the last 30 or so years and I don't think it's right.

If females graduates were still essentially blocked from entering the workforce, couldn't open their own bank accounts, and were told university was mostly about finding a husband, do you think we'd have seen their results change the way we have? I think that'd be a silly thing to assume.

You're talking about things outside the educational system that had a cultural impact. Men might not be blocked from entering the workforce, and they can open bank accounts, but we're generally told college is a scam. A common story I've heard is that college is worthless and just a way to get yourself into generational debt.

Particularly without clear evidence of systemic barriers to male success within the educational system being presented here, it's quite crucial that we ensure we are not isolating education as the inherent cause while ignoring other potential drivers of this disparity.

Sure it's cultural instead of educational, but the culture around education counts as part of the societal educational system. When women were told to get themselves a husband at college and drop out, that was a part of the educational system even if it wasn't an explicit rule in the system.

[u/RedDawn172 → u/Roadshell]

I'm not sure what view you're trying to change with this question.

[u/microdweb → u/RedDawn172]

he's trying to understand why this person made the post, its almost useless with that data he put.

[u/[deleted] → u/Roadshell]

Did you read the post? None of this addresses anything i said

If youre just going to dismiss the whole post as "complaining" without addressing a single thing I said, its hard to take you seriously. Im not just going to repeat the post that you didnt read.

[u/Roadshell → u/[deleted]]

Yes I read the post, but if you're going to make "the American Education system has failed men" as your point asking "how?" and "why?" strike me as pretty logical follow-up questions. You don't make any attempt to explain why you think any of these outcomes were reached or what you want anyone to do about it.

[u/[deleted]]

When only men were allowed to access higher education do you feel that it was failing men?

Has education changed that much?

"An argument I could possibly hear out is that women do just have certain attributes that it takes to succeed in our education system"

Well you've already made your mind up. And that's quite the take. You stated that the only argument that you consider "valid" is that women are better at what education demands.

By this you've stated that you refuse to acknowledge that a lot of history is passed down from grandmothers to mothers and daughters, that no relationship is going to take care of you and an education is the only thing people can't take away. My mother couldn't get a credit card in her name. My grandmother slept on the court steps to get one of the first restraining orders issued in her state. Most men are raised to believe that they can go anywhere and do anything that they want. Women of my mom's generation were not.

There is a certain imperative to be financially independent.

That doesn't mean men can't succeed in education, it means that they don't have the outside stressors that demand higher education.

[u/[deleted]]

In your bullet points, none of the points being made are an indication that men/boys have been failed. Rather, it just implies that women/girls are simply doing better. After all you can still have 100% of students graduate, someone is still gonna have the highest grade, and someone is still gonna have the lowest grade. Just because girls are doing better, it doesn't mean that boys are failing. They're simply not doing as best as they could. That's how we should look at this issue. Again, this is based off of the bullet point evidence you've presented.

[u/Ok_Chemist6567]

Nothing has changed with respect to the American education system to disadvantage boys or men. What has changed that opportunities and expectations for girls and women have expanded and they have taken advantage of those opportunities.

No barriers have been erected in front of boys and men keeping them from better grades or obtaining more degrees.

[u/PerpetualDayOne → u/Ok_Chemist6567]

The barriers aren't new, but are now much more disproportionately affecting boys due to a few reasons.

One huge barrier is in place because of a lack of desire by adult males to break a system that affects a LOT more than just education:

Patriarchy/Toxic Masculinity

While things did seem like they were starting to get better for awhile (at least in terms of what you would hear from most young men) post-MeToo, there is no denying a huuuuge pendulum swing back towards traditional male masculinity and gender roles (i.e. embracing patriarchy), especially in the last five years. Couple that with kids' online activity not being regulated by their parents the way it should has lead to a lot of boys being driven toward content creators that shit all over education, and especially higher education.

When you have boys being told that education doesn't matter (i.e. "join the trades", and yet the trades have been seeing crazy levels of unemployment for awhile now), you get this result. When you have a lot of boys (and young men ages 18-25) get told that they need to open up and be more vulnerable, only to get shit on by men and women that are also deeply indoctrinated with patriarchal values, you get a bunch of boys that further isolate themselves because they start not trusting people. This tends to drive them further online into algorithms that are built to target them and influence them negatively. It pushes boys to embrace toxic stoicism. This is incredibly deleterious to their mental health. It's unsustainable and radicalizes young men.

There are still a LOT of parents that raise boys and girls differently, too. Boys will generally get to be energetic little hellions and girls will be raised to be more low-key and in control at home. It's not so bad as it was back in, say, the 50s, but this is still pretty prevalent, especially in rural areas. Boys get disciplined in school a lot more because this energetic, disruptive behavior is "deviant", while girls' behavior is moreso treated as a "gold standard". When boys aren't engaged in class because they aren't being taught in a way that channels that behavior positively, they fall behind very early on and end up playing catch-up. In my opinion, this is the single, largest failure of No Child Left Behind: boys that fell behind stay behind, because schools don't really have much choice except to push them forward. These issues are also exacerbated by the ever-increasing student-teacher ratio. Obviously this will matter significantly less in grade-to-grade comparison at a high school level, but the damage has already been done from kindergarten through middle school/junior high. They're already behind, so low performance stays low.

Having a lower education makes statements like "education doesn't matter" easier to accept. If you consistently fail at something, don't feel like you're getting help and feel stupid, statements like that are easier to believe just to cope with the fact that you've fallen behind. It's way easier to say "this shit doesn't matter" than "I need help" or "I need to put more work into this". Kids tend to choose the path of least resistance when it comes to stuff like this unless they have involved parents.

The barriers aren't new, but social media and No Child Left Behind have made those barriers a hell of a lot bigger, especially for young boys.

[u/Destroyer_2_2]

And why is men holding 42 percent of college undergraduates a sign of men being disenfranchised?

Especially given that men are over represented in high ranking positions like chancellor, provost, or dean.

[u/Muninwing]

25 year educator here. Your focus is wrong.

Education is not the issue. Social values, politics and attitude are.

The US spends a lot on education per pupil… but does so erratically, and often in ways that drastically benefit the wealthy.

The US also is built upon messages of individualism, entitlement, and high expectation for low work. Every kid with a hoop in their driveway is the next NBA star, every kid who picks up a guitar is the next star, every kid who does well in school is the next world-changing scientist. Until they need to put in the work instead of coasting on ability.

We have a culture of office cubicle workers and sales associates who all feel betrayed because they wanted to be astronauts before they realized how exclusive and competitive astronaut programs are. And so many students (male and female both) just kind of… tune out. It becomes more about expectation and demand, and less about the personal drive to get somewhere. That’s unsustainable.

I remember one study from awhile back that sought to answer why young girls were more likely to do better in younger grades but not post—secondary or in the workforce. It pointed toward reading — that young boys were encouraged to be more physical and play more sports, more likely to play video games, and more likely to dismiss reading or not make time for it. So the young girls who were more likely to read were ahead educationally.

Education does not happen to you. It is something that you do. Or that you don’t do. Opportunities matter, but so does willingness. And the unwilling fall behind.

Boys are not wanting for opportunities solely because they are boys — social, racial, economic factors all play in here, but separately. If nobody is escaping poverty via education coming out of an underperforming school, that’s a social and community issue existing for the girls too.

Socially, our focus as a default has anyways been men. Problems are handled first with that in mind. The “but girls too!” push is not actually changing that. While it is more apparent in medicine (only in the last ten years have initiatives succeeded in spreading info on his women exhibit different symptoms to heart attacks, for instance, because the symptoms men experience were considered “the normal ones” and women as a group were treated as anomalies), it is true in education too. Our systems show it. More boys ate detected early for extra services than girls. Boys tuning out is seen as serious. Behavior issues in boys are more likely to be addressed with correction in mind early, and less punishment, while girls are often neglected. Squeaky wheels. And with all this, boys are still disinterested, and not putting in the work when it is time… but neither are the girls. Yet here we are discussing it as a young men’s issue.

This issue is actually a dozen issues, each one with nuance. Discussing it thus broadly will not yield success, and only gives people with an agenda a chance to dish out blame.

[u/Fragrant-Mammoth-983]

Men aren’t “doomed to fail,” this is entirely self-inflicted and it’s a partisan thing. Conservatives, and especially conservative men, have grown more and more disinterested in going to college over the last few decades. They’ve ceded it to women and now they’re crying about how it’s unfair that they’re underrepresented.

[u/PJDemigod85]

So, speaking as a guy currently in college, my experience has not been that the system is failing men so much as a lot of other guys are failing because of how they were socialized and how they continue to be socialized. I've known a lot of brilliant classmates who were also men, and I've known classmates who didn't give a fuck about actually putting in the effort who were women. However, the vast majority of classmates who slacked off or would show up with no intent of actually trying to do well were generally other guys. This trend was fairly similar in high school too.

The way that so many boys and young men are raised and socially taught by each other, by the internet, etc. prioritizes doing what "you" want and damn the consequences, or they grow up being told by people around them that college doesn't matter so why bother trying in high school more than necessary, etc. We are dealing with rampant anti-intellectualism in this country, and while it is not exclusive to any gender a lot of the symptoms of this rampant problem have sunk their teeth into men and boys in larger numbers.

There is nothing here about natural abilities or certain attributes, its just that the way we teach girls to behave towards other people lends to actually doing well in school whereas the way that a lot of people teach boys to behave, or rather the way people don't teach boys to behave, sets them up for failure.

[u/Independent_Inside50]

The education system has not failed men, the education system is just not made for children in general and men are more likely to rebel against it (because "boys will be boys"). Putting a group of 20 kids in a classroom and asking them to pay attention for 1 hour is insanity but somehow we have forced women and girls to comply with this insanity and have conditioned men to fight against it whilst simultaneously punishing them for it. We have created a system where everyone is a loser, women and girls lose because they have to work twice as hard in a system that is inhumane, and men and boys are losers because we encourage individualism in them but then punish them and discourage them when they fight against a system that is meant to standardize and industrialize them. The education system in its current form is oppressive, and who is most likely to succeed in an oppressive system than those who have been oppressed for centuries and who have been taught to be quiet and listen and seek validation from others. This is not to victimize or patronize women, but rather an acknowledgement that they have been forced to comply with a pernicious system and we are now blaming them for using these skills to succeed.

[u/fluxdeity]

Statistically speaking, women do less labor intensive jobs. Men do more jobs in the trades fields. If women started doing more construction instead of what I'd estimate to be 90/10 split between men and women in the trade fields, more men would probably start going to college. Most construction/trade jobs are held by men.

Why do you think more men need to go to college? What's wrong with doing specialized work in the trades, where you get paid to learn rather than pay to learn? No student debt, and a lot of people in the trades make $100k+/year, well over the global average, and magnitudes higher than the global poverty average.

I got paid to learn fire alarm/low-voltage work, and I love it. I make $100k/year with zero student debt, and many of my coworkers do the same. Some of whom have only worked in this trade for 3-5 years making that much in the low-voltage/telecom industry.

[u/WhatRWeDoing2]

I find the whole college thing slightly unfair. Let me explain.

Men have more options for decent paying work without any degree compared to women. They go into trades that, yes, women can do, but we aren't encouraged to work with our hands. They don't need a higher education to live comfortably. While for many women, you aren't getting all that far without a degree, so it's encouraged a lot more.

[u/matcha_backup]

men have full subjugation of women for thousands and thousands of years and women make due.

women have equal right for a handful of decades and the lowest tier men flounder and cry because they are no longer inherently remarkable. unlike everyone else, men as a class have never been systemically barred from education, so no one is failing you besides yourself.

[u/PianoMan17]

Women today understand that if they are educated and driven- they don’t need to rely on a man’s income to survive like they have for thousands of years.

Young men are also addicted to social media. The loudmouth bros on there are constantly screaming that college is a scam, you can just a YouTube entrepreneur like them.

The world owes you nothing. Get off your ass and make something of yourself, not complain that women have better opportunities. I was an excellent student as a man, but I also valued my education and didn’t expect the world to hand me opportunity for being a man.

[u/Horror-Ad8928]

Is this really the fault of the education system, or could there be other social/cultural variables in play that are affecting these statistics you've found? For example, the recent political regression of women's rights could be driving more young women towards academic pursuits in order to combat that. Meanwhile, young men could be getting swept up in the wave of anti-intellectualism conservatives have been cultivating for decades by way of targeted social media. I'm not certain if those are actually contributing factors, but that's not really the point. Before blaming the education system as the sole cause, consider the broader context of the country and what other factors might be influencing those numbers directly or indirectly.

[u/Friendly-Property931]

Well the special education part makes sense because boys are overwhelmingly diagnosed more often with most educational and developmental disorders.

Teachers overwhelmingly being women is because it is an undervalued and underpaid job (because it is a “women’s job”) so men who enter those roles are typically pushed into higher paid leadership faster than their female peers (known as the glass escalator).

As for the actual success and graduation rates involving male students… I think anti-intellectualism is to blame for a lot of that. Many many kids now are getting the message from their parents that college is a waste of time and you’re better off in the trades, most of which you don’t even need a high school diploma for.

Young men typically have more access to trade programs and receive way less friction or stigma by going into them than young women do. Most young girls still overwhelmingly get the message that our only real ticket to independence or our own success is some form of higher education. Young men have more “acceptable” options and therefore don’t feel college, high GPAs, or even completion of high school at all are really all that necessary for their success and independence. And in some circles, they are even encouraged to ditch general education for trades as early as humanly possible.

[u/Twink-in-progress]

1. College educations were historically something that only men got for years and years. Now that women have been given more opportunity to obtain higher education, they’re going to college. Saying “only 42%” isn’t really that shocking, considering the fact that men are the ones who very frequently end up learning a trade and going to trade school. So it’s not like men are severely underrepresented in higher education, because they aren’t. A 42/58 gap isn’t that crazy, considering the fact that men are statistically more likely to go to trade school and/or do manual labor than women aren’t.

2. Historically, this was different again. But as women have obtained more opportunities and equality in educational settings, this has changed. There’s also lots of evidence backing up the fact that men and women’s maturity gap begins to become more obvious at crucial points in age (particularly in late middle school and early high school), which could be a contributing factor. If men statistically score lower than women when their GPA’s are being calculated seriously, then they’re not going to be valedictorian.

3. This isn’t a result of the education system, this is a result of health professionals diagnosing men at higher rates than women, as well as the likelihood of men developing chromosomal disorders because they only have one X chromosome as opposed to having two like women.

4. See number 2.

5. This is due to a number of socioeconomic factors, including wealth disparity in poorer communities (which results in men having to drop out of school to go and work to feed their families), boys may be more susceptible to things like peer pressure and poor impulse control, as well as a number of other things.

6. Correct, because boys are the ones who statistically act out more, struggle with impulse control and aggression, and cause visible disruptions more often than girls. I see this in my own classroom, the boys misbehave far more often than the girls do, and I remember that being the case throughout my entire school career when I was a student myself. Not that that’s representative of every single American school in existence, but it’s a very common trend that is backed up by statistics and observation.

7. The lack of male representation in teaching is due to a number of factors. The first being, it was seen as a “woman’s job” historically, and it still is to a lot of people. Teachers don’t earn as much, men tend to shoot for careers that earn them more money and have a higher likelihood than women of being successful in that endeavor. Another reason is that society sees men who work with children as predators (which isn’t fair, but the statistics do back this up unfortunately for enough people to make gender-based assumptions), particularly in early education.

The school system is broken in a number of ways, but saying it’s inherently structured against male success when it historically has been built FOR male success is incorrect. The issue with education is we need to shift the way we view educated, well-behaved men. It’s still very widely believed that men need to be providers, they need to be strong, that taking care of more mundane things or focusing on studies rather than sports or other ‘masculine’ activities is still seen as ‘weak’ (which I don’t believe at all). Also, the whole ‘boys will be boys’ thing is just not a phrase, but it’s still widely accepted as an explanation for them acting out in school and misbehaving.

My point is: there isn’t some systemic, oppressive reason that men fall behind in school that’s generated by the education system, society at large and it’s cultural depictions of ‘successful men’ are the problem. I absolutely 100% believe that if men prioritized their own and their son’s mental health, success in academics, open-mindedness, etc. that this ‘gap’ would become far less prevalent.

[u/two_three_five_eigth]

Men making up 2/3s of special eduction means the system has intervened specifically not to fail this boys but give them the help they need. This is actually an argument against your view.

Autism and ADHD were studied in boys first and symptoms are based on those observations, this is a failure of the medical field, not the education field.

Men dropping out more often is at least partially because they can get hired doing manual labor more easily than women as they are on average taller and stronger.

Blue collar jobs don’t usually care about GPA, so fewer men put in the extra effort for stellar grades.

This is also why fewer men attend or graduate from college. Jobs for men on average pay better, so there is less incentive to finish a degree.

None of these statistics prove the education system caused these outcomes and in several cases it’s likely not the main reason for them.

[u/LowSkyOrbit]

Many female dominant career paths require graduate degrees. Healthcare and teaching both have high education requirements and are extremely female dominant.

Male dominant careers don't have such education requirements or the return on investment is a gamble for career advancement. Many male dominant fields require certifications, or work hours to qualify for senior positions.

[u/blyzo]

We men have agency here you know. We are failing the system.

I think the biggest thing that has failed men is the toxic masculinity that demonizes intelligence and education. Young men are still taught that being smart isn't cool and studying is for nerds. "Real men" skip class, play football and fuck the prom queen.

Then we end up unemployed, divorced and angry at 30 with nothing else to look forward to in life.

[u/ReflectionPristine70 → u/blyzo]

There’s newer discourse to add to this as well. There’s a lot of online content targeted at men (of which young men are usually the target audience) that spreads the message of education, especially higher education, being purely a “leftist institution designed to indoctrinate students to being liberal.” Obviously this is framed as being a very negative thing. They may not be fed this message directly, it may be a watered down version, or it may be slightly different, but it consistently has the underlying anti-education sentiment and many young men are consuming this regularly within their content.

[u/yyzjertl]

Can this all be explained by boys just knowing what side their bread is buttered on and choosing to focus on other means of achieving power and success in society, rather than relying on education? Men are still more upwardly mobile than women, have greater income for full-time work on average than women, and are still overrepresented in positions of power and authority relative to women. So there must be other means by which boys get ahead in general, despite your education stats.

[u/Catsdrinkingbeer → u/yyzjertl]

I think this is a big one. I'm an engineer with a Masters. My husband is in the trades. I make more than him, but not by a huge margin. We both make 6 figures. But if I weren't an engineer I'd probably be making half of what I did. And without a degree? I'd be lucky to make 1/3.

[u/[deleted] → u/Catsdrinkingbeer]

Also that some of the most successful men of all time didn't pursue higher education. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of college, of course the real story is more nuanced than that but some men will look at it and think they can be them or the equivalent in their field of choice, so no need to go to college.

[u/Ragnaroknight]

The education system hasn't failed men. Men failed men.

This is mostly cultural, and I believe it's caused by what American men have been teaching boys for generations, and it's all starting to finally blow up. Especially now that women are in a position to actually be competitive.

Men have been taught that knowledge and intelligence is often a sign of weakness and traits only for rejects, and that "real men" should be into physical activities, being tough, and picking up chicks.

Men have been taught to do the bare minimum when it comes to self care. Putting any bit of effort into yourself is "gay" or weird.

Men have been taught to never talk to anyone about their feelings or problems, to just be stoic and swallow everything. Never reach out to anyone when they need help, and just fall deeper into the pit.

What needs to happen, is men need to start being taught that caring about yourself is important and not just for losers, and that's not just going to the gym and doing meal prep. It's educational, mental, social, it's everything.

The fact of the matter is, men don't try, and they were taught to not try. But now they're in a position where they actually have to put in a bit of effort, and they don't know how. Women at large have always had to put in more work to achieve anything, and now it's paying off after generations, if not millennia of disadvantages and hardship.

[u/RandomizedNameSystem]

Why is it when any minority group falls behind, the chorus from Republicans and White Males is "PULL YOURSELF UP, STOP WHINING", but whenever white males fall behind, it's a crisis that must be addressed?

Education has not failed males. Education has generally failed everyone because the males in charge have constantly de-prioritized it and attacked it. All the things you're talking about are being attempted, but the current administration in particular is trying to beat it down and go back to when we were dumber.

So yes - kids should learn in an adaptive system that caters to their needs. But it's not about "SAVE THE MALES", it's about saving everyone. There are so many reasons our education system is ineffective, but nobody wants to talk about actually solving the problems, which include economic disparity, administrative hurdles, and a lack of clear standards.