Women dominate as university gender gap doubles

January 25, 2015 by Inside MAN 28 Comments

The gap between the number of men and women entering higher education in the UK has doubled in under a decade from around 29,000 to 58,000, according to the latest statistics from UCAS.

The latest figures for 2014 also show that two thirds of university courses are now dominated by women. On some courses, such as teaching, nursing and social work, nine out of ten students are female. Last year Dr Mary Curnock Cook, chief executive of UCAS, raised concern about the growing university gender gap saying:

“There remains a stubborn gap between male and female applicants which, on current trends, could eclipse the gap between rich and poor within a decade. Young men are becoming a disadvantaged group in terms of going to university and this underperformance needs urgent focus across the education sector.”

Key Facts:

512,370 students placed in higher education through UCAS in 2014
44.4% male
55.6% female
In 2006, 29,780 more women entered university than men
In 2014, 57,790 more women entered university than men
Women now 27.7% more likely to enter higher education
Women outnumber men in two thirds of university courses

Gender Divide By Subject Area:

Nursing 90.9% female students
Dance 90.1% female students
Education 88% female students
Social Work 87.6% female students
Engineering 84,7% male students
Building 84.7% male students
Animal Science 84.3% female students
Computer Science 82.3% male students
Technology 80.9% male students
Psychology 80.6% female students

—Photo: UNE Photos/flickr

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Nigel

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30933493

This study shows across the world similar patterns in general education. As Dr Stoet of Glasgow University who led the study says” if policy makers are serious about gender equality in education, then this ought to be their top priority”. As boys are clearly a disadvantaged minority in further education this is the “tip” of the educational iceberg. As is the increasing gender segregation in courses taken. Clearly many professions working with people are getting less diverse in their intake. Professions where diversity is particularly valuable.
There should indeed be concerted effort to at least investigate this as it is clearly a vast waste of the nations human resources to have some many people not reaching their potential. However in debates two main reasons for inaction are advanced ; one that a few males are super intelligent in STEM ( so presumably the remaining 99% are to be poorly educated as a compensatory measure?); the second that later in life males will earn more because of their job choices and unbroken employment record(unsaid but implied is that girls need a compensatory head start through better education) . In effect the two main oppositions to the calls for concerted efforts to address this widening gender gap are to deliberately encourage a gap to exist for other reasons entirely than educational. One only need reverse the genders or substitute race or disability to see the appalling nature of this line of argument.
As the good doctor points out anyone at all serious about gender equality would be seeing this as a priority. One suspects it isn’t simply because it is entirely contrary to current political authodoxy to admit males en mass could be short changed in this way.
rtDave

Time for SheforHe? As if.
Women need to take a good look at what the future holds for their sons. And the reason I say that, is simply because women’s voices count for more than men’s.
http://redpilluk.co.uk William Collins

The professional institutes of physics and mechanical engineering (and hence predominantly men) are doing a great deal to encourage women into STEM – so much that it is difficult to compile a list of initiatives – and tens of £millions of public money is spent on this endeavour. Contrast this with what is being done to encourage men into teaching, especially primary teaching. I could find nothing. The teaching unions are completely silent on the matter. Although their web sites do have ‘gender issues’ pages they are, of course, the usual women’s issues. The female:male ratio at university will continue to increase. I believe the problem starts pre-school and relates to boys having low expectations at the youngest age.
http://www.theskirtedman.eu Jeremy Hutchinson

As they say “lies, damn lies and statistics”. In this gender equality battle by hard line feminists and via HeForShe this saying is very apt.

They are quite happy to highlight statistics that show women are less than 50% yet forget to mention anything about men under 50% or rights that men are denied even though women enjoy which this site (InsideMan) and others similar highlight.

I have said repeatedly elsewhere, mainly on the #HeForShe #feminism for true equality to exists issues for both genders must be included equally in debates. We must also accept that certain issues of life will naturally have higher percentage for either gender due to natural attributes that apply specifically to one gender be it man or woman. Unfortunately too many seem to one the cake, the icing and the cherry, for them but not for others.
Nigel

Mr Collins you are quite right. The differences appear very early on. Crucially in reading which is after all essential for education. At the same time another gender gap also appears early and goes on to affect significant numbers, that is “Special Educational Needs” now swelled by ADHD and other ” Conduct Disorders”. Boys are the majority excluded from schools and who have “problems” sufficient to severely interrupt their education. So both from the point of view of reaching educational potential and experience of schooling boys are losing out. As you point out ,far from being widely recognised and the subject of concerted action, these two crucial measures of educational failure are largely ignored and at most the subject of sporadic and localised initiatives.
Nigel

Jeremy I think the lack of acknowledgement of such imbalances is directly related to the fact that such facts flatly contradict the ” patriarchy” paradigm. As why would men collude to achieve worse outcomes for boys?
I accept that there may indeed be differences in aptitudes and possibly preferences that will occur. However it is the lack of interest and investigation that is appalling. Huge resources have been lavished for decades , to my knowledge, on getting girls into the sciences. The main outcome of which has been more women studying medicine ( human and animal) and the science based allied health professions. As one can see in psychology, driving more, not less, gender segregation in subject choices.
- Darren Ball
  
  Hi Nigel,
  “I think the lack of acknowledgement of such imbalances is directly related to the fact that such facts flatly contradict the ” patriarchy” paradigm. As why would men collude to achieve worse outcomes for boys? ”
  
  I would offer this theory.
  
  The patriarchy is a hierarchy of men: you can’t be at the top unless there’s other men below you. Every top needs a bottom.
  
  Most of the gendered problems delivering relatively poor outcomes for males have patriarchy at their root. Males who can’t make the grade go under – this entirely explains society’s general ambivalence towards males.
  
  Males are “supposed” to take on the world as it is, not as they would want it to be. We’re not allowed to go grizzling that girls/women have it easier in this way or that; we are expected to “man-up” and all that bollocks.
  
  It behoves men who have done well to discriminate against those less fortunate: how would it harm a man if he was the only male graduate in the entire country? On the contrary, there would be heaps of advantages. Those men making decisions are by definition those who have done well and cannot be relied upon to help other males, other than their own offspring.
  
  My criticism of feminism is that the movement should be challenging any gendered disadvantage caused by our patriarchal structure; either because it’s a movement for gender equality (and the outcomes aren’t equal), or because the movement is committed to to end patriarchy. However, as a movement feminism does nothing to challenge patriarchy where the disadvantage is experienced by males, and sometimes the movement actually use patriarchal gallantry to press for female advantages to the detriment of males.
  - Mark Neil
    
    “The patriarchy is a hierarchy of men: you can’t be at the top unless there’s other men below you. Every top needs a bottom.”
    
    That describes an Oligarchy, not a patriarchy. Patriarchy as feminists have used it to bash men with for decades says the patriarchy benefits men (not just a tiny select handful, but men in general) at the expense of women. Yet what we’re seeing is men at the top granting benefits to women at the expense of the men who aren’t at the top (not even just the men at the bottom, but most men). This does not stand up to the proposed feminist models.
    
    “Most of the gendered problems delivering relatively poor outcomes for males have patriarchy at their root.”
    
    No, actually, they don’t. They have gynocentrism at their root.
    
    “we are expected to “man-up” and all that bollocks.”
    
    And who drives this attitude? Because from where I’m standing, it is women… particularly feminists, who “bath in male tears” or sing “cry me a river” any time a man dares to speak his mind.
    
    I think it speaks volumes to your attitudes towards men that, even after decades of feminist dominance in academia, of demand after demand after demand being made to preference women… you still want to absolve feminism of any wrong doing and put all the blame onto men… rather than actually discuss the issue and find solutions… because making sure it is men who are blamed seems like the important task here… right?
    
    “Those men making decisions are by definition those who have done well and cannot be relied upon to help other males, other than their own offspring.”
    
    Again, this is Oligarchy, not patriarchy.
    - Darren Ball
      
      Mark,
      I can only assume that you didn’t read to the end of my post, because if you did you would see that I’m very critical of the current incarnation of feminism insofar as it fails to address the disadvantages that males face as a result of our patriarchal society: in fact, feminism shamelessly exploits traditional patriarchal attitudes in order to advance better outcomes for females.
      
      Our society is founded on Christianity, which is one of the major Abrahamic religions: you don’t get more patriarchal than than that. Abraham is a father figure, God is a father figure. Moses is a father figure. Brides are given away to the groom by their father. The underlying culture is patriarchal. Men have traditionally competed for supremacy and women have married into that hierarchy as high as they could, but women were never equal, they were property: even the word “husband” is a farming term.
      
      Since time immemorial, men in high places have exploited lower-ranked men. They have sent them to war and shoved them down coal mines. The ambivalence that our hierarchy has always shown towards men pre-dates feminism in any form.
      
      The literal definition of patriarchy perhaps needs to be expanded, or perhaps we need a new word altogether, but in my use of the word, “patriarchal” does not literally mean rule by men: a patriarchy can be run by women.
      
      In my definition, the state and the dominant culture is the father and women are the daughters. A father can be oppressive and dictatorial to his daughters, or he can be doting, giving his daughters all that he can. It seems to me that feminism has had the effect (amongst other things) of changing the type of father from the former to the latter, but it’s still patriarchal. In my analogy, men are not the fathers but the sons, who are expected to forge their own way.
      
      I once worked with a man who had a son and daughter of similar age. Ever since his daughter was born he had been saving to give her a huge chunk of cash for her 18th birthday, but he was saving nothing for his son. That is the sort of patriarchy that our state has become. It is supported by conservative, gallant right-wing and exploited by feminism – which is the huge contradiction of the movement.
      - Mark Neil
        
        “I can only assume that you didn’t read to the end of my post”
        
        I saw. But I also saw you using standard feminist rhetoric, rhetoric which I wholeheartedly reject. Rhetoric which drives much of the current feminist movement, regardless of how critical you may or may not be of it, if you’re going to use feminist argumentation, I’ll address it as such.
        
        “Our society is founded on Christianity, which is one of the major Abrahamic religions: you don’t get more patriarchal than than that.”
        
        Define patriarchy for me, as you’re using it. Patriarchy has largely become an entirely subjective word, with it’s meaning shifting based on the immediate agenda of the person using it.
        
        As to what our society was founded on, I’m not seeing your point. It was also largely founded during feudal periods while being ruled over by monarchies.
        
        “but women were never equal, they were property”
        
        What an incredibly hateful thing to say about men. You do understand that? To assert that men “owned” their wives, like property. Women have never been treated like property. I won’t say they were treated as equals, but never property. Men have always had obligations towards women… generally a property owner does not have an obligation to go out and bust their backs in order to provide for their property. Property owners have the right to sell, discard or even destroy their own property, but not only could men NOT do any of these things, they actually had a responsibility to ensure it didn’t happen. But worse yet, you would have us believe that men treated the very people they loved as property… that men would accept such an arrangement… do you think we’re such sociopaths? Do you think we are so callous, as to believe we would have no issues with this? This is even more hateful bigoted propaganda against men than even the nazi used to justify gassing jews. You do realize this? How evil and sociopathic you are portraying men as with such hateful assertions. It is shit like this that gets feminists called man-haters… and you’ve just lapped up that dogma, and the hatred that it breeds, without a second thought.
        
        “Since time immemorial, men in high places have exploited lower-ranked men.”
        
        Again, Oligarchy, not patriarchy.
        
        “They have sent them to war”
        
        Are you familiar with the white ribbon campaign? Where it was WOMEN that shamed men into service.
        
        “The ambivalence that our hierarchy has always shown towards men pre-dates feminism in any form.”
        
        That is not evidence of a patriarchy, but of a social class…which is, again, oligarchy.
        
        “The literal definition of patriarchy perhaps needs to be expanded, or perhaps we need a new word altogether, but in my use of the word, “patriarchal” does not literally mean rule by men: a patriarchy can be run by women.”
        
        And here we have what I said in the beginning… “patriarchy” is completely subjective. People make up the meaning to fit whatever agenda they’re pushing in the moment. And in doing so, the word is literally meaningless until it gets defined. So let’s hear your definition
        
        “In my definition, the state and the dominant culture is the father and women are the daughters.” A father can be oppressive and dictatorial to his daughters, or he can be doting, giving his daughters all that he can.”
        
        Again we see the hateful taint of feminism in what you’re saying. Portraying the male (father) as the oppressive one and the female “daughter” as the victim. But both men and women can be oppressor or oppressed, and your definition so far doesn’t give that impression. It uses the same male=bad, female=victim language so frequently used by feminists, and for what purpose? The only purpose I can see for using such language is to maintain the narrative. Can the state be the mother oppressing her son? If not, why not? If so, then why use the term “patriarchy” to define this concept, other than to subconsciously lay blame on men, IE patriarchs?
        
        “I once worked with a man who had a son and daughter of similar age. Ever since his daughter was born he had been saving to give her a huge chunk of cash for her 18th birthday, but he was saving nothing for his son. That is the sort of patriarchy that our state has become.”
        
        But that isn’t patriarchy, it’s gynocentrism. Based on ACTUAL patriarchal values, it would have been his son he saved an inheritance for… his daughter he would have sought out a good husband who could provide for her. Seriously, it looks like you’re trying to blame EVERYTHING on “the patriarcy”. It’s annoying and it’s offensive… and moreover, it doesn’t in any way help address ANY issue men currently face. Gynocentrism is the act of putting women’s interests above those of men.
        
        “ It is supported by conservative, gallant right-wing and exploited by feminism – which is the huge contradiction of the movement.”
        
        If you mean gynocentrism, then yes, I agree.
      - Darren Ball
        
        I wonder if your anger is affecting your judgement and I’m not going to engage with you on all of your points because I find some of them to be a little spurious. I will focus only on the central theme.
        
        In the main we are arguing over semantics as we both accept that our society is ambivalent towards males. Males have to sink or swim in the world as it is, but if females are sinking, we’ll make whatever changes necessary to help them float. The question we’re debating is: what cultural force is to blame for this?
        
        Ambivalence towards males is not the preserve of feminists – the political right are the worst of all. Traditionally it’s the right-wing who imprison the most men, close homeless shelters, expel boys from school, send troops to war, etc. The whole stiff upper-lip, men should be men, ladies first, etc., is drawn from our patriarchal past and remains today in the minds of socially conservative men and women. Since these attitudes that harm men are held by non-feminists, and are inherited from a pre-feminist era, we can conclude that feminism is not the root cause: it’s patriarchy.
        
        I have already given you my meaning of “patriarchy”, which is not the literal definition of “rule by actual fathers”. It is very rare that the word “patriarchy” is used in it’s literal sense anyway as it is usually used to describe “rule by men”.
        
        My theory is that our dominant culture has a paternal attitude towards females, which is unfair to men and patronising to women who are never regarded as completely adult.
        
        You have launched into an epic rant because you prefer to describe this as “gynocentrism” rather than “patriarchy”. How about this: our patriarchy is become gynocentric.
http://sanelity.com Sanelity

I’m always glad to see the issue of the collegiate gender gap get some public attention.

Unfortunately, it usually only gets mainstream attention if the lower male attendance rates can be shown to disadvantage women. Typically along the lines of “who will these educated women marry?”

Be thankful the UK hasn’t yet adopted the American #YesMeansYes affirmative consent requirements yet. I believe that will discourage even more men from enrolling in universities.
Mark Neil

“Women outnumber men in two thirds of university courses”

And yet, we only ever hear about how much we need to support women in that remaining third. Seems equality means women dominating everything.
PF

Excellent piece InsideMan. About three weeks ago Andrew Marr was doing
the paper review on his show with Trevor Phillips. Phillips was talking about the
way men were falling behind in education and the workplace, to which Marr sardonically and dismissively replied ‘poor men’. I was so outraged and disgusted by this, since what other group in society would be talked about this way on the BBC by a BBC journalist.
I almost wrote to Inside Man about it as I’ve noticed items about BBC sexism and discrimination against men get a lot of hits. But for rich men at the top of society could it be that the current model of meritocracy cannot be broken, since belief in it validates their own success and prestige?
- Darren Ball
  
  PF, This is a perfect example of my point. Marr is a powerful man. I’m certain that he will make sure that his son gets a fine education and career, but beyond that he’s dismissive of gendered problems faced by other men.
Richard Collins

“Unfortunately, it usually only gets mainstream attention if the lower male attendance rates can be shown to disadvantage women. Typically along the lines of ‘who will these educated women marry?’”
Well said!
It wasn’t Glen’s fault but a headline writer of one of his articles felt compelled to make the argument for men ‘OK’ by saying just that:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/fatherhood/10121572/For-the-sake-of-our-daughters-dont-forget-the-boys.html
Nigel

Darren and Mark . I thank you for your debate. On balance I think the explanatory power of “Oligarchy” is more persuasive. But the patterns you observe are easily discernible in a range of data. Take how long you may expect to live. The descent into a plutocratic “Oligarchy” in the Russian Federation was linked to a dramatic fall in the life expectancy for males but not females. Indeed the situation is improved but still worse ( for males) than prior to the collapse of the USSR. In the Uk similarly “class” differences are much more pronounced for males. So there is , for all health and wellbeing outcomes including death, a much greater difference according to class for males than is the case for females. And of course each recorded recession is usually a “mancession” in terms of negative impacts. Of course there are differences for women, who are not a uniform group in this sense. It’s just that in industrialised economies the class differentials are very much greater for males. If you live western in Europe and you wish a long life to match your female partner, be an executive class Frenchman. If you want a short life and one a decade shorter than your female partner be a poor Glaswegian.
So Darren and Mark the health data suggests men should be far more concerned with socio economic class than women. Though less familiar I believe the data on educational achievement and exclusions follows similar patterns. Is it Patriarchy, Oligarchy,Capitalism (revealing my age as formed in the cold war before ” the end of history” I tend to the latter.)
I suspect a commitment to the same life expectancy for men and women( as was the case in the Edwardian age) would actually require a great deal of change for men, and society.
- Mark Neil
  
  Nigel, I’m uncertain the relevance of raising the health concerns by socio-economic class with regards to the defending your blaming of these educational differences on men and “the patriarchy”. It just seems like a red herring.
  
  That said, have you considered WHY socio economic class has different effects on men and women? Simple answer is, men and women have traditionally, and continue, to have different gender roles. Me’s role has always been that of provider, and so the stresses created by socio-economic gaps impact men more, because it reflects on their ability to perform their role. Regardless of whether a family is poor or rich does not generally fall on a woman’s shoulders, and so there is less stress involved for her, when examining that particular point of data. And the expectation of male as provider continues to this day… and is, in fact, even more heavily enforced than throughout most of history, and with even less return (at least back in the 1800′, when a man divorced but was still forced to pay alimony to his ex, he got the children. Now he has to pay alimony, child support AND loses his children, and if he dares to challenge any of these, it ether risks a small fortune in court, or risks jail for defying a court order if he attempts another method of defiance.
  
  “So Darren and Mark the health data suggests men should be far more concerned with socio economic class than women.”
  
  And who says we’re not? We’re just not willing to handwave it away as a result of the universal scapegoat known as “The Patriarchy”. I’m not even sure where you got the idea we don’t concern ourselves with such concerns…
Darren Ball

Mark,

I’m repeating my answer to you because it is not displaying properly in my first response.

I can only assume that you didn’t read to the end of my post, because if you did you would see that I’m very critical of the current incarnation of feminism insofar as it fails to address the disadvantages that males face as a result of our patriarchal society: in fact, feminism shamelessly exploits traditional patriarchal attitudes in order to advance better outcomes for females.

Our society is founded on Christianity, which is one of the major Abrahamic religions: you don’t get more patriarchal than than that. Abraham is a father figure, God is a father figure. Moses is a father figure. Brides are given away to the groom by their father. The underlying culture is patriarchal. Men have traditionally competed for supremacy and women have married into that hierarchy as high as they could, but women were never equal, they were property: even the word “husband” is a farming term.

Since time immemorial, men in high places have exploited lower-ranked men. They have sent them to war and shoved them down coal mines. The ambivalence that our hierarchy has always shown towards men pre-dates feminism in any form.

The literal definition of patriarchy perhaps needs to be expanded, or perhaps we need a new word altogether, but in my use of the word, “patriarchal” does not literally mean rule by men: a patriarchy can be run by women.

In my definition, the state and the dominant culture is the father and women are the daughters. A father can be oppressive and dictatorial to his daughters, or he can be doting, giving his daughters all that he can. It seems to me that feminism has had the effect (amongst other things) of changing the type of father from the former to the latter, but it’s still patriarchal. In my analogy, men are not the fathers but the sons, who are expected to forge their own way.

I once worked with a man who had a son and daughter of similar age. Ever since his daughter was born he had been saving to give her a huge chunk of cash for her 18th birthday, but he was saving nothing for his son. That is the sort of patriarchy that our state has become. It is supported by conservative, gallant right-wing and exploited by feminism – which is the huge contradiction of the movement.
Darren Ball

Mark,

Sorry for the multiple post, but again my response to you is not displaying correctly.

I wonder if your anger is affecting your judgement and I’m not going to engage with you on all of your points because I find some of them to be a little spurious. I will focus only on the central theme.

In the main we are arguing over semantics as we both accept that our society is ambivalent towards males. Males have to sink or swim in the world as it is, but if females are sinking, we’ll make whatever changes necessary to help them float. The question we’re debating is: what cultural force is to blame for this?

Ambivalence towards males is not the preserve of feminists – the political right are the worst of all. Traditionally it’s the right-wing who imprison the most men, close homeless shelters, expel boys from school, send troops to war, etc. The whole stiff upper-lip, men should be men, ladies first, etc., is drawn from our patriarchal past and remains today in the minds of socially conservative men and women. Since these attitudes that harm men are held by non-feminists, and are inherited from a pre-feminist era, we can conclude that feminism is not the root cause: it’s patriarchy.

I have already given you my meaning of “patriarchy”, which is not the literal definition of “rule by actual fathers”. It is very rare that the word “patriarchy” is used in it’s literal sense anyway as it is usually used to describe “rule by men”.

My theory is that our dominant culture has a paternal attitude towards females, which is unfair to men and patronising to women who are never regarded as completely adult.

You have launched into an epic rant because you prefer to describe this as “gynocentrism” rather than “patriarchy”. How about this: our patriarchy is become gynocentric.
- Mark Neil
  
  I assume the “not displaying” issue is the words going off the side of the screen? It’s just a display issue. Copy pasting the text into a word editor gets all the words. But moving my response here to avoid that for a short time.
  
  “I wonder if your anger is affecting your judgement”
  
  Ah, starting with the tone trolling. That doesn’t bode well.
  
  “and I’m not going to engage with you on all of your points”
  
  No surprise. You’ve been dodging the difficult points right from the start.
  
  “because I find some of them to be a little spurious.”
  
  But you’re not going to point out which ones or how they’re spurious. How convenient. Yeah, this reply, and pleasantly toned as you present it, is far less conducive to an honest discourse than any degree of angry I may or may not have displayed.
  
  “The question we’re debating is: what cultural force is to blame for this?”
  
  To a degree, this is what we’re arguing. But I think we’re using different ideas of “blame”. For example… alimony abuses. Who is to blame for that? Well, clearly the concept of alimony stems back long before feminists became an influential force, so feminism can’t be blamed for it’s origin… However, feminism is responsible for a great deal of the increases in divorces that result in alimony being paid. They are responsible for the no fault divorce, which means a woman can cheat on her husband, leave him, and still get alimony. They are responsible for many of the draconian enforcement policies that are currently in place. They are responsible for the current calculations used to determine alimony. And they are responsible for the vast majority of the opposition to any kind of reform. So, who’s to blame for the problem of alimony today? Is it the traditional practice, or all the changes that have been made, and the opposition to updating the practice to incorporate those changes? From what I’ve gotten from you so far, you would blame the fact the practice was created in the first place. Whereas, I believe the practice was needed at one point, that there were checks and balances to protect against abuse (fault in divorce not being the least of these), and that it is the vast changes to our society, and the resistance to accounting for these changes that is the problem…and that has a GREAT deal to do with feminism.
  
  “Ambivalence towards males is not the preserve of feminists”
  
  One just need look at the Duluth model of domestic violence, the erasure of male rape victims in the CDC’s NISVS, run by feminist Mary Koss of 1 in 4 women will be raped fame, to see this assertion to be entirely untrue. Ambivalence to men is central to feminism… after all, feminism is purely about women, and their issues, and men’s issues are not only ignored, but actually erased when they are inconvenient to feminist goals.
  
  “the political right are the worst of all.”
  
  Highly debatable. While I agree traditionalists tend to be more ambivalent to men’s issues, they were likewise ambivalent to many women’s issues. They also acknowledged many of the checks and balances that made this ambivalence equitable (or at least, more equitable than it currently is). 150 years of addressing and erasing the obligations and expectations placed on women, while maintaining the obligations and expectations placed on men, is far more responsible for the inequalities we currently face than the 10,000 years before that where those expectations and obligation on both sexes worked, perhaps not ideally for ether, but they worked equitably. Now we’re left with a society where men have obligations and expectations, but even suggesting women should have any is deemed unacceptable… and THAT is feminism’s doing, not traditionalism, which had obligations for both sexes.
  
  “Traditionally it’s the right-wing who…(cutting for brevity)”
  
  Correct. But the right wing likewise “had” a great deal of expectation it placed on women, expectations that have been labeled sexist and have been attacked. The right wing has had expectations for both sexes, but only seems to get called out, BY FEMINISTS, on the expectations on women…thus resulting in the right only being allowed to have expectations of men. You’re doing here the same thing feminists routinely do… you’re cherry picking details that serve your argument, while ignoring the reciprocal details that don’t.
  
  “Since these attitudes that harm men are held by non-feminists, and are inherited from a pre-feminist era, we can conclude that feminism is not the root cause: it’s patriarchy.”
  
  Except that these attitudes you’ve listed are only a fraction of the whole that makes up traditional values. You’re looking at only that fraction and presenting it as the whole. The actual traditional values, while including these attitudes that harm men (by todays standards), also included attitudes that, by todays standards, harm women. It also included a great deal that benefited both men and women in different ways. Feminism has attacked and removed the elements they deemed to harm women, and have demanded the benefits that men traditionally received, leaving men with only the harm done, while keeping traditional benefits for women all to themselves. I other words, feminists completely destroyed traditional values that had checks and balances, and you’re trying to blame the resulting mess on the fact those traditional values existed in the first place.
  
  “I have already given you my meaning of “patriarchy”, which is not the literal definition of “rule by actual fathers”. It is very rare that the word “patriarchy” is used in it’s literal sense anyway as it is usually used to describe “rule by men”.”
  
  I’m glad you acknowledge the definition of patriarchy changes based on who’s using it. But you do understand how that makes the word entirely useless?
  
  As to your definition, given you’ve already acknowledged women can rule ( “a patriarchy can be run by women.” ), your definition is entirely meaningless as well. If a patriarchy can be run by men or women, and all a patriarchy is, is rule by men (or women), what is it, precisely, that you’re opposed to? Because I’m not seeing anything in your definition of patriarchy that is inherently negative and worthy of being destroyed.
  
  “My theory is that our dominant culture has a paternal attitude towards females, which is unfair to men and patronising to women who are never regarded as completely adult.”
  
  Yes, this is one of the benefits of traditional values feminists have chosen to maintain, even reinforcing and exaggerating.
  
  “How about this: our patriarchy is become gynocentric.”
  
  “The patriarchy” has always been gynocentric. Women have always been protected from any and all harm. They’ve always been provided for. Granted, they may not have always liked the means and obligations of doing so, but I can’t imagine the men dying on the battliefield were too keen on the role they played ether. Both sexes have had benefits and obligations imposed on them by their sex and gender roles, roles that were ideal at the time, for society and survival. Feminism came along and completely discarded all female obligations, and demanded all men’s benefits be shared equally. That’s not equality.
  
  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of returning to traditional values. They are old fashioned and no longer necessary for survival. But I recognize them for what they were, a reciprocal, somewhat balanced assortment of benefits and obligations, a balance which has been entirely shattered by feminists. And any effort to absolve men of the obligations they have traditionally held, or share in the benefits women have traditionally held, has been met with opposition from those same feminists who shattered the balance in the first place. You would have us blame traditionalism for creating the balance in the first place, and have us ignore the fact that it has since been broken, as well as who broke it and who opposes completing its dismantling.
  - Darren Ball
    
    Hi Mark,
    The reasons why I’m not engaging on all of your points are:
    a) Some are irrelevant, both in terms of the article and any of my comments
    b) Some are rude
    c) Some are absurd
    
    I have made it very clear that I believe that feminism uses patriarchal attitudes to advance benefits for females – I just didn’t list them because I was trying to stay on-topic. This is an article about education, not alimony and domestic violence. I could add a very long list of areas where feminism uses patriarchy to unfairly advantage women at the expense of men. We’re not disagreeing that feminism, as a movement in it’s current incarnation, has quite a few strategies that are damaging to males.
    
    Much of the ambivalence of males that I see in the world comes from non-feminists. Feminism is a sub-set of the problem, not the total problem.
    
    I also acknowledged that perhaps we need a new term other than patriarchy, but for me, a patriarchy is a society where the dominant culture has a paternal attitude towards women, but not men. Everything I’ve said about the patriarchy needs to be interpreted in that context. It is not a meaningless definition – it’s quite clear.
    
    I believe that feminism has turned the old patriarchy, which was dominant and controlling of women (bad dad), into one that’s caring and doting (good dad). At times, feminism exploits this to say: don’t put women in prison, give women generous alimony even if they’ve been the the naughty ones, etc. And when they do this, our society that has paternal instincts towards women (i.e. the patriarchy) gives them what they ask for.
    - Mark Neil
      
      “I also acknowledged that perhaps we need a new term other than patriarchy, but for me, a patriarchy is a society where the dominant culture has a paternal attitude towards women, but not men. ”
      
      No, what you need to do is stop giving word definitions other than what they already have. This causes confusion, as language is based on communicating meaning through common definitions.
      
      Patriarchy and paternalism (what you define here) are not the same thing, and those words should not be used interchangeably It creates unnecessary confusion and conflict.
      
      “I believe that feminism has turned the old patriarchy, which was dominant and controlling of women (bad dad)”
      
      See, this is the problem with people who accept and embrace feminist theory (and deny it all you want, you very clearly are espousing feminist theory)… you erase men from the equation in order to paint women as the sole concern. Traditional society was dominant on controlling on BOTH sexes. BOTH sex had obligations, many of which were less than ideal. By painting is a dominant and controlling on women only, how are you any better than the woman focused bigots within feminism? Seriously, where in this last paragraph do you even acknowledge men? Not a word is spoken about men. You literally frame all of society in how it treats and portrays women and women only. How can we create a society of equality when even the discussions of what society is literally is ignoring men?
      
      And just for an FYI, it is incredibly arrogant to dismiss someone else’s point because YOU don’t deem it relevant or valid. Seriously, how do you allow your views to be challenged if you refuse to acknowledge anyone that doesn’t think the same way you do. It is detrimental to honest, open discourse to do so. And, again, it is incredibly arrogant, as it is saying your way of thinking about things is the only acceptable way, and it closes you off to alternative perspectives.
      - Darren Ball
        
        Patriarchal and paternal are both derived from the same Greek word for father, so my definition is valid.
      - Mark Neil
        
        “Patriarchal and paternal are both derived from the same Greek word for father, so my definition is valid.”
        
        WOW. so words don’t have meaning in your world? You make up definitions as you please, and rationalize and justify them however possible.
        
        Just for the record, both rape and rapid derive from the latin word rapere. Can I say those are the same too?
Nigel

Actually Mark I was agreeing with you. Clearly men and women are not uniform classes. As I said I was more persuaded by Oligarchy than Patriarchy.Oligarchs can be male or female.
- Mark Neil
  
  Yeah, I think I got you confused with the other guy who posted.
Darren Ball

Mark

When I define patriarchy as “a society where the dominant culture has a paternal attitude towards women, but not men.” I have pretty much restated the literal meaning of patriarchy. It’s a truism: “Pat” being father and “archy” being dominant.

You cannot have a patriarchy if there’s not both elements: paternal and dominance. Dominant paternity applied to adult women is patriarchy.

What you’re describing as patriarchy is dominance by men, not dominance by fathers. Dominance of males would be called androcracy.

Whereas “rape” and “rapid” might have some distant connection in Latin, their definitions in English are clearly not the same.

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