Gender ‘equality’ on campus dangerous

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/12/2009 (6020 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT is hardly novel to note that there is a gender imbalance on Canadian university campuses; about 60 per cent women to 40 per cent men.

The threat of an emerging “pink ghetto” recently prompted University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera to announce that she is “going to be an advocate for young white men.” Predictably, she faced outraged students accusing her of bias against women.

What is wrong with Samaraseka’s statement, however, is not that she is deviating from the orthodoxy of identity politics, but that she is perpetuating it. If women once faced a biased system, surely men do now. As reported in the Globe and Mail last week, Samaraseka said, “there is a feeling men can take care of themselves — clearly that is not true.”

She would like to see greater supports put in place to help men make the jump to university, including better communication about the economic returns associated with a degree.

The gender imbalance has become a frequent topic in the past few years, as administrators all over the country have identified it as a crisis. Although no one has directly advocated affirmative action, as it would be illegal, it remains a subtext for every bit of ink spilled on the topic.

Men still hold the majority of prestigious positions in business, but it is expected that women will overtake them as they work through the system. This is, apparently, a problem.

A Guelph University associate vice-president was quoted by the Globe saying: “Imagine 30 years from now when 60, 70 per cent of the people who are educated are women. It has to change the ratio of who does what. And that has huge social ramifications.”

Samareseka calls it a “demographic bomb.”

What this means is not exactly clear. Likely it is nothing more than an expression of a desire for some egalitarian fantasy where the representation of men and women is exactly equal in every field and in every walk of life, from janitors to prime ministers.

How quickly we forget that equitable representation of identifiable groups can just as easily be used as a pretence to discriminate, as was once the case with Jewish students who were seen as overrepresented in faculties of medicine and law.

Fortunately, the evidence we have suggests that most concerns about a gender imbalance are overblown. In 2007 Statistics Canada published a report that posed the question, “Why are most university students women?” The study found no inherent bias against men. What it did conclude is that the factors associated with going to university were more likely to be associated with women.

At age 15, women had better grades, performed better on standardized tests, and had better study habits than their male counterparts. Additionally, parents placed greater academic expectations on daughters. Parental influence is a key determining factor as to whether a student will go to university.

Precisely why girls perform better academically, or why parents place greater expectations on them are questions that require further study. But, it is not as if the percentage of young males entering university is declining. Rather, male enrolment is increasing at a slower rate.

As the Statistics Canada report points out, men are more likely to forgo university because of satisfactory earning potential with just high school. It should also be noted that enrolment in colleges is evenly split between men and women.

The loss of many high-paying jobs, particularly in the past year, that men used to get without an education no doubt raises concerns. But this is reflective of broader economic shifts away from certain industries.

While we can’t say for sure, if it becomes evident that those lost jobs won’t be returning, males should react to market signals and head to university. That is, the imbalance might be entirely self-correcting.

What is not needed is a movement aimed at micro-managing people’s choices to ensure gender parity in university enrolment.

Carson Jerema has an MA in politics and is a former editor of the Manitoban.