"scarce" resources, college and sexism

[rm]

And then there's this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23britz.html

It's the sort of thing that makes it hard for me to imagine any world in which women, at least as a group, don't always lose.

via rackmount

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also:

- do we really think it's acceptable that men are being held to lower standards? Men who will go on as a group to make more money and have better careers than the women?
- why do people not want to be educated in environments that may have more women than men?
- first women had to be twice as good as men to prove they were worthy at all. now they have to be twice as good as men to compete for resources that need not be scarce, but we've decided to make scarce because too many women is inherently a negative?

It's just. I mean.... *rage*

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I was going to post a comment, but you got here before I did.

Not only these three things, but it also reinforces socially and professionally toxic competitiveness and distrust among women. Which is already a problem.

Argh.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Not only these three things, but it also reinforces socially and professionally toxic competitiveness and distrust among women. Which is already a problem.

I think on at least a subconscious level, many women recognize benefit in this: the competition will knock each other out, and then I will step forward to claim my prize.

Hence the "reward" you often see women get in online drama for keeping their mouth shut, instead of pointing to actual injustice or bad behavior.

*nod*

[the-ogre.livejournal.com]

This makes no sense to me. Why is there any need to "gender balance", especially if the applicants to do so aren't there or if in doing so, the standards become unequal.

I had no idea that colleges and universities did this - and I really can't imagine why they would.

Re: *nod*

[rm.livejournal.com]

As the piece says -- apparently too many women makes a school less desirable to applicants of both genders.

[weirdquark]

Women's colleges need better marketing.

To be fair, when I was looking at colleges, I didn't really want to go somewhere where the gender balance was off either -- I wanted to either go to a women's college or somewhere where the gender ratio was reasonably even. I don't remember why I was thinking this way, but now it feels like going somewhere that the gender balance was off would create an atmosphere where the women would feel like they were competing for dates because men were a scarce resource instead of good grades, and that's not something I wanted to deal with -- at a women's college, you kind of assume everyone there isn't interested in competing for men. I ended up going to a women's college, and it was awesome. I still live with some of the women I met there and am going to continue doing so.

But most women aren't interested in women's colleges either.

It's funny, because one of the arguments I've heard against women's colleges is that the world is co-ed -- and yeah, it is, but women outnumber men at least three to one where I work, so it's not like life is always going to be fifty-fifty either.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

yes. yes yes yes.

so not as many men are applying.

maybe they should get off their asses.

[rackmount.livejournal.com]

this was exactly why i posted it.

FIRST prove you're 10 times better to prove that you're anywhere near as good as men.

SECOND prove you're 10 times better because god forbid the guys should fall behind.

wth? or, as i said, damned if you do, damned if you don't. i mean jesus. there are lots of places i considered applying that were man-only until the 60s/70s.