IN a nation positively bent low by social fractures and orchestrated losing, this has the potential to be a trend that reinvigorates American culture – including its formerly legendary enterprise:
The number of men enrolled in college this year trails women by record highs, part of a nationwide education gap. Nobody wants to talk about it. https://t.co/VYYnrhwnCQ
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 6, 2021
In a discussion a few years ago at Old Catallaxy regarding erstwhile news reports on the admission of women to one of the gentlemen’s clubs of Melbourne (or Sydney), I posited what was thereafter dubbed the Law of Clubs. The law states that when women follow men into such male-dominated environs, the prestige rightly or wrongly associated with them eventually declines and men start to leave. Women then follow men to their newly favoured clubs and professions.
This doesn’t mean women are antithetical to prestige but that the deprecation of exclusivity alters the nature and reduces the appeal of any clique. If the law holds true in the United States, college-averse young men will increasingly associate trades, apprenticeships and self-built businesses with prestige and see generic university ‘qualifications’ especially – even Ivy League ones – as markers of mediocrity rather than mobility. Therefore: American women will be beating down the doors of plumbing schools 15 to 20 years from now. In the meantime – to their incalculable benefit – a new generation of men will be taught absolutely nothing about their own unworthiness by Marxists and feminists. If you can’t march through an institution, march out of it.
I think the numbers are disguising what’s going on CL. Men are walking away from feminized disciplines while still dominating STEM. That’s good.
I sure hope you are right. I think you probably are.
I think that’s highly likely too JC.
One of my friend’s sons did a year of mickey mouse uni to drop out to a trade.
Many of my youngest son’s cohort at school went into trades, including him, with my blessing.
Why go to uni to get constantly told you are the personification of evil when you could be doing honest work and supporting yourself?
I might add, the chances of large numbers of girls chasing into plumbing, for example, are slim to none, dirty, smelly, out in the elements, lagging pipes all day with blue glue, I don’t think so.
Young apprentices start as boys and by the end of their time they are men.
It’s great training and so much better than an University for most lads.
Agree with Rosie – women won’t be plumbers on the tools.
Hope springs eternal. A friend’s son was doing a social work degree and dropped out – he said: ‘Mum, I want to work with my hands’, and so became a sheet-metal worker. Men want to make things and aren’t really interested in gibberising around with subjects that are just shallow and meaningless.
https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estimates/
Page 14 of the 2021 estimates used for the wsj article. Maths, stats and physical sciences are down. IT, transport and culinary are up.
Appears to be a general decline in some areas and institutions.
A grandson just got a mechanical apprenticeship.
He was offered 3 others as well.
A builder mate says the construction industry is crying out for apprentices.
A 35-y-o friend recently left banking and easily got an electrical apprenticeship.
Perhaps there are enough apprenticeships available for anyone who wants one, if my anecdotal evidence is any guide.
An Australian Mike Rowe would help boost the numbers of people accepting trades as honourable work pathways.
(PS I enjoy the quotes at the top of the page.)
Smart lad, OSC, obviously.
There is going to be a lot of catch-up from now on; an apprenticeship is a very smart choice.
an Australian August article on girls in trades etc
Good to see you back blogging, CL.
A lot of young women try out for various jobs in the mining game, but a very large percentage drop out after a year or two.
Loneliness, hard and dirty conditions, lack of any social life and family contacts usually see them pull the pin when the gloss of high wages wears off.
Back in the day, 1976, I had the option of going to uni. So I went to a campus for a weekend. Decided against it cos it clearly wasn’t about getting cleverer. Many years later I had the dubious privilege (no one else wanted to) of delivering short education sessions on a serious topic to a room full of uni students. This was the future of my profession? Uni is so far removed from the real world the kiddie graduates aren’t ready for it. Happy to exclude 99% of STEM grads but arts, humanities and such……. NO.
Miranda Devine is also discussing men staying away from college