Bernie and I spent the past few months looking into schools for our daughter Isa. Most of these schools were for “highly gifted” students and any one of them would have been thrilled to have her. Because they are overrun with boys.
Last time I checked, college students were something like fifty-seven percent female. Law school is even more predominantly women.
What happens to the boys between elementary school and college?
In the early 1980s, when Carol Gilligan’s writing became popular and everyone started championing girls’ education, I took an unpopular position. I said the changes had already taken root; they just hadn’t manifested yet. The best remedy was to do nothing and wait.
Nobody listened to me, because I was just saying it to my friends in Mike’s apartment.
Recent articles about advances in girls’ education are careful to note these steps forward are not at the expense of boys. How do they know?
In black families especially, many men wind up in prison or the military. John McCain isn’t ruling out a draft. Boys already have to register and girls don’t.
It’s true that some single fathers don’t live up to their responsibilities. It’s also true that others aren’t considered “marriage material.”
Single men with money, relative to women with money, are becoming an increasingly rare commodity. On the Million Dollar Matchmaker, these men are considered to be such catches that the women go to their houses to pick them up on dates.
I believe women picking men up on dates will become a trend. What do you believe?
Jack Silbert, curator