The growing gender gap in higher education has attracted the attention of Penn's student paper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, with disappointing results. While noting that 58% of undergraduates nationwide are now women, and while observing that Penn's undergraduate population mirrors that trend with 55% of arts and sciences undergrads being women and 95% of nursing undergrads being women, the article misses the point by a mile. There is no reflection whatsoever in the article about where the men who might be going to college are going instead, no concern about what this might mean for young men's future professional and economic prospects. Instead, the article thoughtlessly promotes the outlandish proposition that women's educational displacement of men should not be read as a sign that women are not still terribly oppressed by the patriarchy:

At 58 percent nationally, women now make up a majority of college students. Only a generation before, they lagged significantly behind men.

As of 2003, 30 percent of women in the 25- to 29- year old age group had college degrees. Only 25 percent of men in the same group could say the same.

At Penn, 55 percent of the College of Arts and Sciences' Class of 2010 is female, as are 95 percent of School of Nursing freshmen.

[...]

Even for fields where women are in the minority, many are working to ensure they're noticed when they graduate.

Last year, 55 percent of the University's Career Services' counseling appointments were taken by women, according to Career Services director Patricia Rose.

"Women are more likely to come in to seek advice and have their resumes checked," Rose said.

But when it comes to deciphering what these statistics mean, many say that even having a slight majority of women on campus won't mean these women are landing top-notch jobs.

"As long as you have a culture wherein women are predominantly seen as responsible for childbearing and homemaking, you aren't going to achieve workplace equity," said Donna Phillips of the American Council on Education, an advocacy group.

Phillips added that "just because there are more women getting degrees doesn't necessarily mean that there are fewer men" doing the same thing.

It's hard for campus journalists nowadays -- they used to be able to learn and mature with no bigger risk than creating some tempest-in-a-teapot "controversy" that no one outside the school will ever hear about. Nowadays they write some silly thing and a megablogger or special-interest group makes it a national issue.

That said, reading the piece in its entirety I don't see much to take exception to.

It's typical of the double standards I encounter everyday. We had a class where the teacher encouraged everyone to "say who they were." One person said "Well, I'm married" etc. The teacher responded "That's terrubly oppressive of you. Some people in this class can't get married. You are oppressing them cmerely by lording over your superior status."

The next person said they hated straight people and would like to punch them in the face. The teacher defended this as reasonable, because they were only speaking their true feelings.

A few weeks later, the teacher cancelled class so people could attened the national immigration protests. Then the teacher sent a nasty e-mail to students who didn't go to the protests that they were contributing to the oppression of fellow classmates.

Classmates who have somehow, despite all this awful oppression, have managed to get into a very exclusive graduate program.

"As long as you have a culture wherein women are predominantly seen as responsible for childbearing...."

Uh, it's not culture that makes women predominantly responsible for childbearing, it's biology. Unless she means that when women are viewed (weasely use of the passive voice here) they are viewed as homemakers and bearers of children before anything else. I am a 40-something woman and I don't see this in the workplace, or anywhere else, except among women who choose to view themselves that way. I think we've got a little victim-culture going on here.

John, did anyone complain about the profs abuse of the campus e-mail system? BTW, you need to update your blog. Erin can't do the whole job herself.