The Men Who Withdraw

Just before the new year, an essay from late October got some attention. On New Year’s Day, I posted it along with a comment on Bluesky. That post is still circulating and has gotten hundreds of eyeballs and reactions.

The essay argues, with numerical backup, that as more women attend college, the image of college becomes feminized and thus less attractive to men. This seems to be true in a very general way, but the reactions, along with my priors, led me to a finer-grained conclusion.

My priors are that it was clear from the start of second-wave feminism that men’s attitudes would have to change in order to build a more egalitarian society. Those attitudes include finding careers in what had been coded as women’s professions like teaching, nursing, and other service professions. Some of the early writings from that time note this necessity, but there were too many issues to take on, particularly gaining voice and independent social standing for women. Sixty years later, far too many men, and too much of what society codes as masculine, have not changed.

My Bluesky post has reached other countries, and, while the number of international comments I see is small, it appears that English-speaking countries are not alone in this problem. FWIW, most of those responses have been in Romance languages.

A great many men have reposted my post or the essay with comments. Many of those comments simply recommend the essay or the issue as something to think about. Others are more explicit: these men actively enjoyed and even sought out classes in college with more women. “They’re more interesting and fun.” “If men are avoiding classes with women, no wonder they can’t get dates.”

There were also a few contesting the issue or agreeing that women spoil everything. One commenter insisted that there are studies that show that women push men out of their groups but didn’t supply any references when challenged. But these were fewer than those extolling the joys of more women in college.

Probably the people who follow me on Bluesky are inclined to agree with the essay, but it was widely reposted, so the audience might have been broader.

I’m willing to draw a conclusion from this: Men react in different ways to the influx of women into college. There are broadly three groups: Welcoming, rejecting, and neutral. Some men have changed their lives for a more egalitarian society.

Those articles, then, about the crisis in men’s education (or just in men) refer to the thoroughly rejecting group. It is their enrollments that are going down and depressing men’s numbers more generally. It is their problems that we see a focus on. I would like to know what the numbers are of these three groups, but I’m not aware of any polling in this area,

And maybe it’s time for those laggards to catch up and change their approach.

Update: Here’s a graphic that several commenters have mentioned.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner