Tuesday, July 06, 2010

women are taking over the world (official)


I’ve previously commented on the poor attitude of some boys towards education and life-beyond-school. Whilst it’s obviously difficult to generalise, it certainly seems to me (in my own limited, first-hand experience) that girls do generally outstrip boys in educational/aspirational/organisational terms… (and will probably go on and take over the world etc!). I read an interesting article in The Observer on Sunday by Anushka Asthana indicating that “complacency and ‘general hopelessness’ have been blamed for the failure of young British men as research reveals that underperformance in school and university is now creeping into their working lives”. A report published on Sunday by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) thinktank says male graduates are far more likely to be unemployed than their female counterparts (17.2% of male graduates are failing to find jobs compared with 11.2% of women). Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, has warned that an affluent upbringing has left many UK male graduates with a "degree of complacency". He said there was a feeling among his members that British male graduates were being outperformed by women and competition from overseas when applying for jobs: "When I talk to graduate recruiters about how impressive candidates applying for jobs are, I do pick up a sense that female graduates are a little more mature and focused, that they put together good applications". Bahram Bekhradnia, the HEPI's director, spoke of the "general hopelessness of young men". He pointed to forecasts that suggest women will dominate the professions within 15 years. "That has all sorts of implications for things such as family creation, child-rearing and so on. The situation in some countries is even more extreme. An American woman told a conference I attended of the fury of black American women who found it impossible to form relationships with men of the same race with similar educational attainment because black American males weren't going to university”.
Sobering thoughts.

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