University

[lollyhop2girls]

I heard on the radio that this year 50% of women went to uni after A Levels compared to 40% of men...

Progress or contrived, manipulated or out of context stats?

Women have outperformed men at age 18 in most Western economies for quite a while now. This isn't news.

For me it wasn't exciting because of women 'outperforming' men, I know this has been the case with GCSE and A level results for many years. More for me I was happy to see such a percentage of women making the choice/ feeling they could make the choice to go on to university. Thats what the news was, apparently this is the highest percentage of women making that choice that there has ever been...

Well, yes. Every year more people (men and women) go on to university. That isn't a feminist issue - it's education policy.

The feminist issue is why girls do so well in the education system and yet still do worse than men - in terms of pay and progression - once they get into the workplace.

Bonsoir - I know. It was a percentage though.

An interesting one Molesworth...

... Im going to have to quit my job to debate these issues.

Because education places on behaviours and skills that are quite different to the behaviours and skills that the cut-throat and competitive world of work values.

places value

What, so you're saying women do less well in the workplace because they're somehow 'naturally' less suited to it?

Whatever. Gender inequality is out there and I don't believe the causes are in any way 'natural'.

I worked in a very harsh work environment. The women who were recruited into that environment were almost inevitably smarter (in every sense) than the men. But brains were not all that was required.

No, it's not that simple, Bonsoir

Most workplaces are dominated by men. They tend to develop and promote other men. It's not conscious sexism, it's more of a feeling that "I am successful therefore in order to be successful, people need to be like me" Which sort of ties in to what you said but it is fundamentally an issue of diversity.

You also need to factor in the way in which women respond to the above and also how we respond to the impact of having children. Women are prepared to put their careers on hold, mark time (during which they invariably get overtaken) and put their careers second to their partners.

That's precisely the kind of thing I am referring to, Quattro.

I read a rather sad statistic recently that something like 3/4 of students felt forced to go to university. No real choice. I checked that out with some students I know and they agreed they didn't really have a choice. I'm not sure that's such a step forward from the days when it was, for most of us, a positive choice, something we actually wanted to do.