Another scathing article from the redoubtable Heather Mac Donald hits the streets:
Seventy-five percent of Ivy League presidents are now female. Nearly half of the 20 universities ranked highest by Forbes will have a female president this fall, including MIT, Harvard, and Columbia. Of course, feminist bean-counters in the media and advocacy world are not impressed, noting that “only” 5 percent of the 130 top U.S. research universities are headed by a black female and “only” 22 percent of those federal grant-magnets have a non-intersectional (i.e., white) female head.
These female leaders emerge from an ever more female campus bureaucracy, whose size is reaching parity with the faculty. Females made up 66 percent of college administrators in 2021; those administrators constitute an essential force in campus diversity ideology, whether they have “diversity” in their job titles or not.
So basically, women have taken over tertiary education, just as they did the primary- and secondary sectors.
Whatever.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that when men see that the odds are being stacked against them, when the dice are similarly loaded, and when the playing field is tilted towards the other side, they shrug… and quit.
In times to come, men with degrees in the Humanities (like myself) will be a vanishing breed, and “education” will increasingly become irrelevant except to a few stubborn men (again, like myself) who will still pursue their education, except that they’ll do it outside the lofty and feminized academic institutions. Their education will still be relevant — perhaps even more so than the accreditation offered by the Academia Femina — and other men of similar persuasion will recognize their value even if the HR Department (another female-dominated institution) doesn’t.
Ask any software manager whether he’d prefer to hire a kid with a “Computer Sciences” degree over a kid who showed him in his job application letter a fix for a bug in his product, and he’ll just look at you strangely, or else laugh outright. (That’s actually how #2 Son got his current job about seven years ago, and he’s not the only one.)
Ask anyone hiring people for a semi-skilled technical position whether they’d prefer a candidate with a degree, or someone who’s been through an apprenticeship and has worked in the related field (e.g construction) for five years, and you’ll get pretty much the same reaction. I knew a man who was the general manager of a gold mine in South Africa who would absolutely refuse to hire anyone — even in finance or accounting — who had not actually worked for a few years at a mine (as a miner, electrician, machine operator, whatever). His own son became an apprentice electrician, then worked as a “sparkie” (at another mine), and only then got his diploma in order to get a job at his father’s head office, at age 35.
Increasingly, a college degree is being evaluated by employers not as a credential for a job, but as proof that the applicant has had the ability to put in the time and stick to it. The Son&Heir, for example, got his job at Global Megabank Inc. not because of his degree in Philosophy, but because he had over a decade of managerial experience and dealing with customers. This means that while companies may say “degree required”, what kind of degree is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
As universities and colleges are feminizing themselves, they will become increasingly irrelevant to society as a whole. And the reaction to that, from men, will just be a shrug.
My very first college level computer science class in Fall 1981 was taught by a man who’d spent over 20 years at IBM before semi retiring to teaching. Women who knew him claimed he was sexist, the reason being he required the same level of work from women as men. Waaaah, it’s unfair that you don’t give me special consideration. Started the semester with 50 people in the class, ended with a dozen, 3 A’s earned (I got one). Learned things I wouldn’t see again for three semesters.
Unfortunately it’s not just the schools that are feminized, it’s the workplace. It’s far more important to meet diversity goals than hire people who can do the work, one of the reasons I retired a little over a year ago.
Mark D
I have been waiting for Atlas to shrug for 15 years. Despite all the DIE bullshit, it is still white men that keep this country going.
I moved from a male dominated industry to a female one and I found most of the female managers to be petting, conniving and hypocritical on a regular basis. Some of the women I worked with in construction were pretty good but not many. Some of the nurses I worked with were some of the greatest co workers I have worked with, but management was routinely less than competent.
JQ
Can anyone explain how ones genitalia is used in any of these positions? How about their skin color?
We need to be a meritocracy and if that means fewer minorities, women, men etc in various positions then so be it. If my house is on fire, I want strong people to come rescue the people who need help and to handle the equipment to properly save the building.
JQ
I was told that that attitude is proof that I’m a racist/sexist/homophobe. Because you must CELEBRATE the fact that our new VP is a black lesbian instead of concerning yourself with minor points like qualifications and credentials. True story. Again, this is why I retired.
Mark D
My company kept it out for years. This year I had DIE training shoved up my ass for the first time.
I said the Auto Da Fe, because I’m not in a position to start my own little Protestant Reformation yet. Even though I had the training muted the whole time. I blasted the whole thing in my anonymous (allegedly) comments as a colossal waste of time.
All my co workers derided it too. The only one who I think thought it was truly important was the VP of HR.
1) How many university and college presidents are veterans? Yea, that’s what I thought.
2) I had a friend who’s family ran a meat packing plant processes 5000 hogs a day. Everyone in the family started on the killing floor and slowly worked up to the front office. Some of his family never made it past the first year because they would quit or get fired. Grandpa knew everyone on every shift as well as their jobs. His kids run it the same way.
I got my degree (BBA) because a degree was required to get a commission, and you had to be an officer to go to Navigator/Electronic Warfare Officer school (eyesight not good enough for pilot). A business degree was easiest and fastest to get.
Didn’t work out so I ended up in Intelligence (SIGINT, due to my Commercial and Amateur radio licenses).
Every job I got after I left the Air Force that required a degree didn’t care what the degree was in. It was just a filter to make HRs job easier.
These days I would recommend a job in the trades to someone just starting out. And not to consider the military until they get more serious about war fighting than their “DEI” programs.
It might just be semantics but I usually reverse the order of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to become DIE because that is what will happen to companies who embrace that nonsense.
College has become more expensive because colleges have built absurd student unions and hired the entire staff of a DIE department. They “need” a Dean of DIE. They won’t be cheap because they have to show that they value these positions that add nothing to the campus. If you have a Dean, they need a receptionist or secretary/administrative assistant. And of course you can’t have a grand poobah without an assistant grand poobah. So if the Grand Poobah makes $125k, the Assistant Grand Poohbah probably makes just under $100k and the secretary makes about $40k or so. Now add some ridiculous benefits etc and you’re probably closer to $300k in salary and benefits plus office equipment, space etc. All of this adds absolutely nothing to the college education. I bet my numbers are ridiculously low.
JQ
Corporate world too. Why does a large business need a VP Diversity, a VP Affirmative Action and a VP Human Resources?
Been there, seen that.
Ah, the Pussification of the Western Male continues apace. Someone should write an essay about that effect beyond the academy.