BlogU

  • Career Coach: Gender Balance

    By Susan O'Doherty November 8, 2009 8:17 pm

    Scott has a fascinating article in this week’s Inside Higher Ed News, about a proposed inquiry by the US Commission on Civil Rights into the admissions policies of private liberal arts colleges. The concern is that, in an effort to correct gender imbalances, these colleges favor applications by men.

    Such an inquiry sounds reasonable, but the proposed solution seems insane:

    Much of the probe is directed toward the issue of athletics, with commissioners favoring the inquiry saying that it would be "preferable" for liberal arts colleges to add male athletic teams to attract more male students than it is to use admissions preferences, as is alleged to be taking place now.

    Leaving aside the apparent intention to betray at least the spirit of Title IX, I have to ask: What is the problem with gender imbalances? This is a serious question. Do girls still have cooties? Is estrogen so toxic that too much of it would disable the faculty? Is there a sense that women still attend college for that M.R.S. degree, and so would be reluctant to enter an environment in which women outnumber men? Given that males are not a historically oppressed group, and therefore are not, presumably, in need of a leg up, why wouldn’t schools want the most qualified and committed candidates regardless of gender?

    Thoughts?

Go to comments (3) »
Advertisement

Comments on Career Coach: Gender Balance

  • Relevance?
  • Posted by John Turri , Philosophy at Huron University College on November 8, 2009 at 10:00pm EST

  • I agree with you that gender imbalances aren't necessarily a bad thing.

    But I don't follow when you say, "[...] males are not a historically oppressed group, and therefore are not, presumably, in need of a leg up [...]". Being historically oppressed is not a necessary condition on "needing a leg up." I'm not even sure how closely the two are correlated. So how is it relevant that males haven't been historically oppressed?

    Clearly an institution might pursue such a policy for reasons which have nothing to do with historical oppression of the group in question. (Whether such reasons are strictly speaking legal, I won't hazard a guess.) An institution might, for instance, want its population to largely reflect the diversity of society. Or it might want to avoid the impression that it's discriminating against either gender.

    Right?

  • The argument I've heard
  • Posted by Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur , Sociology at Rhode Island College on November 9, 2009 at 5:15am EST

  • is that once an elite college tips too far towards a female majority, the best female applicants will no longer consider the school because they feel there will be too much competition for dates. Schools thus try to keep the balance at 50-50 so that they can ensure their social atmosphere will be desirable.

    As a women's college graduate, it strikes me that the proper solution would be a return to investing in selective women's colleges. The women who chose those institutions would therefore be removed from the pool filling slots at the coed institutions, making it easier for them to strike a 50-50 gender balance without affirmative action for men.

  • Reflecting demographics
  • Posted by gwennyth on November 9, 2009 at 3:15pm EST

  • If you were going to put forth the argument, John, that the institution should represent the racial & gender diversity of the nation (or even its state or locale), then I would ask, why stop with the students? What is the balance among that institution's administration, faculty, and board? Is the institution making efforts within those populations to reflect the gender balance of the country? If not, why not? Would it not be hypocritical for that institution to want a balance in the student body but not make any efforts to practice what it preaches?

Print
© Copyright 2010 Inside Higher Ed