There are more female students than male students across all universities, and women are more likely than men to gain a first or upper second class degree. Finding out why this is, and helping men achieve their potential seems like a good thing. Unfortunately, some seem to be taking the news to indicate that women have unfairly benefited from previous efforts to ensure their access to education. Others suggest that the imbalance is due to the way that working hard at academic pursuits is considered a feminine virtue by many young men, who think it’s cool not to work hard. They also caution against refocusing on men at the expense of women. The latter seem like good points – although it’s unfortunate that Professor Morley chose to use the phrase ‘castration anxieties’. Diplomacy is an underrated virtue in my book. Here’s the THE story. A word of advice: don’t read the comments if you have high blood pressure.
I should also add, that the article only reports on undergraduates. I suspect things are very different at postgraduate level, or at the very least, vary from subject to subject. There is almost certainly variance across subjects at undergraduate level too. I’m not sure if the HEPI report took that into account.
Feminist Philosophers 