Stay calm, gentlemen

By Nick Wright, Humourist

Gentlemen: as you read this, we are at war! I speak not of Afghanistan, but of the battle of the sexes which has been raging since long before any of us were born. Victory in this war is virtually unobtainable—however, as far as I can discern from my limited knowledge of gender studies, the end goal of both sides is to obtain a majority representation in traditionally valued positions of power.

All the statistics I have seen about gender ‘equality’ focus on things like the number of male and female CEOs, politicians, and judges. Most studies conceded the scale of impressive employ to be firmly tilted in favour of that most hairy and aggressive gender of which I—and assumedly most of my readers—am a member. It would seem, for at least the time being, that we are ahead in this race.

That being said, I came across a most troubling article in the Globe and Mail the other day which claimed that this may be changing. According to the Globe, women now outnumber men in post-secondary education. Upon reading I became so frightened of a world in which the professional class was ruled by women (think of the increase in heinous pantsuits which would surely ensue!) that I decided to do some research. I found out that, while shocking, this is not the first time this information has been brought to the attention of the general public.

I couldn’t find anything on gender written by a man, as they have better things to do, like math. However, in Hanna Rosin’s critically acclaimed article in The Atlantic, “The End of Men,” published this July, she states that “for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same.” She later goes on to paint a post-apocalyptic vision in which “the economics of the new era are better suited to women,” and cites the recession statistics from America which state that “three-quarters of the 8 million jobs lost were lost by men.”

One need only to walk through the campus of King’s to see that women are, in fact, dominating as far as enrolment in the liberal arts goes—although, to be fair, it is hard to differentiate sex among King’s students.

It is important to note that while the majority of King’s students may be women, their website lists their faculty as being composed of forty-two men and twenty five women. What a relief! We have not lost the fight to control education just yet.

Why is this important, you ask? It is crucial that we have a large number of male authority figures, or the truth will become dire for those of us who have the ability to grow hair on our face. Think of how we snatched our previous victories:

A successful dissemination of stereotypes, such as the perennial favourite that girls are inherently worse at math and that men have brains better suited to logical discourse, has allowed us to maintain a stronghold in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). As Inside Higher Ed reported last year, women still only earn “20 per cent of computer science bachelor’s degrees, 21 per cent of physics degrees and 20 per cent of engineering degrees, according to data from the National Science Foundation.”

To all my male compatriots who strive your hardest on the ideological front, I salute you. It is thanks to your work that, while women may be dominating in fruity academic fields such as ‘psychology’ and ‘English’, the majority of *real* degrees are still being awarded to men.

You see what that was there? A strategy. We, being the more aggressive of the sexes, are not ready to go down without a fight. Thus, whenever women manage to succeed in a field: trash it, ASAP. Make it girly. Once we call it girly, we’ll have effectively called it easy, so we won’t have to pay anyone working in these fields actual money. This, gentlemen, is key. Otherwise, women might start making 80 or even 90 cents for every dollar we make—and then how will we impress them?

Even now, with men only outnumbered 60-40 in universities, our best and brightest minds have begun to preoccupy themselves with asking: What can we do to make schools more male friendly? I have great faith in these men and their ability to keep the structure of our society from spiralling out of control. If we don’t act now we may have to actually compete on an equal playing field, and frankly, I’m not nearly as bright as some of my female colleagues. Not that I would ever let on to that.