Oh yes, the flute thing! The proper instruments for girls were the flute and clarinet. The proper instruments for boys were anything else. The one boy who chose to play the clarinet was bullied mercilessly for it!
Gym class was coed by the time I started school (it had not been a few years earlier.) One of the units was ballroom dance. You were assigned a new partner each day, and the teacher graded each pair on how they danced that day–with the boy receiving one grade higher than the girl, because “his job involves leading while the girl just follows.” This policy actually was ended by a classmate of mine! He was appalled by the unfair grading policy and refused to dance if his partner didn’t receive the same grade he did. Actually sat down on the floor and refused to dance! He happened to be an excellent ballroom dancer so the teacher listened to him and changed her policy. This made him a hero to the girls, although the boys continued to bully him as he was a “nerd.”
This makes me think of childless people who see a kid having a meltdown in a store and think to themselves that there must have been some terrible parenting involved and that they would never have a child do that. Or the parents who think they’ve got the parenting thing down pat because their first child or two are model kids, and then end up getting totally different outcomes with their next kid even if their parenting style/expectations haven’t changed.
I think we see certain outcomes and think, of course the parents played a major part in this. But I’m not sure if parental expectations/practices are necessarily the leading cause for what we’re seeing with this particular group. (I suspect it’s a factor for some of what’s going on, but how much of a factor is an unknown, IMO.)
For instance, let’s take an example of a kid who’s not doing all their homework to a high standard or who isn’t acing all of their tests. Family offers help, which is rejected. Family takes away electronics. Family insists on providing help and the kid moves towards self-harm. Apart from seeking support from mental health professionals for the kid (including neuropsych evals, etc), is the family supposed to keep prioritizing academics when it’s leading to extraordinary levels of stress/frustration for the kid? Is the kid to be permanently cut off from any socialization opportunities, or electronics, or other “extras” until there is higher performance? Or does the family step back and just try and find balance and a level of improvement and “good enough” to maintain the kid’s health?
I know of multiple examples of families with a kid like the one I just described, and of nearly all of the examples I know, the kid was male. I could see kids like this struggling as an adult. If situations like this are an issue with the parenting, what would posters be recommending that the parents do that they’re not doing?
Could we break this thread off into a history/ stories of women’s discrimination? I am certain all of us of a certain age have plenty of tales, but they aren’t relevant to the topic.
Women’s workforce participation rates have always been lower than men’s, and not surprisingly vary widely based upon the age of their children ( men’s do not show variation by children’s age). This isn’t a zero sum game. Women have made substantial increases in participation, but it is not good that many men have dropped out-only 67% of prime age males are employed.
Males are more likely to drop out of both high school and college.
Only stated that way because of my response to the poster who posed it that way. As I mentioned a dozen or so posts above, to me it’s not “gender” it’s “people”.
The difference, I think, is because of gendered job opportunities and the difference in pay. As I shared above, I have some young male relatives who decided against further education because they were offered construction jobs that paid $30/hr to start, with promises of on-the-job training, and room for advancement. The same is true with other high paying “male” trades such as plumbing, electrical, welding, machining, HVAC etc. But the unskilled “female” jobs are things like child care–even though the shortage of childcare is a crisis, it still only pays $15/hr to start. About the only unskilled “female” job around that pays well is stripping etc. So young women look around at their options and stay in school.
What makes any trade “male”? Women are fully capable of being plumbers, electricians, welders, machinist.
We shouldn’t ignore the fact that less men are attending college, etc, because they have trades available to them. Of course they could do well financially in these jobs, just as women could. Of course people are needed to do these jobs and women are capable of doing them also.
I would happily be a nurse, a predominantly female job, in another life. The thread is about young men and what is causing them to struggle.
Women’s workforce participation is still lower than men’s, so why are we wringing our hands about men and not about women?
I suppose it is because we feel it is natural and right for women to leave the workforce to care for children (or to care for elderly parents, or just to play pickleball) but that such a thing would be a crisis in men.
Great question! My spouse works in career and technical education, and a lot of the issue seems to be that women are not made welcome in the trades in a myriad of ways large and small. (This is the point of the parallel thread we have going here where women are talking about all the ways we have been discouraged from following our true talents and interests. I don’t see it as off-topic at all.)
Indeed, a lot of men feel this way. Part of the reason is that they have been actively welcomed into nursing, actively recruited into nursing, and studies show they are often given priority promotion in the nursing field!