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So what's the big deal about a nation of plumbers, electricians, firefighters, mechanics, etc.? Nothing wrong with a good trade. Nothing at all. Stack them up against a male art historian, and personally I'd find the guy who helps people in practical ways to be a lot more appealing.
But on a societal level, we need more than that. Where does the innovation come from that provides the engine for massive industrial economies? Sometimes from clever self-taught amateur inventors, true. And Bill Gates, famously, never finished his college degree (though some would argue that he was more thief than true innovator). However, the vast majority of new ideas come from trained scientists and engineers...not to mention the design and implementation of important infrastructure needs. I don't care if there are fewer male English majors or philosophy Ph.D.s, but I do care if, as a result of gender-based attrition, there are far fewer engineers who know how to build a sturdy, safe, elegant bridge.
Sure, women can handle all those things. But if one gender is excluded--or excludes itself--from a field of study, for whatever reason, that field suffers, because it's being deprived of all the potentially outstanding people who would otherwise have taken it up. When I was in college, women were routinely excluded from engineering and science departments, and what was lost as a result we'll never know. The same thing could be happening now.
I don't know what the solution is. Clearly, male ego appears to be a problem, as is our culture's current anti-intellectual, know-nothing attitude, and I'm strongly tempted to tell those guys to just get over themselves, that acknowledging that someone else knows more than they do and they could learn from them isn't going to shrink their penises. On the other hand, as a former teacher, I saw plenty of students who came directly out of high school and into college at a time when they didn't know what they were doing and what they wanted out of life, while my mature students attacked their coursework with gusto and made the most of their experience. All I can say is that we need to find a way to make sure that education is worthwhile, and not simply a credential used to get ahead, though that opens up an entirely different can of worms.
