Letters to the Editor
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affirmative action for men isn't anything new
I remember reading a local newspaper article about the disparity between men and women at one of our top ranked state universities. It happened to be the school that I had always dreamed of attending, and I was in high school so I read it with interest. The article was about how the university was lowering its admissions requirements for male applicants, so as to try to even out the ratio of men to women in the student body.
This struck me as absurd but there it was. I wish I could link to it for you guys but that was before the internet made such things possible. Anyway, I always worked very hard to meet my dream-school's stringent admissions requirements, had a high GPA, lots of advanced placement classes, high SAT scores and was active in extra-curricular activities, so I figured I was fine.
Then, the acceptance/denial letters started pouring in, and the guy who sat behind me in one of my classes - a guy with lower grades than me, lower SAT scores than me, no extracurricular activities, and frankly a pretty damn slack attitude about school got an acceptance. I got waitlisted.
Fortunately I appealed, and after an incredibly stressful last semester of senior year I was finally accepted. My guidance counselor (who fortunately went to bat for me with the admissions board) told me that she was told that the reason I had been waitlisted was that the university had already met its quota for white women from my county. It seems that there were way too many of us who met the admissions requirements, and they needed to meet their quota for males.
This is the same university that my mom couldn't go to as a freshman, because when she went to college they didn't accept women AT ALL. She was one of the first women to attend there, and she had to transfer during her junior year.
So there you have it - affirmative action for men, white men, even - just one generation after women won the right to attend that school at all. I graduated from high school in the early 90's. So this debate is nothing new.
Oh - and to a previous letter-writer- women are not turned off by intelligent men. I've always dated intelligent men...but I do like them to have some social skills, please. I have noticed that guys with no social skills often attribute their woman problems to something that either builds them up (being too intelligent) or knocks women down (they're too stupid, or too shallow). It's the equivalent of the "they're just jealous" rationalization - if you take a minute to think about it you realize that this is just bullshit our mothers tell us to make us feel better. But the good news is that social skills can be learned, just ask Ashton Kutcher. And the hottie nerd I married.
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Affirmative action for white males? Um no.
As a black woman, I think there should be affirmative action based on race and proverty levels. And I realize this is an uncool stance, especially on Salon, but affirmative action for white males is stupid. Affirmative action is a stop gap measure of leveling the playing field.
Poor people: probably in bad schools. Black people: probably being patronized or marginalized. White people? When mainstream epithets (sp?) start making note of a white guy's race and gender (and no, cracker doesn't count. Mainstream, i.e. more than 13%), then I'll be up there at protests screaming the loudest, demanding equality. As far as I can see, the whiter you are, the more chances you have for a good life, socioeconomically. So sorry. No dice.
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If I were making an argument for affirmative action for males.
This is what it would look like:
1) Men mature more slowly to an level equal to women
2) Many women will drop out of the workforce for one reason or another
3) Men tend to major in more practical fields when in college.
Because men mature more slowly, giving men educations means that they will use it, and by their early 20's be at the same level as women. Men won't do as well in school, but will perform as well after school.
Since women drop out of the workforce, every medical (for example) education a woman gets instead of a man means, on average, less medical care for everyone, including women.
Some college degrees have higher social utility than others. More women's studies majors does not lead to more useful and lifesaving inventions, or more efficient production. If we want to solve serious problems, like AIDS, global warming, etc. people need practical knowledge appicable to the physical world. Therefore having more men in college leads to more inventions and such.
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The only way race is a factor in the reality of boys performane
Is that minorities are far worse off. That is why the authors (apparently )racist views are irrelevant to the subject, although the subject of race itself is very relevant.
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So, if you were making an argument for affirmative action for males...
...you'd trot out a bunch of stereotypes and pure sexist horseshit? Yeah, women don't DESERVE degrees, 'cause they won't use 'em! They'll just birth a bunch of babies and their formerly educated minds will turn to mush!
Every medical education a woman gets means less medical care? Fuck you, buddy. Please report to Saudi Arabia, where your views on female education will be more appreciated.
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re: "Apparently open racism is now acceptable"
Yeah. Wow. That statement was unbelievable. Does he think he is being some sort of daring media darling?
"Yet, as more and more women substitute careers for having babies, I've come to see that we're looking at a population crisis. The most educated women have the fewest children -- this is not rocket science, it's just the way things work. We [ meaning white people] need women to have 2.1 children [in order to maintain the U.S. population], but the recent Census Bureau reports show that American women with bachelor's degrees average only 1.7. You can do the math -- if we continue this way the white population is headed for extinction."
God, I hate hyperbole.
As a matter of fact, instead of worrying that "our" women are too educated, and therefore not breeding copiuosly enough - why don't we work to further educate women and men of all ages -
maybe we can all have less children, and the entire population can go down? All over the world? I mean, obviously all these humans are not really a good thing - our over population is the problem!