There were news reports a while ago that women now make up more than half the students enrolled in college - which is news because until after my generation a common attitude was that girl's didn't need to go to college.

When I went to Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt was still officially accepting one woman for every three men. There were still professors on campus who had been known in earlier to address classes as "Gentlemen and others." Vanderbilt went through a strange evolution. The charter didn't specify the sex of the students, and there were always women there, accepted as "special students," and comprising up to 20 percent of the student body. When the board decided in the '60s to officially admit women, it apparently feared a tidal wave of women students who would swamp their traditions and also, more practically, make them build more dorms. (There was considerable discussion about changing the "sex ratio" when I was there, and one of our more common typos on the student newspaper was to write about changing the sex ration.)

changing the sex ration

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(were there ration coupons?)

IIRC, the proportion of women to men currently attending college is roughly equal to the proportion of women to men in the general population. Men are outnumbered in school because men are outnumbered in the birth rate.

Men are outnumbered in school because men are outnumbered in the birth rate.

And this is clearly a massive problem that Someone should do Something about.

I have seriously had someone look me in the face and tell me that the reason women outnumbering men in college is a Very Bad Thing is that women have other ways of moving up the ladder, namely, marrying up the ladder. Cause that's the same as having opportunity. Again @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ forever.

Not so, Jessica - generally more boys are born than girls: [link]

The hell?? Because being married to a CEO is exactly the same as BEING a CEO. Just ask Betty Draper.

Oh, huh. I wonder where I picked that up, then.

And this is clearly a massive problem that Someone should do Something about.

Import men from China, where they have the opposite problem?

nevermind

My in-laws' FAC has gone heavily into the whole ZOMG BOYS IN CRISIS thing, which means that MIL has too -- it's... interesting to hear her happily navigate the contradiction between "liberal society has a conspiracy to feminize boys by making them sit still and do homework and it's going to destroy the USA*" and "those children need stricter discipline and the three R's".

* if you make them wash the dishes they turn out to be gay and not good husbands and soldiers, or something.