Curiouser, and Curiouser
Each semester, including summer session, I have to study and break down the demographics for the university that I work at for press releases announcing enrollment trends.
It sounds boring, but it really isn't. I think it's kind of interesting- especially when you start noticing trends within gender, race and age.
For example, I believe that by now the entire country is aware of the fact that women outnumber men in their numbers of full-time enrolled college/university students, and college/university graduates. Yes, folks. This means that more women than men are going to college. This means that the majority of the female American population is in fact smarter and more educated than American men.
It has been a consistent trend over the past 10 years, not just in Oklahoma, but nationally. Almost twice as many females as males attend university and graduate with a 4-year degree. My institution alone is 63%/36% women/men, and it hasn't really budged an inch in difference since 2004. That's just in 4 years. Think about how huge that difference has become since, oh, the early 1900s...before women could even vote for her president.
What's even more interesting, and disheartening, is that even with this overwhelmingly large gap of women choosing to pursue higher education over men, females are still only making about 77 CENTS TO THE DOLLAR of what a man makes in the work force.
There are statistically more college educated women going out into professional careers, yet we still have a pathetically large gap in our wages. How sad is that? I've heard some douche bag guys comment on how that gap has come such a long ways and how women should be happy with our "progress"...
Really? So we should be satisfied to be called equal citizens but get paid significantly less than a man doing the same work? In what delusional world does that work?
By the way, for anyone who isn't aware, Obama seems to be the only presidential candidate (now that Hilary is out of course) who seems concerned at all about women's issues, such as equal pay for women, the freedom to rule over own bodies and other RELEVANT ISSUES THAT AFFECT WOMEN EVERY DAY.
He is also the one who has actually made improving women's issues an issue of his campaign. If you have a vagina and/or care about the future of your future/existing daughters, read HERE.
His opponent, John McCain (Old Man Withers as I like to call him) is,
..."offering independent and Democratic women the unconventional pitch that his policy prescriptions for economic, health-care and environmental issues trump such traditional issues as equal pay, abortion rights and contraception coverage."
This appeasing bullshit to me says that the man isn't concerned enough about women's issues to squeeze any aspect of it into his campaign...leaving him "free" not to touch the issues in a way that overtly say what he really means, "Your concerns as a woman are not important and I don't care to take the time or effort to go there."
...."Except I WILL work to overturn Roe vs. Wade and keep your wage gap wide open." <- (OK, so he didn't actually say that, but that's what he intends to do, minus the blatant wage gap part...but avoiding the issue completely is saying precisely that!).
He's that old white man politician from a cob webbed, dusty old generation where women's issues, civil rights and equal rights were at one time scoffed at and resisted by a large chunk of his demographic. Looks to me like his old ass is still living in an era where the "little woman" should be at home making babies, cleaning house and keeping her mouth shut.
Read more about what Old Man Withers has to say about such topics in the following article:
Obama/McCain Women's Issues.
Perhaps the startling realities of gender, college education and wage earnings are what is causing the decline in the number of men choosing to go to college...
Maybe more and more of them are discovering that if they have half a brain and some ambition/motivation, they don't even need to go to college to go out into the real world and get a good paying job. Maybe they are figuring out that they will STILL get paid more money than a woman applying for the same position, so why bother enduring the time, effort and hassle of pursuing higher education?
Maybe if the tables were turned, and suddenly THEY were the ones getting paid less for the same work, they might feel more inclined to excel at university so that they feel more confident in their chances of getting a good paying job should they be put in the position to contend with the opposite gender who holds an advantage because of the junk they were born with.
Perhaps enough of them (particularly white men) are confident in the fact that since the birth of this nation, their commander in chief has always been "one of them" and is on their team, so they don't feel as if they have to compete with women for jobs or be concerned about making anything less than SIGNIFICANTLY MORE than what the other gender or races gets paid...
...then again, most college guys don't enroll in courses that would school them on this kind of information, and the majority of them as far as I know don't care to actively pursue this kind of information...and the information isn't exactly out there for everyone to be forced to acknowledge like it should be...so when they hear it from someone like me, they feel threatened and go on the defense and see me as some kind of "Feminazi" radical who likes to bash men, when in all reality, what does it hurt them to know the truth? They have mothers and sisters and daughters and girlfriends and females friends that they care about, so you'd think they'd take it seriously.
...but then again, if less and less guys are going to college, the chances of them learning this information gets even slimmer, so most guys are most likely just ignorant to women's issues anyways- and choose to put their ear muffs on when people like me talk about it so that they may remain happily out of the loop.
I don't know. This is all just speculation. It isn't man hating or men bashing or "feminazi" ranting...it is just a woman with a college degree, out in the workforce, wondering the ways of the world that she lives in and speculating on the facts and issues that affect her life and that of her unborn daughters...mentally chewing on facts and issues which can not be denied and should not be swept under a rug....
