Rita Panahi: The war against boys is having a damaging impact on the education gender gap

Boys are now trailing girls from primary school to university, but there appears to be little concern about correcting the imbalance.

The war against boys is evident.

For more than three decades women have outnumbered men at Australian universities.

The education gender gap is widening, with boys trailing girls from primary school to university, but there appears to be little concern about correcting the imbalance.

If men were outnumbering women at university since the 1980s there would be an outcry but no one in authority seems terribly troubled by the fact that, according to University Admission Centre analysis this year, being male is “greater than any of the other recognised disadvantages we looked at”.

There are a multitude of programs to correct the gender disparity in the few areas where male students do better, such as engineering, to encourage greater female participation.

Some universities even lower entry requirements for girls to boost female representation but there are few, if any, schemes to address the education gap for male students.

The education gender gap is widening, with boys trailing girls from primary school to university. Picture: Istock

For boys one of the biggest areas of concern is literacy, where by year 9 they trail girls by about 20 months, according to NAPLAN data — which also shows reading standard for this cohort fell to a record low, with 13.5 per cent of boys unable to read at the minimum standard.

Writing about the gender literacy gap, the Centre for Independent Studies’ Glenn Fahey warned that “boys in Australian schools are at a decisive educational disadvantage”.

Best-selling author and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has long argued that the decline in men’s academic performance is bad not just for boys but for society.

He explains the situation in educational institutions is far worse than basic statistics indicate.

“There are whole disciplines in universities forthrightly hostile towards men,” wrote Peterson, who says anti-male sentiment in academia is demoralising and demotivating young men.

Indeed the war against boys, and masculinity, is evident even in boys’ schools.

Messages about “toxic masculinity” and “male privilege” are unrelenting, as they are in popular culture.

Can you imagine the outrage if the term “toxic femininity” was used to describe traits synonymous with womanhood?

We must stop treating young men like they’re born guilty or that their natural masculine instincts are detrimental to society.

We have a great deal more to fear from weak, inept men than strong, capable ones.

Originally published as Rita Panahi: The war against boys is having a damaging impact on the education gender gap