The slow demise of a species

Aug 13, 2011 Editorial

With each passing year we are seeing that men are slowly extricating themselves from meaningful productive activity. They are surrendering the leadership role that at one time they were destined to have.
In days gone by they were touted as the protectors of the family, the breadwinners, and the people who were entrusted with perpetuating the family name. In some countries where there is population control, science has allowed parents to determine the gender of the child. This has seen most parents deciding that they would prefer a son.
The irony is that in some countries where this has happened there are more men than women, to the extent that people are rushing madly to seek wives for their sons even before the child is ready to understand the need for a female companion. Some years ago there was the prediction that men would share a wife by way of mutual agreement, and one suspects that this is already happening, although there has been no hard evidence to support this thought.

Two days ago the people of Guyana learnt that once more women have outperformed men at the external examinations. We have not attempted the calculation, but a casual glance suggests that women outperformed men by a ratio of close to three to one.
Not for the first time, women have topped the country at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations, and by a wide margin. Surely it is not that the women have a more developed brain, and surely it is not that they enjoy special tuition.
The critics would point to the higher examinations in which men appeared to have done marginally better than women, but the sporadic top male performers do not indicate that men are holding their own.
This phenomenon is not common to Guyana. In fact, all over the world there is the recognition that women are outperforming the men. Scientists are now trying to examine the reason for this and they are hard pressed to come up with an answer. In the not too distant past they suggested that the men would perform better in the science and mathematics subjects, while the women would do better at the arts.
Today we are seeing the women competing and even emerging at the top of the crowd in all the subjects that were once considered the male preserve.
Some are suggesting that the male of the species is exposed to more distractions and that he easily succumbs to the distractions. They point to video games, male bonding and even women. In co-educational schools, if the women are the distractions then the men surely provide no reason for these women to be equally distracted.

We have also noticed the sociological shift. Gone are the days when women of Indian ancestry were expected to be merely the rearers of children and keepers of the house. Parents are allowing their daughters to explore their horizons and these women are doing so with remarkable alacrity. They are grabbing every opportunity and succeeding.
One cannot expect the education system to focus attention on the men to the exclusion of all else. That would be counterproductive. But one would expect social groups to recognize the problem and organize parents to play an active role in the performance of their sons. Indeed, the parents were beaming with pride when their sons entered the world.
If the presence of the sons is merely to perpetuate the family name then so be it, but these parents may find that they detest their progeny because the educated woman would hardly look at an uneducated boor, leaving him to take his pick from the dregs of society.
There are those who point to the economic disparity between the top performers and the others. They also point to the absence of men from the household, with the result that the boys are uncontrollable soon after puberty. The result is reflected in the academic performance.
It is only a matter of time before women take over the reins of the country. They are already mounting their challenges in other parts of the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and a few Latin American countries, including Brazil, which have had women leaders.
But back to Guyana. There is an interesting observation. When men dominated the classrooms, boys excelled. These classrooms are dominated by women. This is so almost all over the world, except Korea and China, emerging giants in the global economy.
It may be to the good that women are actually leading in the academic race. Should they emerge to lead the world then things would be more pleasant. Women, while aggressive when defending their offspring, are less threatening.

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The slow demise of a species

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