Hanging On To Victimhood: Higher Education and the Gender Card

The Left is incredibly bipolar when it comes to discussing gender. They are fixated on it, obviously, but the moment you mention it, they recoil in horror and wonder aloud why you are so obsessed with the subject. It must be very exhausting for them.

On Democratic debate day, October 13th, chart-loving Vox published a chart-filled article entitled “For the first time ever, more American women than men are college graduates”. It began:

For the first time in history, American women are more likely to have bachelor’s degrees than American men. The shift, which happened in 2014 and which the Census Bureau pointed out last week, was a generation in the making.

This claim, which I’m sure was frantically shared by giddy 3rd-wave feminists as they readied themselves to watch Hillary debate the boys, is misleading. Don’t take my word for it, though. Vox clearly shows this in the third sentence of the piece, and cites a publication by the U.S. Department of Education as the source.

Women have earned the majority of bachelor’s degrees granted every year since 1981.

So this didn’t just happen? Did they mean something else by “for the first time in history”? Thirty-four years ago isn’t recent. In fact, that piece of reality is older than I am. The Left, ever eager to continue the narrative of female oppression in the United States, conveniently glides past a decades-old fact. What is true is that American women as a whole, in every age-bracket, are now more likely to have a college degree. This, they say, is helped by the younger generation of women who dominate higher education. Although females have been earning the majority of bachelor’s degrees since longer than I have been alive, the entirety of the female population didn’t finally catch up until recently. The reporting is misleading, but the real issue is that to a liberal, “equality” is a different beast entirely.

To me, and many others with a working brain, equality is not the same outcome for all, but the same opportunities for all. The mere fact that women also attend college – and have for a while – satisfies this view of “fair”. Still others define equality as an equal number of men and women at the finish line. According to the U.S. Department of Education, that kind of equality hit in the early 1980s. However, the social justice warriors on the Left believe true equality can only ever be more women than men at the finish line. Because of this warped view, the SJWs won’t be satisfied with anything resembling actual fairness and will only seek to one-up the patriarchy, that vile male force which seeks to oppress. Progress to them is not the equal opportunity for women to attend college, but beating men in the numbers game. What shouldn’t be a competition actually is.

We should be focused on providing opportunities in higher education to students regardless of gender, and hope for a high graduation rate across the board. The fact that women earn more bachelor’s degrees than men (and have for thirty-four years) isn’t worth anything on paper unless those graduates translate into a well-equipped workforce which strengthens society. Our aim should be well-educated men and well-educated women, not one or the other. However, such a thing is due in large part to personal motivation. Success in higher education hinges mostly on the individual, which is not a comfortable thought to a society eager to deflect responsibility.

It was convenient, then, to cite this as a “new” female advancement on the day that Hillary Clinton was to debate. She often makes her case for president by use of the gender card, but, as we know, this self-described merit of hers actually means nothing.

A post-debate piece by Newsweek entitled “Hillary Clinton’s ‘Smart Girl’ Triumph”, was a fixation on gender, by both the journalist and her subject. The author describes Hillary Clinton’s debate performance:

In the first 15 seconds of her first remarks, she framed herself as “the granddaughter of a factory worker and the grandmother of a wonderful 1-year-old child.” She added, “And every day, I think about what we need to do to make sure that opportunity is available not just for her, but for all of our children.” She concluded, “and, yes, finally, fathers will be able to say to their daughters, you, too, can grow up to be president.”

Pardon me, but the U.S.A. I live in isn’t the one of 100 years ago. I am not barred from voting or pursuing education because of my gender. To hear Hillary, however, you’d think females are caged and yearning for the most basic of freedoms. That’s not only entirely false and quite embarrassing, but doesn’t earn her the title of “smart girl” in my opinion.

The Left, both in media and in the political spectrum, is quick to maintain that women are just beginning to make headway in society. They mislead when reporting, refuse to acknowledge that opportunity is equality, and cheer on a candidate who does the same.