Guys don’t want to try
Charles Dickson
WP 3
Composition 1
Nowlin

While a higher education is still valued in the United States, most boys in college avoid the class room unlike their predecessors in the 60’s, but is it that “guys still know what they are doing”, as Ehrenreich suggests? Girls on the other hand were not as much of a presence in school during the 60’s, and were typically not expected to be the bread winner of the family. In her essay Guys Just Want To Have Fun, Ehrenreich shows that boys are not putting forth the effort girls are, but still rule the business world. Even though most men earn more money than women in present day, girls try harder in school than guys because less men graduate from college than women and guys don’t put forth as much of an effort while in college but still seem to be more prevalent in the business world.
It doesn’t make sense that most men earn more money than women in today’s society, it’s true though. On the official Whitehouse website (www.whitehouse.gov/equal-pay/carear) it is stated that “On average, full-time working women earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.” So there is statistical proof that most men earn more than women, but could the reason lie within the type of college experience they had? In the op-ed Guys Just Want To Have Fun, Ehrenreich tells of an interview with “an Atlanta woman” who was “a skilled website writer” and after a few weeks on the job was fired without an explanation. In the interview she explained to Ehrenreich,“’I tried to fit In’” and , “’I went to lunch with the guys, but all they talked about was sports, which I know nothing about, and they all seemed to know each other from college.’” Ehnrenriech joked stating “Poor thing, she probably wasted her college years in the library.” If a woman isn’t able to hold a position as long as a man, and without reason for being fired, how can they obtain equal pay?
Even though most men earn more money than women, girls do try harder in school after all less men graduate from college than women. In Guys Just Want To Have Fun Ehrenriech shows a statistic supporting this. Ehnrenriech states “Boys are less likely to go to college in the first place (only 45% of college students under 25 are male)” This means that this 10 percent more girls go to college than guys. It is very intriguing; most without research would probably infer that men instinctually striving to become the alpha of our species would want to surpass women who usually do not share this trait. What about the men who are in college? In an article written on www.cnsnews.com it was stated that “According to the Census Bureau, 685,000 men and 916,000 women graduated from college in 2009 (the latest year for which statistics have been published). That means 25 percent fewer men received college degrees than women.” Maybe this is a result of what Ehrenriech’s joke about, “If I tried to follow my original strategy now, I would probably end up with a M.A. in Madden, the football game, and a postgraduate in stay in rehab.”
Guys also don’t put forth as much of an effort while in college as girls. In the essay Ehrenriech suggests that “Maybe we need to return to gender-segregated higher education, with the academic equivalent of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island for boys, where they can hone their ‘people skills’ at keg parties.” While this statement she obviously isn’t serious about what she said, she may have a good point. A higher majority of my friends than I would like to admit have received good grades in high school, but went to college and got sucked into drinking and going out every night. The majority of them attend the first week of class, found out they wouldn’t get tracked down to by a truancy officer, and didn’t show up the remainder of the semester. In most instances like these one would infer that boys who ended up doing this in college would be complete failures in life, but two of my friends have ended up with decent jobs and are able to support themselves. Maybe this is proof of corporate culture changing what they view as important.
In the essay Ehrenreich Claims that Corporate culture now tends to value “personality, ”attitude,” and “likeability”. These traits are commonly associated with women, but more often these traits of women in the business world are not viewed the same by men and women. An example of this would be that men might judge a person’s likeability on how much they can poke fun at a person without them getting too upset. Ehrenreich also talks about how a woman had passed the skills portion of a customer-care job but wasn’t hired because she failed the personality tests. These tests more than likely have resulted in “corporate defiance of elementary grammar”, such as “AT&T’s sales reps being solicited with this question, if it is a question ‘Are you ready to put your skills to work. Like the way you’re a quick study. How you’re good at finding solutions.”
So you can see that although men earn more money than men, girls do try harder in college than guys. The two main reasons supporting this would be that less men graduate from college than women, along with the fact that less guys even go to college than girls, and guys don’t put forth as much of an effort while in college but still seem to be prevalent in the business world. A higher education is still valued in the United States, but most guys in college avoid the harder classes if they attempt to go to class, but maybe they are with good reason. So one would assume that with guys not putting forth an effort that we would be heading toward a matriarch type of society, but it seems as though most women have hit the “glass ceiling” with some of their “ceilings lower than others”