CJ MORGAN, women represent 55% of current students at universities within Australia. In fields like engineering and surveying and the like women have always been, and remain, a minority. Most female enrollments are in the arts, health and education where they are a majority.

Historically males have outnumbered females at universities by 80% to 20%: This was the figure in the early part of the last century. By the early 50s the female percentage was LESS than 20%. Most males of that 50 year time frame were quite happy with this, and saw it as "normal". How do I know? I was there! As a student, I and virtually all of my male colleagues thought it was quite normal. As the century progressed, people became MUCH more enlightened thankfully, including myself.

However, now that women are a mere 5% ahead "overall" in university enrollments the whingers, the bleeding hearts and the paranoid think it's a feminazi plot. You know the type CJ, the ones who blame "women" for all their troubles.

The Pied Piper, mostly the men
used to do the welfare work
took the children away.
nowadays one in every worker is male
one in every senior manager is female.

Master

So you were at university in the Fifties? You completed what and where?

You are right, there would have been relatively few women completing university studies between 1900 and the 1950s, but then again back then it would have been the rare man who got to complete Scholarship, let along clawed his way through the Junior Certificate, Matriculation and on to university. Most men who went on to university did generalist humanities/languages studies for their secondary teaching, yes?

Come the mid Fifties most boys would have been staring an apprenticeship in the face in their mid-teens if they were lucky and might have met the girls at the Technical College where the girls were doing bookkeeping or secretarial studies.

Up until the Whitlam government (1972-75) reforms (twenty years after the Fifties), it was only the children of the well-to-do who went on with their study, although many of them combined/substituted that with overseas travel. Overseas travel and experience counted for a lot at a time when few could afford it. Jobs depended on who one knew - or at lower levels on seniority and no black marks.

You are winding the clock back when you say you were enrolled at university in the Fifties! The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth was on June 2, 1953 and her Royal Tour to Australia was in 1954. Were you in the crowd, hair slicked with Californian Poppy under the Akubra to watch your monarch go by?

A walk down memory lane is a waste of time because the world has changed so much and many of the jobs that existed then have gone and many of the jobs available now did not exist back then. Relativity has also changed. For example a senior storeman in 1950 was a responsible, well-paid position, whereas now the pay is in the realm of the 'working poor'. On the other hand, nurses' and teachers' pays have gone up substantially by comparison. There are no 'gender' points to be scored - almost everyone was badly off back in the Fifties and choice of jobs was practically non-existent.

Pomeranian:"Now which one of those is true?"

They're both true, little fella. As I said, it's simple maths, so I expected it to be beyond you. Poor little fella...

Let me set it out and you can get someone to explain it to you - I'm sure they're used to doing that.

In 2008 there were a total of 925,511 students, of which 696,884 were domestic students (that means they come from Australia, little fella).

The gender ratio for all enrolments was 44.4%males/55.6% females. that means there were a total of 925,511 x 0.444 males in total, or 410,927

The gender ratios for International students were 55.7% males/44.3% females - the gender ratio for domestic students was not reported, only the overall ratio which masks the appalling state of affairs for domestic students).

That means there were (925,511-696,884)x0.557 male International students, or 127, 345, leaving 410,927-127,345 or 283,582 male domestic students out of a total of 696,884. That is just 40.6% of the total, as I said. Glad to have cleared that up for you little fella. If you need further instruction in grade 5 maths, feel free to ask someone else.

Sock-puppet:"but there were more men than women at uni in 1900"

And now it's 2009 and there are 50% more Australian women at uni than Australian men and as the Professor said, "the trend will continue"

To all the feminist apologists: if it was bad that there was a big majority of men at uni in 1900 as socky says, why is it not equally bad that there is a huge disparity in favour of women in 2009?

What are all the feminists going to do about this appalling inequality?

Take your time...

Benk:"If you did-not take these opportunities, then I must apologise."

Fractelle had no children, Benk. If she had, she would have used them as a weapon in her divorce without any compunction, you may be absolutely certain of that. Anyone who can spend "years" in "counselling" has absolutely no concern for anybody but herself.

Apologies to Antiwomen - within his parameters his arithmetic is correct. It is true that the proportions of "Australian" female and male students can be inferred from his figures and then presented in the negative way that he has. Indeed, it's one of the classic ways of making statistics "lie".

But fair enough, strictly speaking he's not telling porkies this time.

And what does it have to do with the NRL?

@ Benk thank you for your apologies.

@ A-septic you make a lot of assumptions about me with no evidence at all - your (no doubt) appalling experience with your ex-wife colours all your thinking about women. That you have problems with seeking assistance for your injuries says more about your ability to recover and move on with your life, than it does about the benefits of seeking professional help.

@ Piper, we need gender parity in the caring professions as much as we do in the more powerful professions such as law, big business and politics. When in hospital recently, I found the male nurse who attended me to be a particularly empathetic and competent person. We need more people like him.

If there is a ratio of 55% of women to men in university across all disciplines - so what? Why is a difference of 5% so bad? This ratio is not reflected in our power structure; males still outnumber women.