Female Supremacy Articles - Page 12

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With girls now outperforming boys at every level of the education curriculum from tests taken at seven to degree level, an Observer analysis suggests the effects are now beginning to be felt in the workplace, as the generation of girls who outstripped boys at A-level for the past four years begins to graduate. The findings will renew debate about the shifting balance of power between the sexes - and whether girls' greater academic success is simply due, as critics have argued, to the 'feminising' of the exam system or if it can be sustained in the world outside.

By last December, women were for the first time in the majority of those qualifying as barristers; and in 2002-3, they made up 62.7 per cent of trainee solicitors, according to the Law Society. In the same year they outstripped men in the race for the 'fast track' civil service, comprising 52.1 per cent of those recommended for appointment, even though more men than women actually applied, say Cabinet Office figures. Girls also take 61 per cent of the fiercely-contested places at medical school: on current trends female doctors will outnumber male ones by 2012, prompting the 'feminising' of the profession highlighted last month by Professor Carol Black, president of the Royal College of Physicians.