Female Supremacy Articles

Screen 6 of 35

The Hepi authors also argue that the introduction of GCSE exams, based more on coursework than one-off tests, has favoured female styles of learning. The report challenges the "mindset that continues to see males as advantaged and females as disadvantaged". The authors even liken education policy makers to the incompetent generals of the first world war – unwilling to raise their heads above the trenches to recognise that the battle of the sexes has been turned on its head. This macho imagery, however, has triggered a backlash among feminist academics as give-away signs of deep male insecurities or, as one put it, "castration anxieties".

But one of the most shocking aspects of the evidence is that boys' educational achievement is actually going backwards as girls reach new academic heights. One telling statistic is that at a time of expanding higher education, university participation rates have been falling for males: if boys matched girls in degree enrolments, the government would almost instantly meet its target of getting 50% of young people into some form of HE.