School of Social & Political Sciences

The liberal feminist Mary Wollstonecraft argues that patriarchy produces negative social outcomes for both men and women and provides a roadmap as to how we might challenge it.

Each August like clockwork a slew of headlines concerning the ‘boy-crisis’ in education thump into the news agenda. They generate hand-wringing about the inability of boys to keep up with girls at ‘all stages of education’. Rightly so, as boys’ performance in school has been declining for years: they are 1.5x more likely to be suspended than girls and fewer young men elect to attend university than women even when they have the same grades. These issues inform what is dubbed the ‘boy-crisis’: a phenomenon which policymakers and educational institutions must grapple with urgently to support positive development and outcomes for young men and boys.

This blog challenges a vocal subsection of the commentary surrounding the ‘boy-crisis’: the criticisms which emerge from the ‘manosphere’. The manosphere describes a loose online network of men’s rights activists, fathers’ rights groups, and other similar communities who promote masculinity, misogyny and anti-feminism online, particularly on Reddit. The claim which this blog rebukes is that education has undergone ‘feminisation’ and that misandry dominates academia, causing active discrimination against men and fuelling the gender attainment gap as women enjoy preferential treatment. These arguments get it wrong. In fact, it is patriarchy which is to blame for both women’s success in academia and men’s comparative difficulties.

To substantiate this claim, this blog employs the pointed observations of proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Considering Wollstonecraft’s observations about the harmful implications of gendered socialisation on educational and intellectual outcomes, it becomes apparent that patriarchy continues to shape the socialisation of women and men alike. It conditions women to perform well in contemporary academic settings by encouraging ‘feminine’ traits like diligence, restraint, agreeability and teamwork. The same patriarchal socialisation conversely disadvantages male academic performances, as ‘masculine’ traits like risk-taking, individualism, and physical strength are less rewarded in contemporary education systems than more ‘feminine’ traits. Patriarchy harms us all. So how might Wollstonecraft help us to understand this issue better? How might her insights move us beyond the limits of the current educational system?

Wollstonecraft and Socialisation

234 years ago, proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her famous essay: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In it, she denied that women’s natural intellectual capacity was inferior to men’s but rather it is only made so by denying women a serious education. Women are ‘taught from their infancy that beauty is a woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming around its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison’. Here, Wollstonecraft notes the importance of lifelong learning and internalisation of ideas which shape actions, perceptions and behaviour. She reveals the power of socialisation on one’s own perceived abilities.

Also revealing are Wollstonecraft’s critiques of Rousseau’s Sophie, as they indicate the impact of socialisation on one’s learnt characteristics. Sophie is a character who features in Rousseau’s On Education. She serves as an example of Rousseau’s idea of the ideal education for young girls; an education which raises her to be a companion to Émile. Rousseau identified that women should be socialised to be of ‘good-nature and sweetness’, dependent, diligent and ‘early subjected to restraint’. For Rousseau, development of these ‘feminine’ traits and virtues are education enough for women. Wollstonecraft concludes that such ‘early associations of ideas’ are crucial in determining one’s outcome. Patriarchal ideas of gender roles continue to inform socialisation from a young age through such ‘early associations’ today.

Similar patriarchal characteristics continue to be praised in women. It occurs, however, with women’s hard-fought equal access to education that this conditioning is actually rather useful in contemporary academic environments. Encouraging ‘feminine’ traits like diligence, restraint, agreeability and teamwork has the positive implication that girls are suited to group work and coursework-style assessment which is increasingly dominating university curricula. This does not make university curricula inherently anti-man. It does not incur that universities are ‘feminised’. It does reveal that boys’ socialisation is ill-preparing them for a modern, equal educational environment where they compete with women.

Like Sophie, women are still subject to gender essentialist claims about their abilities and what their interests should be. The gender essentialist answer is of course that women’s value remains tied to our reproductive capabilities, not our academic or career attainment. This position is reflected in the cries of misandry from the manosphere. In perhaps the finest example there is, manosphere influencer Dr. Jordan Peterson argues that he hasn’t met a woman who, by thirty, prioritised her career over motherhood whom he thinks doesn’t have “a psychological problem”.

Spoiler: the actual psychological problem are the bonkers internalised patriarchal ideas swirling around in all of our heads. The ‘feminisation’ of education is not real; it is a thinly veiled sexist response to the backfiring of misogynistic conditioning which has coincidentally seen women excel. Moreover, such narratives ‘seek to reestablish a type of hegemonic masculinity that confers social power exclusively to men’. The boy-crisis is real, however, and must be addressed by policymakers. It will not be addressed by putting down successful women and stoking division.

What then can be done? Are we trapped in a cycle of indoctrinating patriarchal gendered ideas into generation after generation? I don’t think so, but urgent action is needed. Here, we should turn to liberalism for suggestions on how policymakers can shape contemporary educational reform so that education works for everyone.

The basic tenet of a good liberal education according to Wollstonecraft is that all education should be state-funded and equal. It must be co-educational, allowing the sexes to mix freely from a young age, and be structured to discourage bad habits which disrupt one’s own development of virtue. Wollstonecraft draws from Locke’s liberalism in particular. Locke argues that people begin as blank slates, as clay to be moulded. It is possible to a significant degree to design a person’s disposition, virtue and intellectual upbringing as the difference in the ‘manners and abilities of men [owe] more to their education than to anything else’. Locke’s approach to education aims to ‘turn children into rational moral agents who can use their reason and reflection well’. The ability to exercise reason and reflection well depends on a freedom to do so, our minds unchained by structural forces.

This ties to Berlin’s idea of ‘negative freedom’ which is the freedom to do as you want without interference from external forces. It can be understood as ‘freedom from’ external constraints rather than ‘freedom to’ do something. Gender roles are not natural limitations but socially enforced expectations which function as man-made ‘deliberate interference’. Such interference has no place in education. Patriarchy restricts men’s negative liberty by enforcing rigid norms of masculinity as it involves emotional suppression, occupational, and identity constraints by producing stigma around behaviour which does not conform to ‘masculinity’.

A truly liberal education requires the dismantling of patriarchy as the external circumstance inhibiting our negative liberty. Lockean principles ought to be integrated into a national educational system, as advocated by Wollstonecraft. These would include an emphasis on mandatory open air, physical play for both sexes and an education system which forms a strong constitution in children, their character shaped by virtues of equality and morality. Radical action to disentangle gender essentialist ideas in education would contribute significantly to shaping the development of children’s reason through education, and they would be free of the confinements of gendered socialisation which can negatively (or positively, for girls) shape their educational outcomes. Such conditions of equality cannot happen unless we finally break off the structural shackles of patriarchy which form our ‘gilt cage’. The ‘boy-crisis’ is rather a patriarchy-crisis.

A Liberal Feminist Response to ‘Feminisation’

Let’s return then to the claim this blog challenges: misandry is rife in educational institutions and that education has undergone ‘feminisation’ which actively discriminates against men.

It’s clear that the excellence of women in academia stirs up deep structural political tensions and presents a challenge to be navigated carefully in contemporary politics. Looking at the boy-crisis from a liberal feminist perspective, it appears misogyny rears its ugly head to pick on successful women for daring to benefit from a system they had limited agency in creating. It blames them for male disadvantages which stem from the patriarchy itself. Attempts to keep women inferior and obedient in character have accidentally conditioned women to excel in contemporary education. This happy accident is anathema to commentators who would lead one to believe a room of cloaked, shadowy women are puppeteering the demise of men in education through evil plots of ‘feminisation’.

Quite the opposite. The literature is full of educated women and feminists who are concerned about this issue. We should all be concerned about the comparative difficulties boys face in education. Yet, it is this author’s suggestion not to point the blame at women. How agentic were women in creating the environments that are allowing them to succeed? Not very. Men created them and women happened to be better adapted because of hundreds of years of patriarchal conditioning which continues to pervade the way in which we educate and raise children. Conditioning women to be naturally suited to contemporary education is a patriarchal misfire, but it’s a misfire which has been entirely misunderstood by critics in the ‘manosphere’ and one which successful women are unfairly plagued with the blame for.

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This blog is part of the SPS Student Academic Blog series. You can read more contributions from the series here.

First published: 28 May 2026