"Women dominate at the chalkface"

Right assessment. Wrong solution.

New Zealand now has one of the largest gaps in the world between male and female achievers, with the men coming out as the losers, according to Massey University's pro vice-chancellor in education, James Chapman.

Professor Chapman's remarks followed a Massey University College of Education graduation in which only 15 of the 158 graduates were men.

"There has been a quite significant decline in the interest of males in primary school teaching and particularly in the early childhood field. It is not quite so evident in the secondary school area."

There were probably many factors involved, but one of the main ones was the gradual "feminisation" of education in New Zealand, in terms of policies as well as teacher gender.

He suggested that perhaps the drive to find equal opportunities for women had gone too far and there was a need to pull back a bit to restore that balance.

What could he mean by this? That we need reverse sexism? If women are dominating education it's because men have let them. Yes, feminisation has produced a huge social shift in the past 30 years, most markedly in the family. It has driven a wedge between men and women. But it is the home in which boys (and girls) first hear negativity towards males. I don't even know if women realise they do it half of the time.

I was out delivering flyers and two women were power walking and talking - as they do. A four wheel drive was reversing out of a driveway, very slowly. Never got near them. One swings around, "THAT was dangerous. Shouldn't he be coming out forwards? Did he have his engine on or was he just drifting?" The indignation. If the guy had been reversing into his driveway she would have found even more fault.

There was no problem but she had to make one. Probably because the object of her annoyance was a man.

Bossy, nosey, self-obsessed, know-it-all women are everywhere. And it isn't just men who give them a wide berth. So do other women. But we shouldn't. We should stand up to them.

That's how we can redress the balance. Not by making it a man/women issue. But by making it an issue for individuals. Don't buy into feminism, racism and ageism and all the shonky ideas these ideologies propagate. Think about what you want to do and single-mindedly pursue it and banshees be damned.

I have sympathy for men who shy off becoming teachers but they mustn't. If they want to teach we need them, just as we need good women. But the individualists just quietly go off and do something else. Children lose the benefit of their outlook and are overly exposed to collectivist, entitlement-embracing, rights-based, socialist thinking. Children are the losers.