A Tough Time to Be a Girl: Gender Imbalance on Campuses

…Last year, the writer Laura Sessions Stepp created a stir with her book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, which described what the author says is lost as young men and women move away from traditional romantic relationships and toward fleeting sexual encounters. Not only are women gambling with their health, argues Stepp, but they are making decisions they will regret in future years. The hookup culture could leave them bereft of the skills to build real relationships later in life. Whether Stepp is "retro," as some of her critics charged, may be less important than the fact that the hookup culture shows no signs of reversal.

One key element to the pickup culture, however, remains unreported: American colleges are undergoing a striking gender shift. In 2015 the average college graduating class will be 60-percent female, according to the U.S. Education Department. Some colleges have already reached or passed that threshold, which allows anecdotal insights into how those imbalances affect the pickup culture. What can be seen so far is not encouraging: Stark gender imbalances appear to act as an accelerant on the hookup culture.

Biologists and social scientists can't be surprised by that observation. In the animal kingdom, it is well known that whichever sex is in short supply has the upper hand. …

…As a result of the rising gender imbalances, the university has become "female centric." But while women may run the clubs, dominate in classes, and generally define the character of the university, the law of supply and demand rules the social scene. That's why the women are both competitive in seeking men and submissive in lowering their standards. …