Men, on the other hand, don't seem to live so successfully without a woman to care for and protect, or without the knowledge that one day they will be called to care for one. Their strength, competitiveness, aggressiveness — sexually and otherwise — tend to go one of two directions: into the protection of a wife and children, or into more dangerous, or maybe only fruitless, activities. (Like, um, video games.)

Protecting and caring for a woman is a civilizing influence that (gasp) men need. When we women act like men by being sexually aggressive outside of marriage — or perhaps even when we insist that men become more like women and "always change the diapers and forever listen to my feelings, and if you don't you are an insensitive jerk!" — we can survive, but they don't do so well. And that impacts all of us (including, of course, children) for the worse.

Back to the college scene. I'm all for women doing brilliantly in school and in the world. I'm only concerned that in general the men are so far behind. Is one possible explanation that it doesn't matter as much as it used to for men? It was once the case that having the respect of the community, not to mention a regular sex life, meant getting married and caring for and protecting a family. And that meant a guy had to get his act together and begin to do well in those college years — or roughly in those same years even if he wasn't at college. (Women have long outperformed men in the high-school years.)

Maybe, just maybe, some of the "slackers" trend is because we women, because of our culture, just aren't asking the guys to grow up.

Of course, I'm convinced video gaming fits in there somewhere, too.

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Betsy Hart is the author of "It Takes a Parent: How the Culture of Pushover Parenting is Hurting Our Kids — and What to Do About It." She can be reached at www.betsyhart.net or betsysblog.com.