"Sex, Ratios, and Economics" "Oh My!"

Now, when I signed up for this Odyssey seminar (1 hour class available on almost any random topic), my understanding of the discourse was somewhere between nada and zilch. But hey! the title had two of my favorite words so I didn't think it could go wrong (*insert laugh-track*). Walking to the first day of class mid-mester felt dismal to say the least, but now that we've gotten into the swing-of-things, I must say that the subject matter has far exceeded my expectations. That being said, I thought I'd be a good neighbor and share a little about it with you.

What this lecture series seeks to address is rooted in the inequalities of gender-ratios, and what the implications are of these trends. Now the two main geographic areas we are covering encompass male-dominated Asia, where almost 62 million women are unaccounted for, and female-dominated campuses in the US (UGA @ 62%). In our class we will be looking at a variety of sources, from Adam Smith to biological studies on gender differences, and most importantly, interpersonal interviews with University students.One of such excerpts we looked at today was from an African American woman in Syracuse, NY, where the incarceration rate of black males is exceedingly high.

Now, our teacher, Chris Cornwell of Terry's Economics department proceeded to ask us a series of questions, some of which, made the class atmosphere more awkward than a hug from Voldemort.

"But I'm a nice guy?"

First, the ladies were asked if they would like to be in this situation, which was followed by a unanimous shaking of heads. The men of the class were asked if they liked being portrayed in this manner, again followed by some grumbles and a mob of shaking heads. Then, Mr. Cornwell said that was very nice, nodding his head and smiling, continuing that he believed in the sincerity of each and every one of us. Despite this, he went on to say that economics doesn't seek to look at each of us as a population graphed by "values," but rather, a population graphed by actions. In my head, this was like "LUMOS!" and BOOM, new warm glowey light all over economics. An accurate lens for the analysis of the human condition by stacking up pressures and conditions against said "values," and determining what choices are favored with oodles of fun empirical evidence. The woman in the paragraph above is one of the many examples of those suffering under the environment of sex-ratio imbalance. Although she would like to leave, she cannot, knowing she will never be able to find the security of her current relationship. In the ominous words of Professor Cornwell "most people would like to see themselves paired up eventually. No one wants to be alone.. No one wants to be alone."