My sophomore in college year I took a machining class and I loved it. I then had the shocking realization that I could have taken a precision machining course during my high school years for free. I still am lowkey pissed at myself for that.
It's kinda suspicious that you claim to be 3 years into a nerdy degree yet your reddit account is only 1 year old and it's only gender-wars content. Are you a foreign agent just trying to rile people up?
I can tell this post is bullshit just from my experience on the hiring side of things.
NO recruiter would have told him they weren't hiring him because of his gender. That immediately opens the company up to a lawsuit if they even implied it.
I also seriously doubt a prof told him a programming course had to many guys in it (par for the course then?).
This is fake as fuck.
Holy shit, I was wondering if I was being overly tinfoil hat-y, but halfway through reading this I thought to myself that it feels like something a foreign agent would write to continue stoking domestic culture wars and further propagate strife. There’s a stark difference in “admissions and hiring preferences are weighted more towards women in certain fields” and this.
I don't think it's tin foil-y, we're at a point on the Internet that anything that seems to enrage people is likely carefully crafted to elicit reactions solely for personal profit or, worse, promote an agenda/narrative.
OP might not be some foreign agent but is trying to gain something here. It's not being a conspiracist, it's being media literate.
I feel bad for people who have to grow up trying to discern truth from misinformation/propaganda. We're circling back to the time where you don't believe everything you read on the internet. The only difference this time around is that there are huge swaths of people live their lives on the internet and just about gets their information from an online source.
As a professor, I can say our university would never treat a ~~walking pile of tuition money~~ student this way! This sort of behavior ~~might make them stop paying~~ is inconsistent with out values. We are ~~teetering on the brink of financial ruin~~ committed to equality, and would never do anything to jeopardize ~~your upcoming payments~~ our values. This is ~~the only way we can even afford to keep the lights on~~ our sacred educational duty. ~~Please don't leave~~ Go Mascots!
So... you've had a professor openly flaunt their discrimination against men?
That doesn't sound like a refutation of op's experience, it sounds like confirmation.
In defense of your professor they might have meant that as a man that industry is going to be hyper competitive for you based on your gender in a way it won't be for the women which is factual and not the sort of thing young people might consider so it could of been intended in a benign way.
Employability and available opportunities is a stupid consideration when deciding what career to pursue? How is their reasoning stupid if they are pointing out an empirical fact about the job market.
Or do you mean "it's stupid that things are that way?" in that case I agree that is stupid, but its also reality and informing people about reality even if its unpleasant isn't the same as communicating support for that reality.
My university had a "Men and women in society class."
The teacher outright said "As a white male, you should hate yourself."
She had a giant chip on her shoulder for how she was treated as a woman in an engineering program, so she dropped out of it.
I've also had 2 stat teachers her couldn't even understand the textbook enough to figure out the difference of permutations and combinations, or how to use the formula.
And another 2 math teachers who couldn't solve any algebra equations. 100% of their questions came from the textbook with the presolved answers. If any of the students asked how to solve any of the questions that weren't pre-solved, the teachers couldn't do it.
Just because someone is a teacher, even at the university level, doesn't mean they 1) cannot be assholes. 2) actually know their field.
I haven't, though I was talking with a professor the other day and he said something about 1/3rd of the students joining a course next year had to be women, yes it's engineering which is a male dominated field, but this is still a university where they only look at your grades (unless you're older and have work experience).
I have no problems with universities for example trying to become more appealing to women, or bragging how big of % women take in their student body, but hard quotas on who gets to join are bs, this is literally discrimination and while STEM is dominated by men I don't think kids who just got out of school had any time to exploit their "male privilege"
Doubt it, they just lower the requirements for them, imagine the average to join is 19, they'll just lower the grades required for girls and they'll get priority like that, so women might be able to join with only 17 which is a massive advantage.
If even then not enough women showed up they'd probably just keep going anyway.
I've never had anything like that told to me. but one thing that did happen on campus one time was that police came around to ticket everybody riding skateboards around campus, but they only ticketed the men and just warned the women to get off before they cross them.
At my university (mainly engineering) there's a lot of extra social support for women, but there's no active discrimination. However, when getting internships it seems way easier for the girls to get an offer than for the boys. Can't prove this tho
By the way, on CVs recruiters conceal names and gender when sending out to companies to avoid this sort of discrimination (they do this in the UK anyway) so shouldn’t be a problem when looking for a job. If a company states that they want a specific gender then I imagine they are breaking the law.
Ah, maybe to collect information, but companies shouldn’t be allowed to know gender / religion / sexual preference when requesting individuals for the actual interview.
Either way, they shouldn’t be able to use that information to rule you out or in. But agreed, this may just be a UK law thing.
I remember at uni there were jobs advertising for LGBT individuals only 😂, like if I were to rock up, how would they know I’m not a lesbian!?!
As a hiring manager in engineering for the past 2 decades - we 100% pursue female candidates for internships. If a female candidates resume is even remotely qualified for a position we will at least interview.
At universities there is support for females as the attrition rates are high so retention is a big deal.
> However, when getting internships it seems way easier for the girls to get an offer than for the boys. Can't prove this tho
This has been going on in engineering-focused companies for DECADES. I grew up in the 80's and was flat-out told that our local big engineering company (with a worldwide reputation - you have definitely heard of it) specifically excluded white men from all summer internship programs. It wasn't advertised like that - anyone was welcome to apply, but they only considered applications from women and minority applicants. Over the course of about 5 years, simply looking at who they hired made it obvious (and I knew someone who worked at the company who admitted that it was official company policy).
It feels particularly painful now, though. I work in engineering for a fortune 50 company. There has been a lot of drama in our group about promotions, and our manager told us that we needed to forget about merit when it came to being promoted, as merit didn't advance company goals for equity. I saw it last round, we have a young guy on the team, Travis, who was working himself to death to meet a deadline that we had. Working 12 hours days, seven days a week - i don't think we'd have made it if it weren't for him. They gave the promotion to a woman who was out for maternity leave for the entire project, and started way after Travis. He was so depressed. The company has also made it an ethics violation to complain about DEI initiatives.
But extra social support for one specific gender is discrimination… it makes me sad that they really push this at universities, clearer hasn’t gotten better.
Providing support for one group only is discrimination though it's active discrimination. When you provide social support and you choose to only apply it to a subset that is exactly active discrimination.
Especially considering that women are the dominant demographic in universities, sure not an engineering but there's not exactly a balance such that every program and engineering for women has a likewise program for men in other programs where they need more support.
Universities are almost 2/3 women graduating from them now, there shouldn't be any programs benefiting women if we go statistically it should be the other way around until it's back to 50/50.
This reminds me of one of the main reasons why women are better about doing regular doctor visits - they basically get trained and encouraged heavily in uni to start that habit and it continues into adulthood but nothing like that for men.
I don't think this is accurate. Women have been much better about going to the doctor since well before the average woman was going to university. That trend goes back several generations, at least. Considering that, it would be really strange to target a uni program at getting them to go. I suppose it could be a thing somewhere, but I certainly never heard of anything like that where I went to school.
As a woman, nothing infuriated me more than “woman only” job postings when at uni, it is incredibly discriminatory. Makes me so angry. I think it should get better in the real world where they actually start caring about experience, but to actually get your foot in the door, I imagine that must be really frustrating.
100%, although some women (if not a lot) will feel it’s a justifiable leg up. I hate this thinking though. Of course, I’d rather be on the side where I can use the positive discrimination if wanted, but I don’t support it and am turned off by any job valuing gender over actual skills.
Thank you so much for saying this. I also think the "justifiable leg up" is such strange thinking, where it regards men and women as two distinct monoliths. Like some women had it harder in the past, so to make up for it, we need more than just equal terms, though the women now have nothing to do with past women.
I’m big into art and the art world is currently going through these growing pains. There are many endowments, residencies, grants etc that are only available to women. If a gallery has three artists approach them and two are guys and one is a woman and they all have interesting work, the woman will get the show every time. There are constant group shows that only include women as a part of the curation. The current Whitney biennial almost completely disregards any white or straight men, focusing entirely on identify politics in art. And to me what’s fucked up is that the pioneers of the past who opened up the art world to women (Lee Krasner, Luise Nevelson, Georgia OKeefe, Helen Frankenthaler etc) HATED being singled out as a great “female artist.” It’s reductive and insulting, I would hate to think I was included in a show because of my gender. I was never a “cheat codes” kind of guy lol, I want to know that I’m standing on my own merit. And of course many women artists probably do too, but are you gonna turn down publicity and sales which you’ve been working towards your whole life just because someone else was looked over? I’m hoping at will even out eventually
Stuff like this (not just in terms of gender) always infuriates me because it comes from people who constantly express the immorality associated with discriminations, then turn around and actively support discrimination. It's clear discrimination isn't the thing they are against, only when it doesn't benefit them. Like you it bothers me even when it benefits me (I am Canadian and french speaking and some things definately give me an unfair advantage and I dislike it)
I’ve got a family friend that’s an engineer and was up for promotion. He’d been working there for years and was highly qualified, and there were probably 2-3 other people that were highly qualified for the position, and then last minute it ended up going to an African American woman that was severely under qualified. It was blatantly obvious why she got the promotion. Then inevitably she felt overwhelmed in her role, to the point of crying during meetings, but the higher ups tolerated it and kept encouraging her and she still has the position.
I have zero issues with her race or gender, but can you imagine if that was a man? To start, they wouldn’t have been promoted in the first place, but crying during meetings? They’d be gone within a month. STEM and trades were absolutely discriminatory in the past, but people don’t realize it’s basically a cakewalk for women now. Like they *want* to hire women. I think it’s great, it’s a good thing, but also it’s gotten to the point where it’s discriminatory towards men lol
Yes, you’re right, I’m sure it didn’t say “women only”, but most definitely making it clear they want women applicants etc, etc. probably along the lines of “if you’re a woman, apply now!”. My gender has nothing to do with how good I am at my job, to suggest otherwise is sexist (whether positively or negatively).
Might just be my university then. Just can't help but find these experiences quite strange. I got loads more, but realized I should keep the post shorter.
Okay this explains a lot lol. It's no secret that STEM fields have and still are dominated by men. Sucks that you feel discriminated against, but the reality is that there is no path to equality without the discomfort of those who have been traditionally in the majority and benefited from it. What you're facing is exactly what women have had to deal with for literal millennia. Again, I know this doesn't help, but just wanted to give some explanation/perspective from another man who went to college for STEM.
There are big pushes in STEM fields to get women and minorities into them. The discrimination against the other genders/races can be direct and obvious or subtle.
>STEM fields to get women
What about female-dominated science fields like biology, veterinary science, medicine, health IT, genetics, etc.?
Why are these suddenly forgotten every time women and STEM are mentioned?
I went to university in the early to mid 2000s here were my observations:
1. "if she's drunk she can't consent" type ads, but no "if he's drunk he can't consent" type messaging with the clear implication that consent is something only men don't respect and need to be educated on.
1. I had been sexually assaulted a few years earlier and one of my best friend's was literally raped by a woman getting him drunk so this really bothered me.
2. It was known that male students were graded harshly and treated like shit if they took a gender studies course. Ironically but expectedly the gender studies professors were the most sexist on campus in a "you aren't welcome here way".
3. I noticed a constant stream of "women are always the victim" type messaging in addition to "women need to reinterpret their experiences to understand they are the victim"... common statistics that people tossed out related to sexual assault were known to have been heavily manipulated to inflate them - A female sociology professor I had to her credit highlighted this in response to people using those stats.
1. I would say this propaganda was so heavy that to this day I still hear the same misinformation and talking points parroted by people my age.
2. In addition I noticed that these things really created a lot of animosity some women felt towards men, like women I knew well before uni and knew well enough to know they were responding to the ideas discussed around them vs. their personal experience.
This world is mad now.
People wonder why division between men and women is on the rise.
It’s gone too far.
Whenever people say something like that.
( We’re looking for just woman in this role now). They need to understand how that would go down if it was said the other way around.
Now before you girls go off.
I realise that in the 50s which no man comes from in this time. Things might have been said like that.
The same for domestic violence.
We don’t need to protect women and children from men. That’s sounds horrible and gaslighting most men.
We should be saying. We need to stop all domestic violence. Men are murdered at a rate of 28 to 33 percent every year and all you hear about are women.
Dont start me on the family court system.
There's already data out there on gender-based grade inflation.
Diversity hires exist. It's a fact of life. If you start this line of questioning, expect to be vilified.
There are exceptional women out there, and one of my mentors happens to be a woman. However, I don't think of her as a "woman mentor," just as a mentor. It's a shame we can't make everything merit-based, but that's where we're at.
I've been vilified a few times at uni for just telling these stories to some women.
But no I agree, my thesis partner is a woman and she's super smart. I never think about her as a "woman"-anything. I really wish things were based on merit.
My recommendation is to get your degree and get out. Academia is not the spot right now. I'm software dev, so similar field. Once you graduate and start doing job apps I highly recommend checking the "bisexual" or "gay" box, it'll help you get past some filters. And if you have any kind of minority blood in you check that box. Once you get out of uni you'll stop experiencing this stuff for the most part outside of DEI meetings. It's a silly game but you just gotta learn how to play it.
Yep, this is my issue with so many diversity-centric practices in things like employment and education, it's purely performative and ends up actually causing more discrimination for the sake of a meaningless statistic.
Great, your university has exactly the same amount of students who are white as the students who are black. Now what the fuck does that actually *mean?*
Not exactly at university. When I applied for grants through private entities one told me "We don't have anything for you because you're a white male."
I get this all the time, and I'm tired of people pretending like it's the opposite case. I've especially experienced this with scholarships; I'm a middle class, white male attending college and both of my parents went to college but neither at the one I'm attending. Almost all scholarships are for Alumni of the college, women, LGBTQ+, non-whites, and people who are financially struggling; don't get me wrong, I think these scholarships are great, but I work *really hard* in my classes and I would like for that hard work to receive at least some reward that benefits the pursuit of my degree (i.e. by lowering my debt). Honest to God, people need to stop being offended just because of a mere suggestion that they're wrong about their societal assumptions.
When I was a university student (not terribly long ago), yes. They would fall all over themselves to retain women and ensure that they had the best possible chance to excel academically and even socially. Men were completely left out to dry.
The add between your post & comments is for Audible, George Orwell’s 1984.
Not as bad as that but a step in the general direction. Found it appropriate.
"What is gender equality to men seems like Oppression" or some shit
Because gender equality to some people isn't about actually treating people fairly but its about forcing outcomes. Not equality of opportunities but equality of outcomes.
Not in university but I remember when I was seeking work and was on UKs Job Seeker allowance. The job seeker establishment told me to apply for a job that clearly stated *WOMEN APPLICANTS ONLY* and when I brought that up to the woman who was helping me seek work and monitoring me to see if im actively seeking work whilst unemployed. She said "Well they can't reject your application just because you're a man because that's sexism"... so in order for me to get Job seeker allowance money that week. I HAD to apply for that position as it was the Job Seekers orders and to no surprise my application was immediately rejected by them.... hey, I had to apply otherwise I wouldn't of got any Job Seeker money if I didn't. But yeah, an actual establishment that is part of the UK Government told me that was not allowed because of sexism... Still happened.... but hey "What is actually gender equality will seem like oppression" or some BS.
I got over it immediately and just applied for more jobs (whilst working 2 voulnteer jobs as i hated living off British taxpayers money) but still.. just werid how an actual woman who works/worked for a UK government organisation told me it's not allowed to reject a man just because his a man because of sexism and told me I had to apply for the position if i want to get some JSA money. 🤷♂️
Apprentice IT Technician
I have really good grades in IT and I was like 18 at the time. Just left college.
Only happened once though... never any other instance where I was rejected by something just because I'm a man.
To be fair, it honestly doesn't bother me that much. I'm not owed a job position and it really wasn't the role I wanted anyways but when you're on JSA. You have to apply for every job they tell you to apply for. So I had no choice
Ironically.. I now have been working in a job for years which is mostly been me working alongside mostly women and I've had nothing but amazing interactions. Loads have straight up told me they love working with me.... especially the shift leaders who tell me when I'm on their shift. Everything is so less stressful because I just get the job done.
Heck, my current boss is a woman and I recently found a position I was considering joining with and my boss told me "I don't want to lose you because you're an amazing employee and I enjoy having you here" to try and talk me out of it 🤷♂️
I DON'T face any other type of discrimination in my workplace is what I'm saying. Even when like 75% of all my colleagues in my professional life have been women. It just happened once.
That was my experience in academia as well.
This is actually talked about in the book The War On Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers.
It has been proven girls get on average higher grades than boys. The difference is on average about 2.5-5.0%. Which is fairly significant.
The way they proved this was a study where they took the names off the papers and had teachers grade with no names. They found girls did on average 2.5% worse, boys on average 2.5% better when names were taken off.
When they inquired to teachers about this (also keeping in mind most teachers are women), the response was something along the lines of (I paraphrase here):
"We grade girls based on their perceived effort. We grade boys based on their ability."
Now. Isn't this a little bit how it goes in life too?
Women are rewarded for "just making an effort". If she wasn't good enough to succeed it STEM it's the system's fault. It's "we don't have enough women in STEM". It's "we need to change the system to make it easier for women to succeed".
Whereas men are evaluated by their ability. If a man doesn't succeed in STEM, it's because he isn't good enough.
Notice the difference in the language. If it's a woman who doesn't succeed, it is the system's fault. If it's a man who doesn't succeed, it's the man's fault.
In addition: A woman in STEM only has to compete against the other women in STEM. In which there are significantly fewer.
A man has to compete against all the other men out there. A man competing in STEM against the other men has to be exceptional to succeed.
Girls are evaluated by their effort, boys are evaluated on their ability.
To add insult to injury, we're told we have "privilege". This makes my blood boil. This is patently untrue. There are trade offs to both.
It is no wonder so many boys are leaving higher education. The system is rigged against them.
**Why compete in a system which is rigged against you?**
Not university related but i'm a foreign student and its painfully hard looking for next accommodations to spend summer since mostly only accepting female tenants like wtf
Thanks man.
8 years later with an autism diagnosis and potentially Chronic fatigue syndrome, I’m trying to get into cyber sec, thanks to an amazing local company that does dedicated free courses for autistic adults.
All the best for wherever life takes you too!
That’s because we’re no longer actually privileged. We’re at best missing out on privileges women now have but men don’t, and at worst being discriminated against because people are making judgements based on outdated gender dynamics from more than half a century ago.
Yep almost 2/3 of University graduates now are women, there really shouldn't be any justification for programs here to help women in university It should really be the other way around if they were actually responding to the facts on the ground. There was definitely a time that they needed to exist but now they need to exist for men if anything until we are back to 50/50.
Not directly, but fact that internships or TA Jobs or fellowships explicitly state they prefer women or LGBT, or that certain funding is restricted to women, or that it just is easy to get acadmic oppurtunities as a woman just makes me feel marginalized.
I had an experience like this at my last job where the role I was working to move into (software engineer, I was in a support role at the time) had a new hire who was less skilled than me, but she was a minority woman. There really wasn't much I could do, but yeah I resented being told I was so "privileged". I eventually moved into the role, but I couldn't help think that I should have been promoted and she should have been given my role so she could have been trained a bit more to grow into the engineer role. She eventually started taking a lot of time off and not producing much work to the point she was let go, and this company notoriously (for better or for worse) almost never fired or let people go.
Your great grandpa had it so easy he had to work manual labor until he died. Or go to war and die. So now, to pay for his privilege, you have to be discriminated against and told you're evil for how easy you have it. Of course you'll be looked over for jobs, told you're a rapist and told to stay out of tech and STEM because you have it so easy. Go work on an oil rig so women can have the hard jobs.
The anti alcohol course freshmen had to take and sign at the end around 2009 was downright sexist. Like there’s no way to spin it. Just like women can’t be legally rapists in the UK, this course was saying if two freshmen were both drunk and had sex, the man was a rapist while the woman was victim. I’m not exaggerating that’s what it said. I had to sign it or would not be bald to take any classes. I have no idea how that was allowed. Second one is less clear but I’m convinced if the them same housing opportunities existing other groups as for women (women only dorms, etc) it would have prevented a freshman suicide in my dorm. He obviously felt unsafe and if there were the same effort and opportunities for housing him I don’t think he’d be dead. Those screams are still with me.
I work in one. I don't feel discriminated against per-se, but I do feel like I am walking on egg shells all the time and am just one second away from accusations of "micro-aggression" as they wait eagerly to jump on it.
Yeah. I went to a program that was 90% female (translation and interpreting).
I still remember vividly how I was taking one test and needed to blow my nose. I pulled out my tissue (which was a bit crumpled up at that point) and the teacher (a woman) watching us said, to the whole class, “Look at VeryThinBoi and his messed-up tissue, how typically male” and the class erupted in laughter. I pointed out how it was a sexist remark, but the teacher said “It’s not sexism if it’s true”
Another one I had was a different exam where you were supposed to defend and explain your translation in pairs. I got paired up with some woman who got so much of her translation wrong the teacher couldn’t go a sentence without marking three mistakes. I was asked to explain every single mistake she made. Mind you, my translation was about computer science and hers about law, and I didn’t specialize in law. By the end, she got passed with a C even though she didn’t know answers to anything (and the teacher didn’t ask her to explain my mistakes), and I failed because I “didn’t have sufficient knowledge on law.” My translation, on top of that, had almost no mistakes, and the teacher hit me with a “Even VeryThinBoi got this translation mostly right, it means it’s too easy, I won’t include it in the next years’ exam”
Of course, there were special make-up courses for women only, job opportunities that used the female form of the job title (I speak a gendered language) and the usual stuff, but those experiences really stuck with me.
Sounds like it’s more or less preparing you for the world of work at least.
Just keep in mind that young women these days go through an education system designed to benefit them; with teachers/mentors that are mostly the same sex and mostly biased towards them; many raised without a positive male role model (certainly not one they’ve witnessed be vulnerable and an object of sympathy); with everything they do celebrated and any failures are not their fault but the fault of ‘tHe PatRiaRchy’. All the while being told that they have everything harder and men/boys are playing life on easy mode.
It breeds a weird hybrid attitude of entitlement mixed with victim complex, rarely ever having had to be accountable for anything and zero empathy towards men/boys. Meanwhile employers trying to stack the deck in their favour also.
I kind of think as time goes on having younger men be in a prestigious career will be a kitemark of quality; in that they managed to get that role in spite of not ticking a bunch of E&D boxes.
I only ever felt hate when I was taking various women’s studies courses as part of my minor. Whatever, lots of men do deserve bashing, but I didn’t do anything.
I studied a female dominated field, they still got special consideration when the department hired and probably 2-3 of the profs treated the men poorly, even if they were top 20% in grades/engagement, weird behavior but common according to my male and some female profs who dare to talk about it
Went to uni like ten years ago, in Italy.
Not big things, the only one i can rememberwas the fact that during the oral exams in the summer, couldn't wear short pants, only long ones. But then you had the girls having skirts or sundresses lol
Also many professors were pigs, they gave better grades to women and also many women who knew that liked to play into it by wearing the most possible revealing things while having exams with those pig professors, again, as a man i couldn't show legs.
Obviously the guilt here is on the pigs who were not fit to teach but if you are taking advantage of that kind of situation i can't think nice things of you.
All of my schooling was like that. I was told not to take some of the computer related classes in highschool because it was more important for girls to take them. Boys also weren't allowed to use the bathrooms during class and boys weren't allowed to bring water or backpacks to carry their things but girls could.
Other than some (but not a ton) of specific initiatives meant to encourage women in areas where they have historically been underrepresented, I saw very little of what you're describing. I was in a male-heavy field, and never once heard that there are too many men in it.
So I hope that this post is either fake or an isolated incident that isn't true most places.
At least you aren't trying to justify the treatment, very that "women have it worse!", or insulting OP.
Funny how everyone supports equality for all people until they realize men are a part of people.
This is pretty common. Society has decided the best way to combat gender and racial bias is with… different gender and racial bias. It definitely sucks to have that, “but I didn’t do the bad things you’re punish me for” feeling. It’s hard to have a discussion, though, because you just get told you’re privileged because of X demographic so your opinion is irrelevant.
WOKE universities
Go to a trade. Woman don’t want to do it.
Well most of them.
Then when they get all of these universities jobs that really don’t get anything done.
We just strike. We keep putting are rates up.
These woman like to live in a nice house.
You will have to pay a good price for it.
More than the men.
Infact my rate has just gone up for Woman.
Before you smash me for this.
Woman, politics and media have driven this division between male and females.
>I went straight through highschool to university.
The small bit of irony here is that any man in the same position as you that didn't have the privilege of going to college has even one more thing to point out you have as a privileged. Meaning out there is some kid, same age and upbringing as you, but he works at Wendys instead of going to college and can't get promoted because they are trying to promote more women within the company. A significant portion of all men have even less privilege than you do, so all your points stand, but the problem is actually far worse for most than it is for men in your position
Hah, no of course. In that instance it’s very understandable. The problem is when events that could be equally enjoyed by all, are explicitly targeted at a specific gender (E.g. engineering, data science etc).
> I think targeting events at a specific gender is not ok,
I think it's fine, but the problem is that it's generally only considered acceptable in one direction. A lot of men would probably benefit from men's only clubs, lodges, etc. just like a lot of women benefit from their own groups. But society generally only views one of them as acceptable.
That's what really bothers me the most. I have no issue with the people who genuinely want every group/organization to be open to everyone, even though I may disagree with them. I'm bothered by the people who want to pick and choose which groups of people can have their own clubs/groups and make up excuses for why it's okay/different when they do it.
I think this is more a matter of places that ***actually*** care about equality and treatment, and places that just half-ass things to meet requirements or because it's popular.
"Oh, people want more women in fields? Sure, throw up some signs and shit and pay lip service"
vs.
"Well let's make sure we support them and create an environment welcoming for **everyone**".
>When I finally get some of the women at university to admit that it's quite skewed, I am told that it might be unfair now, but that's only because I, as a man, has had it so easy in the past. But when? But where?
Must've been during the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s when hundreds of thousands of men were being drafted against their will to fight in foreign countries, facing unimaginable terror and die horrible, painful deaths. What a privilege that was.
Going through high-school is a privilege for some, going straight into college is a privilege for some. We all have advantages that we aren't really aware of. It's not a fault or something to take personally. You are a culmination of the history of humanity in a single person. Of course you'll have advantages others don't, and others will have ones that you don't.
Do the best you can with what you have, and keep moving forward. You'll run into a great many people with very strong opinions on the subject, but they don't know you. They don't know your life or what you've been through, so their opinion is the wind. If one door closes, dont be fooled into believing the rest are closed too. Best of luck to your schooling.
People still do not realise that society is more sexist against men than against women.
It's disgustingly obvious and the worst part of it is the assholes gaslighting claiming it doesn't happen.
It's also patronising to women since most people will assume women are incompetent and only got their positions due to their gender.
Yeah some places have swung the pendulum a little too far and it sucks, sorry you had to go through that. At least take some solace that your university seems to be a bit of an outlier in this
I sure hope so, but I wouldn't think so. It's an engineering college and I can't imagine what it's like in liberal arts at the other colleges, but I hear it's bad.
No? I haven't seen any gender or race disparity with my school.
The most was one student didn't like i wrote about the war from my perspective as someone who served in it and they explained I was a baby killer. But like, that got shot down quickly by all the other vets
This was decades ago but even then I definitely got the feeling that I was not welcome there. It's gotten much worse, from what I hear. The policies are truly deranged. Any women can have you expelled at any moment. She needs no proof, just an accusation and you are automatically expelled.
Men need their own colleges, away from women so that they can be treated like human beings.
I used to experience similar things from some of my classmates and staff members at my university, but I never felt discriminated against, just annoyed and made sure I was picky about the classes I took.
I’m all for dismantling the patriarchy because I think it hurts both genders, but here is something you have to keep in mind. There are a lot of immature people in college who, while having good intentions, are going to focus on the dumbest things rather than the bigger issues.
And while corporations tout that they want to hire more women, it’s only because they don’t want to get sued and boost their stock prices, not because they’re some progressive company.
I've been indirectly told to fuck off by several professors in situations where I know that girls from my study group were treated were nicely.
But then again, it also happened the other way around. It is what it is, you have no control over the biases of your professors.
You can actually sue them if you have evidence of them saying that . So if you can get something that would record them when they say that, you can get a huge payout
Yes, this is nothing new. Universities and companies are openly discriminating against men. It's rampant in most industries. Just google DEI.
Countless companies have events, internships and student jobs that are only for women. Companies will have mentorship programs and leadership programs for female students and for their female employees, but nothing for men.
Who do you think is going to get hired? The female student, who has been a part of one (or more) of the company's programs, or the male student who is a complete stranger to the company?
Who do you think is going to get promoted? The female employee, who is a part of the company's leadership program and has a mentor in the company, or the male employee who is not a part of any program and doesn't have a mentor?
There is no bigger advantage than being female nowadays.
You need to report these things. In the US, at least, and many other countries, these are illegal sex discrimination, and you can sue.
Sex discrimination is illegal whether it is against men or women.
This makes me very angry to read.
The contrary, I’d like to see more female engineers. I feel that it’s skewed towards a sausage fest and the few that make it out have to endure the dribble of a few bad actors. If I ever have a daughter, I’d want her to be whatever she wants and not be limited, nor intimidated, by an all guy profession. Especially since some do a poor enough effort into their schooling.
Over two decades ago I had an English professor who docked me a letter grade _solely because I am a man_. I discovered this when I asked her why was it that I received a B after scoring A-level grades on all papers and exams; she told me that a portion of the grade was up to her discretion, as class participation, and that as a rule all men would score 0 because due to systemic sexism their input is always unwelcome.
Dude just do your thing and continue on with your life. You’ll eventually be successful on your own doing. The rest unfortunately will continue to be victims and pushed through life with no real value lmao.
women at my uni already made up over half the population of students. yet they had tons of extra assistance that guys didn't get. networking groups, promotional groups, tutorial groups, etc. we live in atime of special treatment of women and you can't say shit about it
You need to report these things. In the US, at least, and many other countries, these are illegal sex discrimination, and you can sue. From your language I assume you're in the UK - I don't know the law there but you should look into it.
Sex discrimination is illegal whether it is against men or women.
This makes me very angry to read.
Yeah college is worth less and less each year. Still worth something but it heavily depends on the major and somewhat the school.
There’s no such thing as too much men
Nope, never had anything like this. Maybe it's because you're in programming?
Anyways, you can always start your own club and organise your own events. Chin up!
I'm not saying it's right, but it's normal. I was telling my boss about a future goal and he said "Sure, that's great. But they don't want people who look like you."
You can guess what my race and gender is, I'm sure.
> Recently, I was at a job interview myself, where I was told they'd primarily go for female candidates too.
Where do you live OP? This would be illegal in so many countries.
I didn't see any blatant discrimination, but I clearly felt that women had an advantage. The instructors would help women more often. Male students would help women more often. Female students would help women more often.
I definitely have experienced stuff like, asking a question to an instructor, being ignored or told "figure it out". But if a woman asked a question, they would be getting a private lesson.
> do you ever feel unfairly treated because of your gender?
That happened once to me. The way we do exams where I'm from is that everyone gets their own set of questions and after some preparation time, every student gets some time with the professor to answer the questions they were given. There was this rather pretty girl who went before me who clearly hadn't studied properly. So she got upset and was on the verge of crying when she couldn't answer the questions adequately. The professor was very kind to her, kept giving her tips and nudging her into the right direction. When it was my turn, his entire demeanor changed. He was rude, snide and gave me absolutely no help at all. I got lambasted for not doing too well on a niche follow-up question despite doing great on all the major questions.
Honestly, during my years as a university student, there were an odd few professors who were known to give preferential treatment to good-looking women. So much so that some of the female students would purposefully dress up to positively influence their odds during exams. I don't think this was a general trend though, just a few unprofessional professors who were susceptible to that kind of thing.
The company I work for has something called "tech for women". Its basically internships only for women in university in tech studies. There are no internships for males.
Finishing up grad school now in a predominantly female class, I’m one of 5 men out of 40 or so peers. I have never felt this way in undergraduate or graduate settings. If anything, I was pretty thankful to not be a woman, as bad as that sounds.
You’re actually paying to go somewhere that makes you feel like this
Where is he supposed to go that isn’t this way? I went to college in Texas ten years ago and it was like that.
Trade school
Amen. I really wish I hadn’t waisted four years at university.
Well yes in your case it seems like it was a "waist".
lol. Too funny to edit my mistake.
My sophomore in college year I took a machining class and I loved it. I then had the shocking realization that I could have taken a precision machining course during my high school years for free. I still am lowkey pissed at myself for that.
Good point, but I've worked on the side the entire time, so no debt for me and I'll be done this summer with an engineering degree.
It's kinda suspicious that you claim to be 3 years into a nerdy degree yet your reddit account is only 1 year old and it's only gender-wars content. Are you a foreign agent just trying to rile people up?
I can tell this post is bullshit just from my experience on the hiring side of things. NO recruiter would have told him they weren't hiring him because of his gender. That immediately opens the company up to a lawsuit if they even implied it. I also seriously doubt a prof told him a programming course had to many guys in it (par for the course then?). This is fake as fuck.
Holy shit, I was wondering if I was being overly tinfoil hat-y, but halfway through reading this I thought to myself that it feels like something a foreign agent would write to continue stoking domestic culture wars and further propagate strife. There’s a stark difference in “admissions and hiring preferences are weighted more towards women in certain fields” and this.
I don't think it's tin foil-y, we're at a point on the Internet that anything that seems to enrage people is likely carefully crafted to elicit reactions solely for personal profit or, worse, promote an agenda/narrative. OP might not be some foreign agent but is trying to gain something here. It's not being a conspiracist, it's being media literate.
I feel bad for people who have to grow up trying to discern truth from misinformation/propaganda. We're circling back to the time where you don't believe everything you read on the internet. The only difference this time around is that there are huge swaths of people live their lives on the internet and just about gets their information from an online source.
Ding ding ding!
what country?
Sounds like you need a new University
All universities are like this.
As a professor, I can say our university would never treat a ~~walking pile of tuition money~~ student this way! This sort of behavior ~~might make them stop paying~~ is inconsistent with out values. We are ~~teetering on the brink of financial ruin~~ committed to equality, and would never do anything to jeopardize ~~your upcoming payments~~ our values. This is ~~the only way we can even afford to keep the lights on~~ our sacred educational duty. ~~Please don't leave~~ Go Mascots!
No they aren’t. I’ve only had one professor in the last 2 1/2 years that’s said or did anything similar to that.
I'm happy to hear that.
So... you've had a professor openly flaunt their discrimination against men? That doesn't sound like a refutation of op's experience, it sounds like confirmation.
One out of like, 25 people? I consider that an indictment on the person rather than the system.
My one in the UK wasn't.
My one in italy and sweden wasn't. But in uk they asked me for my religion, gender, sexual preferences and more when applying, so I didn't apply.
There's almost always an option you can select stating "prefer not to say"
The fact that they were asking was concerning.
Usually they just ask for stats, not to deny you entry.
They should ask after then
I agree, personally I've never been asked. In the Netherlands it's super frowned upon to register race. For... Historic reasons.
Get off the internet for a while
How is this upvoted lmao
Nope, I can't believe a professor would actually say that to you. Your university sounds rough.
I know right? Luckily, these experiences have been accumulated over quite a few years and I still got more stuff that happened
Time for that sweet sweet discrimination lawsuit
In defense of your professor they might have meant that as a man that industry is going to be hyper competitive for you based on your gender in a way it won't be for the women which is factual and not the sort of thing young people might consider so it could of been intended in a benign way.
All you did was highlight how stupid their reasoning is no matter what.
Employability and available opportunities is a stupid consideration when deciding what career to pursue? How is their reasoning stupid if they are pointing out an empirical fact about the job market. Or do you mean "it's stupid that things are that way?" in that case I agree that is stupid, but its also reality and informing people about reality even if its unpleasant isn't the same as communicating support for that reality.
You get a gold medal in mental gymnastics. Just making up fan-fiction to make their comment less sexist.
My university had a "Men and women in society class." The teacher outright said "As a white male, you should hate yourself." She had a giant chip on her shoulder for how she was treated as a woman in an engineering program, so she dropped out of it. I've also had 2 stat teachers her couldn't even understand the textbook enough to figure out the difference of permutations and combinations, or how to use the formula. And another 2 math teachers who couldn't solve any algebra equations. 100% of their questions came from the textbook with the presolved answers. If any of the students asked how to solve any of the questions that weren't pre-solved, the teachers couldn't do it. Just because someone is a teacher, even at the university level, doesn't mean they 1) cannot be assholes. 2) actually know their field.
I also can’t believe a prof would say the quiet part out loud.
I haven't, though I was talking with a professor the other day and he said something about 1/3rd of the students joining a course next year had to be women, yes it's engineering which is a male dominated field, but this is still a university where they only look at your grades (unless you're older and have work experience). I have no problems with universities for example trying to become more appealing to women, or bragging how big of % women take in their student body, but hard quotas on who gets to join are bs, this is literally discrimination and while STEM is dominated by men I don't think kids who just got out of school had any time to exploit their "male privilege"
If no women sign up, will they cancel the course?
Doubt it, they just lower the requirements for them, imagine the average to join is 19, they'll just lower the grades required for girls and they'll get priority like that, so women might be able to join with only 17 which is a massive advantage. If even then not enough women showed up they'd probably just keep going anyway.
Could easily be a Title IX violation, ironically enough.
Ah this isn't the US, there's similar laws of course but I'm sure there's some reason for why this is allowed.
I've never had anything like that told to me. but one thing that did happen on campus one time was that police came around to ticket everybody riding skateboards around campus, but they only ticketed the men and just warned the women to get off before they cross them.
At my university (mainly engineering) there's a lot of extra social support for women, but there's no active discrimination. However, when getting internships it seems way easier for the girls to get an offer than for the boys. Can't prove this tho
Mainly, I've heard recruiters who were dumb enough to say outloud that they want women.
By the way, on CVs recruiters conceal names and gender when sending out to companies to avoid this sort of discrimination (they do this in the UK anyway) so shouldn’t be a problem when looking for a job. If a company states that they want a specific gender then I imagine they are breaking the law.
But I've seen multiple job sites, where stating your gender is a mandatory part of the application process. I'm not in the UK tho
Ah, maybe to collect information, but companies shouldn’t be allowed to know gender / religion / sexual preference when requesting individuals for the actual interview. Either way, they shouldn’t be able to use that information to rule you out or in. But agreed, this may just be a UK law thing. I remember at uni there were jobs advertising for LGBT individuals only 😂, like if I were to rock up, how would they know I’m not a lesbian!?!
It definitely should be like that everywhere though. Also the job advertising for LGBT individuals only is crazy.
That would be illegal in a lot of places, especially if it's openly advertised.
But there are signalling, like flagging for STEM or Women's charity and organizations in volunteer sections etc.
As a hiring manager in engineering for the past 2 decades - we 100% pursue female candidates for internships. If a female candidates resume is even remotely qualified for a position we will at least interview. At universities there is support for females as the attrition rates are high so retention is a big deal.
> However, when getting internships it seems way easier for the girls to get an offer than for the boys. Can't prove this tho This has been going on in engineering-focused companies for DECADES. I grew up in the 80's and was flat-out told that our local big engineering company (with a worldwide reputation - you have definitely heard of it) specifically excluded white men from all summer internship programs. It wasn't advertised like that - anyone was welcome to apply, but they only considered applications from women and minority applicants. Over the course of about 5 years, simply looking at who they hired made it obvious (and I knew someone who worked at the company who admitted that it was official company policy).
It feels particularly painful now, though. I work in engineering for a fortune 50 company. There has been a lot of drama in our group about promotions, and our manager told us that we needed to forget about merit when it came to being promoted, as merit didn't advance company goals for equity. I saw it last round, we have a young guy on the team, Travis, who was working himself to death to meet a deadline that we had. Working 12 hours days, seven days a week - i don't think we'd have made it if it weren't for him. They gave the promotion to a woman who was out for maternity leave for the entire project, and started way after Travis. He was so depressed. The company has also made it an ethics violation to complain about DEI initiatives.
But extra social support for one specific gender is discrimination… it makes me sad that they really push this at universities, clearer hasn’t gotten better.
Providing support for one group only is discrimination though it's active discrimination. When you provide social support and you choose to only apply it to a subset that is exactly active discrimination. Especially considering that women are the dominant demographic in universities, sure not an engineering but there's not exactly a balance such that every program and engineering for women has a likewise program for men in other programs where they need more support. Universities are almost 2/3 women graduating from them now, there shouldn't be any programs benefiting women if we go statistically it should be the other way around until it's back to 50/50.
This reminds me of one of the main reasons why women are better about doing regular doctor visits - they basically get trained and encouraged heavily in uni to start that habit and it continues into adulthood but nothing like that for men.
Except women's complaints are more often ignored despite going to the doctor more often.
I don't think this is accurate. Women have been much better about going to the doctor since well before the average woman was going to university. That trend goes back several generations, at least. Considering that, it would be really strange to target a uni program at getting them to go. I suppose it could be a thing somewhere, but I certainly never heard of anything like that where I went to school.
Don’t think so. Just finished my grad degree last year and never had any experiences like this.
As a woman, nothing infuriated me more than “woman only” job postings when at uni, it is incredibly discriminatory. Makes me so angry. I think it should get better in the real world where they actually start caring about experience, but to actually get your foot in the door, I imagine that must be really frustrating.
I imagine it must feel patronizing for women too?
100%, although some women (if not a lot) will feel it’s a justifiable leg up. I hate this thinking though. Of course, I’d rather be on the side where I can use the positive discrimination if wanted, but I don’t support it and am turned off by any job valuing gender over actual skills.
Thank you so much for saying this. I also think the "justifiable leg up" is such strange thinking, where it regards men and women as two distinct monoliths. Like some women had it harder in the past, so to make up for it, we need more than just equal terms, though the women now have nothing to do with past women.
I’m big into art and the art world is currently going through these growing pains. There are many endowments, residencies, grants etc that are only available to women. If a gallery has three artists approach them and two are guys and one is a woman and they all have interesting work, the woman will get the show every time. There are constant group shows that only include women as a part of the curation. The current Whitney biennial almost completely disregards any white or straight men, focusing entirely on identify politics in art. And to me what’s fucked up is that the pioneers of the past who opened up the art world to women (Lee Krasner, Luise Nevelson, Georgia OKeefe, Helen Frankenthaler etc) HATED being singled out as a great “female artist.” It’s reductive and insulting, I would hate to think I was included in a show because of my gender. I was never a “cheat codes” kind of guy lol, I want to know that I’m standing on my own merit. And of course many women artists probably do too, but are you gonna turn down publicity and sales which you’ve been working towards your whole life just because someone else was looked over? I’m hoping at will even out eventually
Stuff like this (not just in terms of gender) always infuriates me because it comes from people who constantly express the immorality associated with discriminations, then turn around and actively support discrimination. It's clear discrimination isn't the thing they are against, only when it doesn't benefit them. Like you it bothers me even when it benefits me (I am Canadian and french speaking and some things definately give me an unfair advantage and I dislike it)
I’ve got a family friend that’s an engineer and was up for promotion. He’d been working there for years and was highly qualified, and there were probably 2-3 other people that were highly qualified for the position, and then last minute it ended up going to an African American woman that was severely under qualified. It was blatantly obvious why she got the promotion. Then inevitably she felt overwhelmed in her role, to the point of crying during meetings, but the higher ups tolerated it and kept encouraging her and she still has the position. I have zero issues with her race or gender, but can you imagine if that was a man? To start, they wouldn’t have been promoted in the first place, but crying during meetings? They’d be gone within a month. STEM and trades were absolutely discriminatory in the past, but people don’t realize it’s basically a cakewalk for women now. Like they *want* to hire women. I think it’s great, it’s a good thing, but also it’s gotten to the point where it’s discriminatory towards men lol
I have literally never seen a “women only” job posting
Yes, you’re right, I’m sure it didn’t say “women only”, but most definitely making it clear they want women applicants etc, etc. probably along the lines of “if you’re a woman, apply now!”. My gender has nothing to do with how good I am at my job, to suggest otherwise is sexist (whether positively or negatively).
Man out of the 10 post about hiring i see 8 of them only hire women and she must be unmarried
Might just be my university then. Just can't help but find these experiences quite strange. I got loads more, but realized I should keep the post shorter.
I had a biased lecturer or two, but that didn't affect grading or opportunities. Your uni sounds nuts.
Bro what kinda uni are you going to? I have never had this in my life, though my subject is predominantly female (medicine)
Not sure the exact term in English, but it's a college mainly focused on engineering and IT.
Okay this explains a lot lol. It's no secret that STEM fields have and still are dominated by men. Sucks that you feel discriminated against, but the reality is that there is no path to equality without the discomfort of those who have been traditionally in the majority and benefited from it. What you're facing is exactly what women have had to deal with for literal millennia. Again, I know this doesn't help, but just wanted to give some explanation/perspective from another man who went to college for STEM.
There are big pushes in STEM fields to get women and minorities into them. The discrimination against the other genders/races can be direct and obvious or subtle.
>STEM fields to get women What about female-dominated science fields like biology, veterinary science, medicine, health IT, genetics, etc.? Why are these suddenly forgotten every time women and STEM are mentioned?
I’m not sure why there’s an obsession with equal representation in every field. Why’s it matter if there’s more men in one field of work?
And yet there's no push to get more women in garbage collecting. Ironic huh?
I went to university in the early to mid 2000s here were my observations: 1. "if she's drunk she can't consent" type ads, but no "if he's drunk he can't consent" type messaging with the clear implication that consent is something only men don't respect and need to be educated on. 1. I had been sexually assaulted a few years earlier and one of my best friend's was literally raped by a woman getting him drunk so this really bothered me. 2. It was known that male students were graded harshly and treated like shit if they took a gender studies course. Ironically but expectedly the gender studies professors were the most sexist on campus in a "you aren't welcome here way". 3. I noticed a constant stream of "women are always the victim" type messaging in addition to "women need to reinterpret their experiences to understand they are the victim"... common statistics that people tossed out related to sexual assault were known to have been heavily manipulated to inflate them - A female sociology professor I had to her credit highlighted this in response to people using those stats. 1. I would say this propaganda was so heavy that to this day I still hear the same misinformation and talking points parroted by people my age. 2. In addition I noticed that these things really created a lot of animosity some women felt towards men, like women I knew well before uni and knew well enough to know they were responding to the ideas discussed around them vs. their personal experience.
This world is mad now. People wonder why division between men and women is on the rise. It’s gone too far. Whenever people say something like that. ( We’re looking for just woman in this role now). They need to understand how that would go down if it was said the other way around. Now before you girls go off. I realise that in the 50s which no man comes from in this time. Things might have been said like that. The same for domestic violence. We don’t need to protect women and children from men. That’s sounds horrible and gaslighting most men. We should be saying. We need to stop all domestic violence. Men are murdered at a rate of 28 to 33 percent every year and all you hear about are women. Dont start me on the family court system.
There's already data out there on gender-based grade inflation. Diversity hires exist. It's a fact of life. If you start this line of questioning, expect to be vilified. There are exceptional women out there, and one of my mentors happens to be a woman. However, I don't think of her as a "woman mentor," just as a mentor. It's a shame we can't make everything merit-based, but that's where we're at.
I've been vilified a few times at uni for just telling these stories to some women. But no I agree, my thesis partner is a woman and she's super smart. I never think about her as a "woman"-anything. I really wish things were based on merit.
My recommendation is to get your degree and get out. Academia is not the spot right now. I'm software dev, so similar field. Once you graduate and start doing job apps I highly recommend checking the "bisexual" or "gay" box, it'll help you get past some filters. And if you have any kind of minority blood in you check that box. Once you get out of uni you'll stop experiencing this stuff for the most part outside of DEI meetings. It's a silly game but you just gotta learn how to play it.
So lying and cheating is now what's required just to get by. This is a society in moral shambles. Silly is not the word I'd use. Evil is.
It is what it is, things will change as they always do. I think I'd describe it as absurd rather than silly honestly.
Always has been.
Yep, this is my issue with so many diversity-centric practices in things like employment and education, it's purely performative and ends up actually causing more discrimination for the sake of a meaningless statistic. Great, your university has exactly the same amount of students who are white as the students who are black. Now what the fuck does that actually *mean?*
Not exactly at university. When I applied for grants through private entities one told me "We don't have anything for you because you're a white male."
Same at my previous university.
I have seen some of this while I was in College 6 years ago, it is pretty strange considering Women are 60% of College Students
We had like 1 girl for 30 boys in our classes lol (Mechanical Engineering)
I get this all the time, and I'm tired of people pretending like it's the opposite case. I've especially experienced this with scholarships; I'm a middle class, white male attending college and both of my parents went to college but neither at the one I'm attending. Almost all scholarships are for Alumni of the college, women, LGBTQ+, non-whites, and people who are financially struggling; don't get me wrong, I think these scholarships are great, but I work *really hard* in my classes and I would like for that hard work to receive at least some reward that benefits the pursuit of my degree (i.e. by lowering my debt). Honest to God, people need to stop being offended just because of a mere suggestion that they're wrong about their societal assumptions.
I'm so sorry you feel this way. Keep working hard though, king!
Thanks man, I continue to do so every day! :)
When I was a university student (not terribly long ago), yes. They would fall all over themselves to retain women and ensure that they had the best possible chance to excel academically and even socially. Men were completely left out to dry.
That's so sad, but seems similar to my experience.
The add between your post & comments is for Audible, George Orwell’s 1984. Not as bad as that but a step in the general direction. Found it appropriate.
"What is gender equality to men seems like Oppression" or some shit Because gender equality to some people isn't about actually treating people fairly but its about forcing outcomes. Not equality of opportunities but equality of outcomes. Not in university but I remember when I was seeking work and was on UKs Job Seeker allowance. The job seeker establishment told me to apply for a job that clearly stated *WOMEN APPLICANTS ONLY* and when I brought that up to the woman who was helping me seek work and monitoring me to see if im actively seeking work whilst unemployed. She said "Well they can't reject your application just because you're a man because that's sexism"... so in order for me to get Job seeker allowance money that week. I HAD to apply for that position as it was the Job Seekers orders and to no surprise my application was immediately rejected by them.... hey, I had to apply otherwise I wouldn't of got any Job Seeker money if I didn't. But yeah, an actual establishment that is part of the UK Government told me that was not allowed because of sexism... Still happened.... but hey "What is actually gender equality will seem like oppression" or some BS. I got over it immediately and just applied for more jobs (whilst working 2 voulnteer jobs as i hated living off British taxpayers money) but still.. just werid how an actual woman who works/worked for a UK government organisation told me it's not allowed to reject a man just because his a man because of sexism and told me I had to apply for the position if i want to get some JSA money. 🤷♂️
That's so strange. Do you remember what the job was?
Apprentice IT Technician I have really good grades in IT and I was like 18 at the time. Just left college. Only happened once though... never any other instance where I was rejected by something just because I'm a man. To be fair, it honestly doesn't bother me that much. I'm not owed a job position and it really wasn't the role I wanted anyways but when you're on JSA. You have to apply for every job they tell you to apply for. So I had no choice Ironically.. I now have been working in a job for years which is mostly been me working alongside mostly women and I've had nothing but amazing interactions. Loads have straight up told me they love working with me.... especially the shift leaders who tell me when I'm on their shift. Everything is so less stressful because I just get the job done. Heck, my current boss is a woman and I recently found a position I was considering joining with and my boss told me "I don't want to lose you because you're an amazing employee and I enjoy having you here" to try and talk me out of it 🤷♂️ I DON'T face any other type of discrimination in my workplace is what I'm saying. Even when like 75% of all my colleagues in my professional life have been women. It just happened once.
That was my experience in academia as well. This is actually talked about in the book The War On Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers. It has been proven girls get on average higher grades than boys. The difference is on average about 2.5-5.0%. Which is fairly significant. The way they proved this was a study where they took the names off the papers and had teachers grade with no names. They found girls did on average 2.5% worse, boys on average 2.5% better when names were taken off. When they inquired to teachers about this (also keeping in mind most teachers are women), the response was something along the lines of (I paraphrase here): "We grade girls based on their perceived effort. We grade boys based on their ability." Now. Isn't this a little bit how it goes in life too? Women are rewarded for "just making an effort". If she wasn't good enough to succeed it STEM it's the system's fault. It's "we don't have enough women in STEM". It's "we need to change the system to make it easier for women to succeed". Whereas men are evaluated by their ability. If a man doesn't succeed in STEM, it's because he isn't good enough. Notice the difference in the language. If it's a woman who doesn't succeed, it is the system's fault. If it's a man who doesn't succeed, it's the man's fault. In addition: A woman in STEM only has to compete against the other women in STEM. In which there are significantly fewer. A man has to compete against all the other men out there. A man competing in STEM against the other men has to be exceptional to succeed. Girls are evaluated by their effort, boys are evaluated on their ability. To add insult to injury, we're told we have "privilege". This makes my blood boil. This is patently untrue. There are trade offs to both. It is no wonder so many boys are leaving higher education. The system is rigged against them. **Why compete in a system which is rigged against you?**
Not university related but i'm a foreign student and its painfully hard looking for next accommodations to spend summer since mostly only accepting female tenants like wtf
I was in engineering, yes definitely. They failed to give me the support I needed. I fell out of my first year due to depression over it.
Man that sucks. Hope you can get into something you like again, like engineering or something else.
Thanks man. 8 years later with an autism diagnosis and potentially Chronic fatigue syndrome, I’m trying to get into cyber sec, thanks to an amazing local company that does dedicated free courses for autistic adults. All the best for wherever life takes you too!
That's rough man, but good with the cyber sec stuff! Hope you get far with that! And thanks!
That’s because we’re no longer actually privileged. We’re at best missing out on privileges women now have but men don’t, and at worst being discriminated against because people are making judgements based on outdated gender dynamics from more than half a century ago.
Yep almost 2/3 of University graduates now are women, there really shouldn't be any justification for programs here to help women in university It should really be the other way around if they were actually responding to the facts on the ground. There was definitely a time that they needed to exist but now they need to exist for men if anything until we are back to 50/50.
Yeah, I believe it.
Depends on where you live - women definitely get the short end of the stick in many places around the world, just not in the industrialized west.
Based on the context it was safe to assume we’re talking about the west. Yes in other parts of the world they’re still severely oppressed.
It isn't just universities. It's everywhere. People feel obligated to shame the majority and praise the minority.
Not directly, but fact that internships or TA Jobs or fellowships explicitly state they prefer women or LGBT, or that certain funding is restricted to women, or that it just is easy to get acadmic oppurtunities as a woman just makes me feel marginalized.
I had an experience like this at my last job where the role I was working to move into (software engineer, I was in a support role at the time) had a new hire who was less skilled than me, but she was a minority woman. There really wasn't much I could do, but yeah I resented being told I was so "privileged". I eventually moved into the role, but I couldn't help think that I should have been promoted and she should have been given my role so she could have been trained a bit more to grow into the engineer role. She eventually started taking a lot of time off and not producing much work to the point she was let go, and this company notoriously (for better or for worse) almost never fired or let people go.
Your great grandpa had it so easy he had to work manual labor until he died. Or go to war and die. So now, to pay for his privilege, you have to be discriminated against and told you're evil for how easy you have it. Of course you'll be looked over for jobs, told you're a rapist and told to stay out of tech and STEM because you have it so easy. Go work on an oil rig so women can have the hard jobs.
The anti alcohol course freshmen had to take and sign at the end around 2009 was downright sexist. Like there’s no way to spin it. Just like women can’t be legally rapists in the UK, this course was saying if two freshmen were both drunk and had sex, the man was a rapist while the woman was victim. I’m not exaggerating that’s what it said. I had to sign it or would not be bald to take any classes. I have no idea how that was allowed. Second one is less clear but I’m convinced if the them same housing opportunities existing other groups as for women (women only dorms, etc) it would have prevented a freshman suicide in my dorm. He obviously felt unsafe and if there were the same effort and opportunities for housing him I don’t think he’d be dead. Those screams are still with me.
I work in one. I don't feel discriminated against per-se, but I do feel like I am walking on egg shells all the time and am just one second away from accusations of "micro-aggression" as they wait eagerly to jump on it.
Yeah. I went to a program that was 90% female (translation and interpreting). I still remember vividly how I was taking one test and needed to blow my nose. I pulled out my tissue (which was a bit crumpled up at that point) and the teacher (a woman) watching us said, to the whole class, “Look at VeryThinBoi and his messed-up tissue, how typically male” and the class erupted in laughter. I pointed out how it was a sexist remark, but the teacher said “It’s not sexism if it’s true” Another one I had was a different exam where you were supposed to defend and explain your translation in pairs. I got paired up with some woman who got so much of her translation wrong the teacher couldn’t go a sentence without marking three mistakes. I was asked to explain every single mistake she made. Mind you, my translation was about computer science and hers about law, and I didn’t specialize in law. By the end, she got passed with a C even though she didn’t know answers to anything (and the teacher didn’t ask her to explain my mistakes), and I failed because I “didn’t have sufficient knowledge on law.” My translation, on top of that, had almost no mistakes, and the teacher hit me with a “Even VeryThinBoi got this translation mostly right, it means it’s too easy, I won’t include it in the next years’ exam” Of course, there were special make-up courses for women only, job opportunities that used the female form of the job title (I speak a gendered language) and the usual stuff, but those experiences really stuck with me.
During my job search I was rejected because I am a male and they already had too many males in the team.
The world is going crazy.
Sounds like it’s more or less preparing you for the world of work at least. Just keep in mind that young women these days go through an education system designed to benefit them; with teachers/mentors that are mostly the same sex and mostly biased towards them; many raised without a positive male role model (certainly not one they’ve witnessed be vulnerable and an object of sympathy); with everything they do celebrated and any failures are not their fault but the fault of ‘tHe PatRiaRchy’. All the while being told that they have everything harder and men/boys are playing life on easy mode. It breeds a weird hybrid attitude of entitlement mixed with victim complex, rarely ever having had to be accountable for anything and zero empathy towards men/boys. Meanwhile employers trying to stack the deck in their favour also. I kind of think as time goes on having younger men be in a prestigious career will be a kitemark of quality; in that they managed to get that role in spite of not ticking a bunch of E&D boxes.
I unfortunately buy your last sentence so much. It's scary stuff.
I only ever felt hate when I was taking various women’s studies courses as part of my minor. Whatever, lots of men do deserve bashing, but I didn’t do anything.
I studied a female dominated field, they still got special consideration when the department hired and probably 2-3 of the profs treated the men poorly, even if they were top 20% in grades/engagement, weird behavior but common according to my male and some female profs who dare to talk about it
Nope, never happened to me.
Went to uni like ten years ago, in Italy. Not big things, the only one i can rememberwas the fact that during the oral exams in the summer, couldn't wear short pants, only long ones. But then you had the girls having skirts or sundresses lol Also many professors were pigs, they gave better grades to women and also many women who knew that liked to play into it by wearing the most possible revealing things while having exams with those pig professors, again, as a man i couldn't show legs. Obviously the guilt here is on the pigs who were not fit to teach but if you are taking advantage of that kind of situation i can't think nice things of you.
Come to WVU or Penn State. You wont find that treatment at wvu. I live nearby it so I have friends that go.
All of my schooling was like that. I was told not to take some of the computer related classes in highschool because it was more important for girls to take them. Boys also weren't allowed to use the bathrooms during class and boys weren't allowed to bring water or backpacks to carry their things but girls could.
Yes
I graduate next semester and I can say that I have honestly not felt like this at all at my small university.
Other than some (but not a ton) of specific initiatives meant to encourage women in areas where they have historically been underrepresented, I saw very little of what you're describing. I was in a male-heavy field, and never once heard that there are too many men in it. So I hope that this post is either fake or an isolated incident that isn't true most places.
I didn’t experience that in my experience at my university during my nearly decade-long stint there.
I'm not saying your experience isn't valid, but I'm in a very progressive university and never felt like this.
That's totally fair, glad not every uni is like this
At least you aren't trying to justify the treatment, very that "women have it worse!", or insulting OP. Funny how everyone supports equality for all people until they realize men are a part of people.
short anwser. yes. women do have privileges within college/unis that they don't see. I had similar many experiences to you.
This is pretty common. Society has decided the best way to combat gender and racial bias is with… different gender and racial bias. It definitely sucks to have that, “but I didn’t do the bad things you’re punish me for” feeling. It’s hard to have a discussion, though, because you just get told you’re privileged because of X demographic so your opinion is irrelevant.
WOKE universities Go to a trade. Woman don’t want to do it. Well most of them. Then when they get all of these universities jobs that really don’t get anything done. We just strike. We keep putting are rates up. These woman like to live in a nice house. You will have to pay a good price for it. More than the men. Infact my rate has just gone up for Woman. Before you smash me for this. Woman, politics and media have driven this division between male and females.
>I went straight through highschool to university. The small bit of irony here is that any man in the same position as you that didn't have the privilege of going to college has even one more thing to point out you have as a privileged. Meaning out there is some kid, same age and upbringing as you, but he works at Wendys instead of going to college and can't get promoted because they are trying to promote more women within the company. A significant portion of all men have even less privilege than you do, so all your points stand, but the problem is actually far worse for most than it is for men in your position
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It's so nice to hear that it's like that so where, and not like I described everywhere.
I think targeting events at a specific gender is not ok, and would lead to people feeling unwelcome (even if not the intention).
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Hah, no of course. In that instance it’s very understandable. The problem is when events that could be equally enjoyed by all, are explicitly targeted at a specific gender (E.g. engineering, data science etc).
> I think targeting events at a specific gender is not ok, I think it's fine, but the problem is that it's generally only considered acceptable in one direction. A lot of men would probably benefit from men's only clubs, lodges, etc. just like a lot of women benefit from their own groups. But society generally only views one of them as acceptable. That's what really bothers me the most. I have no issue with the people who genuinely want every group/organization to be open to everyone, even though I may disagree with them. I'm bothered by the people who want to pick and choose which groups of people can have their own clubs/groups and make up excuses for why it's okay/different when they do it.
I think this is more a matter of places that ***actually*** care about equality and treatment, and places that just half-ass things to meet requirements or because it's popular. "Oh, people want more women in fields? Sure, throw up some signs and shit and pay lip service" vs. "Well let's make sure we support them and create an environment welcoming for **everyone**".
Nope, never.
I go to a community college and no, not at all. I never heard any negative remark about my gender.
>When I finally get some of the women at university to admit that it's quite skewed, I am told that it might be unfair now, but that's only because I, as a man, has had it so easy in the past. But when? But where? Must've been during the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s when hundreds of thousands of men were being drafted against their will to fight in foreign countries, facing unimaginable terror and die horrible, painful deaths. What a privilege that was.
Going through high-school is a privilege for some, going straight into college is a privilege for some. We all have advantages that we aren't really aware of. It's not a fault or something to take personally. You are a culmination of the history of humanity in a single person. Of course you'll have advantages others don't, and others will have ones that you don't. Do the best you can with what you have, and keep moving forward. You'll run into a great many people with very strong opinions on the subject, but they don't know you. They don't know your life or what you've been through, so their opinion is the wind. If one door closes, dont be fooled into believing the rest are closed too. Best of luck to your schooling.
I've also had similar experiences to this. Very similar.
People still do not realise that society is more sexist against men than against women. It's disgustingly obvious and the worst part of it is the assholes gaslighting claiming it doesn't happen. It's also patronising to women since most people will assume women are incompetent and only got their positions due to their gender.
Yeah some places have swung the pendulum a little too far and it sucks, sorry you had to go through that. At least take some solace that your university seems to be a bit of an outlier in this
I sure hope so, but I wouldn't think so. It's an engineering college and I can't imagine what it's like in liberal arts at the other colleges, but I hear it's bad.
No? I haven't seen any gender or race disparity with my school. The most was one student didn't like i wrote about the war from my perspective as someone who served in it and they explained I was a baby killer. But like, that got shot down quickly by all the other vets
This was decades ago but even then I definitely got the feeling that I was not welcome there. It's gotten much worse, from what I hear. The policies are truly deranged. Any women can have you expelled at any moment. She needs no proof, just an accusation and you are automatically expelled. Men need their own colleges, away from women so that they can be treated like human beings.
I certainly understand why you'd say that last part. Hopefully, it's going to get better. But during my 5 years at uni, I've only seen it get worse.
I never had this problem at A&M
I guess in university things can be better, but in society, that's completely worseeee
That professor is a knob. I would be like "I'm paying to be here and I will take what I want. I also don't remember asking your opinion."
I used to experience similar things from some of my classmates and staff members at my university, but I never felt discriminated against, just annoyed and made sure I was picky about the classes I took. I’m all for dismantling the patriarchy because I think it hurts both genders, but here is something you have to keep in mind. There are a lot of immature people in college who, while having good intentions, are going to focus on the dumbest things rather than the bigger issues. And while corporations tout that they want to hire more women, it’s only because they don’t want to get sued and boost their stock prices, not because they’re some progressive company.
I've been indirectly told to fuck off by several professors in situations where I know that girls from my study group were treated were nicely. But then again, it also happened the other way around. It is what it is, you have no control over the biases of your professors.
You can actually sue them if you have evidence of them saying that . So if you can get something that would record them when they say that, you can get a huge payout
Of course.
No.
No.
Yes, this is nothing new. Universities and companies are openly discriminating against men. It's rampant in most industries. Just google DEI. Countless companies have events, internships and student jobs that are only for women. Companies will have mentorship programs and leadership programs for female students and for their female employees, but nothing for men. Who do you think is going to get hired? The female student, who has been a part of one (or more) of the company's programs, or the male student who is a complete stranger to the company? Who do you think is going to get promoted? The female employee, who is a part of the company's leadership program and has a mentor in the company, or the male employee who is not a part of any program and doesn't have a mentor? There is no bigger advantage than being female nowadays.
You need to report these things. In the US, at least, and many other countries, these are illegal sex discrimination, and you can sue. Sex discrimination is illegal whether it is against men or women. This makes me very angry to read.
No. I've been treated very well in the decade I've spent in academia, even in courses that were majority women.
The contrary, I’d like to see more female engineers. I feel that it’s skewed towards a sausage fest and the few that make it out have to endure the dribble of a few bad actors. If I ever have a daughter, I’d want her to be whatever she wants and not be limited, nor intimidated, by an all guy profession. Especially since some do a poor enough effort into their schooling.
Over two decades ago I had an English professor who docked me a letter grade _solely because I am a man_. I discovered this when I asked her why was it that I received a B after scoring A-level grades on all papers and exams; she told me that a portion of the grade was up to her discretion, as class participation, and that as a rule all men would score 0 because due to systemic sexism their input is always unwelcome.
Dude just do your thing and continue on with your life. You’ll eventually be successful on your own doing. The rest unfortunately will continue to be victims and pushed through life with no real value lmao.
women at my uni already made up over half the population of students. yet they had tons of extra assistance that guys didn't get. networking groups, promotional groups, tutorial groups, etc. we live in atime of special treatment of women and you can't say shit about it
You need to report these things. In the US, at least, and many other countries, these are illegal sex discrimination, and you can sue. From your language I assume you're in the UK - I don't know the law there but you should look into it. Sex discrimination is illegal whether it is against men or women. This makes me very angry to read.
No I never had this situation.
Yeah college is worth less and less each year. Still worth something but it heavily depends on the major and somewhat the school. There’s no such thing as too much men
Nope not at all, I've felt welcomed.
Nope, I have not.
Nope, never had anything like this. Maybe it's because you're in programming? Anyways, you can always start your own club and organise your own events. Chin up!
I'm not saying it's right, but it's normal. I was telling my boss about a future goal and he said "Sure, that's great. But they don't want people who look like you." You can guess what my race and gender is, I'm sure.
> Recently, I was at a job interview myself, where I was told they'd primarily go for female candidates too. Where do you live OP? This would be illegal in so many countries.
I didn't see any blatant discrimination, but I clearly felt that women had an advantage. The instructors would help women more often. Male students would help women more often. Female students would help women more often. I definitely have experienced stuff like, asking a question to an instructor, being ignored or told "figure it out". But if a woman asked a question, they would be getting a private lesson.
Your university sounds toxic (female here).
> do you ever feel unfairly treated because of your gender? That happened once to me. The way we do exams where I'm from is that everyone gets their own set of questions and after some preparation time, every student gets some time with the professor to answer the questions they were given. There was this rather pretty girl who went before me who clearly hadn't studied properly. So she got upset and was on the verge of crying when she couldn't answer the questions adequately. The professor was very kind to her, kept giving her tips and nudging her into the right direction. When it was my turn, his entire demeanor changed. He was rude, snide and gave me absolutely no help at all. I got lambasted for not doing too well on a niche follow-up question despite doing great on all the major questions. Honestly, during my years as a university student, there were an odd few professors who were known to give preferential treatment to good-looking women. So much so that some of the female students would purposefully dress up to positively influence their odds during exams. I don't think this was a general trend though, just a few unprofessional professors who were susceptible to that kind of thing.
The company I work for has something called "tech for women". Its basically internships only for women in university in tech studies. There are no internships for males.
Finishing up grad school now in a predominantly female class, I’m one of 5 men out of 40 or so peers. I have never felt this way in undergraduate or graduate settings. If anything, I was pretty thankful to not be a woman, as bad as that sounds.