The younger generation is waking up.

DerpaNerb · 2013-01-04T23:43:18+00:00

Do us a favor.

You and everyone one of your female friends that are going to this lecture... talk to your guy friends who are also genuinely interested in going, and then all go together.

IF they attempt to kick the guys out, then all the girls should walk out as well.

If my master plan goes correctly, I'm assuming they'd let everyone stay rather than give a lecture to an empty room.

EvilPundit · 2013-01-04T22:32:13+00:00

You seem to have the logical thought processes needed for a good engineer - and the ethical integrity to make a great one.

Whatever you do, good luck! People like you are sorely needed in every field.

Feministsarepureevil · 2013-01-05T00:27:24+00:00

I was the only one with my hand up

Out of 13 girls, you were the only one who wanted to go. THIS is what is truly at the heart of the matter, the problem, and the reason MIT is only inviting girls. You witnessed for yourself a completely random sampling of girls wherein only 1/13 of them were interested in science. And that is the true reason women are 'underrepresented' in STEM. It's very simple- they're not being 'oppressed' or told not to participate, they CHOOSE OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL to not go to the sciences.

And this is obviously why MIT is only inviting girls, in the hope that more girls will choose STEM as a career, but they've been doing this for years and years and it's made almost no difference at all. You got to experience first hand a demonstration of why social engineering and Feminism simply doesn't work, and why everything they attempt to do is a complete failure.

Meanwhile, just think of all of the boys who would have given anything to go to MIT for a tour! Now they miss out because of wrongheaded Feminists who never learn. You saw first hand how Feminism works: SI Strip boys of rights and opportunities and give them to girls, who in this case didn't even want them!

typhonblue · 2013-01-04T22:07:46+00:00

Good for you, please give us an update on what happens at the lecture. I honestly hope that those young men stick to their guns and refuse to leave.

CaptainVanderdecken · 2013-01-04T22:27:13+00:00

McMaster University, Computer Engineering, 1979. Back then there were 15% girls, until Affirmative Action a few years ago.. 15% girls. So there were / are about 15% who are interested & went for it & succeeded. There is no glass ceiling, there never was. One of the most important thing you will learn in Engineering is ETHICS. You sound like you have the right stuff. I really can't imagine a Feminist Engineer, the amount of data corruption & logical distortion involved with Feminism would have them tossed out within weeks. Feeeeelings do not put satellites into stable orbit.

circuitology · 2013-01-05T00:55:20+00:00

She said there were too many men in engineering.

Not "too few women". Not "a disproportionate amount of women".

"Too many men".

Disgraceful. Make a complaint, please. You will need to go higher than the principal if she has this attitude.

DavidByron · 2013-01-05T00:17:30+00:00

I asked, to noone in particular, if this sort of thing was even legal

It isn't. If the school gets any federal or state funds then they are subject to Title IX which makes it illegal to discriminate in schools and universities. The school would have to make sure there was the same amount of money spent on the boys for whatever sort of activity.

And it's the school breaking the law not MIT.

they could get to watch cartoons and have a free period.

That is not equivalent education for the boys of course. I mean realistically this talk by MIT isn't going to make much educational impact but to the extent it does, the boys are all having their education curtailed because of sexism.

That only applies to sports

Of course that is false. I am amazed that your peers knew this and the principal did not. In suspect the principal was simply lying to you. I hope they were because if they don't know something that basic they are unfit to be a principal.

Very impressed by you and your class mates standing up to authority and standing up for what's right. Thanks for writing this article!

BracedPolecat · 2013-01-05T00:45:54+00:00

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

More equality of outcome. I'm disappointed she didn't get called out on that, as it's one of the most despicable things an educator can do: discourage interested parties (regardless of gender ratio or quotas) from pursuing the fields they're interested in. To think that somebody with such a twisted view is in a position of authority at your school is a chilling thought.

I wonder what her thoughts are on primary and secondary school teachers being mostly women? Should society stop training and employing female educators until everything balances out?

2013-01-04T22:08:33+00:00

Yer a good lass. :) Seriously. I was never half so clever at your age.

The_Patriarchy · 2013-01-04T23:44:40+00:00

You should file a complaint, as I'm pretty sure that does violate Title IX:

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/howto.html

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance, except that

[...] [bunch of stuff that doesn't apply here] [...]

http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/cor/coord/titleixstat.php

TracyMorganFreeman · 2013-01-04T23:27:07+00:00

Massachusetts? As someone nearby and an engineering major, I would not mind discussing gender issues or engineering stuff with you and/or your classmates.

Hell I've visited MIT. We could organize an informal field trip out of protest(or just for fun) and show interest students of either sex the pretty sweet school it is.

Tangurena · 2013-01-05T01:04:46+00:00

This is probably one of the outreach programs from Society of Women Engineers.

From studies done by SWE and NSBE (national society of black engineers) in the 80s and 90s, there appears to be something discouraging women from entering engineering.

When you look at TV and movies, anyone who was portrayed as an engineer or scientist was almost always male given glasses and a pocket protector as their costume. So the image that most kids of that generation had of an engineer was pretty much Urkel. I don't watch TV any more so I can't tell you what the current stereotype of a nerd/engineer/scientist is.

When you look at the students entering engineering:

Of women enrolling in engineering, about 90% have a family member or close family friend who is already an engineer.
Of men enrolling in engineering, about 40% have a family member or close family friend who is already an engineer.

Some of the unanswered questions raised are:

Are women being discouraged from enrolling in an engineering major?
Are men being encouraged to enroll in an engineering major?
Are women unaware that engineering is a viable career for women?

Some of the things identified were:

Engineering is "not cool", so folks who are interested in social status tend to not want to hang around nerds and stay away from engineering and science.
Nerds don't care about social status, engineering and science is "cool".
Women enrolled as engineering students in college drop out of engineering at 2x the rate that men drop out.

Coinin · 2013-01-05T00:46:46+00:00

I'm glad to see this posted. My school posts scholarship opportunities on their website and leaves forms in the guidance office for people to get information and apply, so when I started looking through it one day I was ecstatic to see all of the Engineering focused ones. Until I looked closer and saw that something like 6 out of the 7 were exclusive to women engineers. We have 1 girl in our entire school who's taking courses in preparation of becoming and engineer, and about 20 guys. So we were all forced to fight over the $500 one and all the other scholarships went to waste because she's already going to college free.

What's the reasoning there? A good engineer is a good engineer, why can't I benefit from these programs the same way a girl could? Makes no sense to me. Of course, this can go both ways, but being an engineer-in-training I see a lot of this and it just gets on my nerves.

Sarstan · 2013-01-04T23:59:29+00:00

The reality is there are quite a few people who easily see how sexist many of these things are if you point them out (and not be a dick about it). The whole reason that women are viewed with a such a underdog nature is because it's drilled into us. If we mildly point at that some things are utter BS, it doesn't take long for otherwise uncaring people to get heated up about it.
I had someone I mildly pointed out to that there are lots of laws protecting specifically women, but none for men. She started thinking about a lot of things similar to that and made a huge impact where making a scene would have pushed her away.
Another group I pointed out that "girls like equality when it benefits them" in response to some question (I forgot what exactly). I instantly had several agreeing, both male and female.
They know. They see it. It's just not pointed out and shown as being wrong.

DerickBurton · 2013-01-05T01:13:14+00:00

Your school sounds like an indoctrination camp. Thanks for your story and keep us posted.

2013-01-05T00:30:26+00:00

I gotta say, I was surprised by the general response to this blatant sexism.

Don't be. There is systematic oppression and that discrimination against males in education. Ask any of your male friends how they feel about their education career let alone college. You may be surprise by the answers.

Also you should talk to your parents about this as they be able to apply pressure that I can tell you the school does not want.

Sporkosophy · 2013-01-05T04:04:16+00:00

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

As someone training to be a 6-12 teacher, that's straight up bullshit.

DougDante · 2013-01-05T02:33:11+00:00

Title IX is definitely not just for sports. Your teachers and principals know it, and should be ashamed for lying to you. They're embarrassed because they know what they're doing is wrong, and frustrated that you're smart enough to call them out on their blatant lies.

I urge you to print this out and make it available to anyone who may wish to attend this seminar and is concerned about being discriminated against on the basis of sex:

Title IX and Sex Discrimination; U.S. Department of Education: Office for Civil Rights

I also urge you to consider filing a complaint using the information above, and to share the information with your class mates so that they can protect their rights too.

Also, they don't want you there, because they're going to explain how Title IX has recently been expanded by the Obama administration to create a de-facto gender based quota system in STEM fields for women.

Title IX could be applied similarly to humanities fields to benefit men, who are already a minority of all undergraduate students, and definitely underrepresented in the humanities, but the Obama administration isn't interested in equality for boys or men.

riker89 · 2013-01-05T02:10:05+00:00

It is true that we need more girls in STEM fields. However, we need more boys too. Over the next years and decades, the demand for engineers and scientists is going to skyrocket as our lives increasingly depend on technology at every level.

I don't necessarily mind some programs targeted at girls, as long as there are similar opportunities for boys. What we really need, though is to start at an earlying age by showing elementary school children how cool science can be. Show them cool chemistry experiments, take them on a field trip to the planetarium, show them slides of human blood in a microscope. The way to get kids interested in science is to show them the wonders of the universe around them and how they can undrstand it.

odel555q · 2013-01-05T01:17:56+00:00

I wonder if your principal is concerned that women are "overrepresented" in the field of education. Does she refuse to hire more female teachers until there are equal numbers of male and female teachers at your school?

gyroda · 2013-01-05T01:22:10+00:00

I could understand if this was a lecture specifically aimed at girls and there was little on the actual engineering, and they were just trying to interest more girls (although they need to start younger than high school). However you can't just prohibit the guys from the meeting, not without some equivalent aimed at them (although even then it's not quite right).

I do not like affirmative action nine times out of ten, especially when it comes to gender or race.

Aaod · 2013-01-05T03:26:46+00:00

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

So we should stop women from attending college because they rather majorly out number men by that same logic? Face it enforcing quotas and affirmative action is stupid.

TypicalBetaNeckbeard · 2013-01-05T01:00:34+00:00

Well done, keep it up.

2013-01-05T01:18:21+00:00

Informed, educated high school students asking these questions... the future is bright:

At that point I asked, to noone in particular, if this sort of thing was even legal. It's a public school, our parents' tax dollars should be expected to go toward everyone equally. To my surprise, a bunch of people agreed with me.

"Doesn't this violate Title IX?"

Here, please try to make this happen:

A couple guys in my grade said they were going to walk in and wouldn't go out unless they dragged them. I really doubt that'll happen, though.

This would be like girls making pressure to be allowed into Boy Scouts (except, that's a private organization and this is a public school.) These things should be for any student who shows the interest. PLEASE get this done... and contact media, ACLU, FIRE, etc for support.

2013-01-05T01:22:54+00:00

I'm confused by "Massachusetts" and the use of "y'all" and "ain't"

bravado · 2013-01-05T03:32:28+00:00

It's an outrage that there aren't more women in engineering but we don't need to balance out the construction industry or prison inmates or members of the military or suicide rates because that's just natural.

Pecanpig · 2013-01-05T05:05:47+00:00

A couple guys in my grade said they were going to walk in and wouldn't go out unless they dragged them. I really doubt that'll happen, though.

Support this idea, do it. Defend them when people start a shit fit at their presence.

eggilicious · 2013-01-05T06:24:24+00:00

Not this time, though. I know a few girls who aren't going because they think it's too sexist. I personally am too much of a lazy hypocrite, but still. And people are getting pissed off left and right, asking why they felt the need to have a lecture just for girls when we only get one or two speakers a year.

If it is there for you, take it, but still oppose the position.

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

Gender differences don't exist. I'm glad are school administrators are essentially Marxists.

I_am_Norwegian · 2013-01-05T06:25:26+00:00

Something similar happened at my school, where the girls got to go to our capital - for free - for training how to become a business leader/boss. Apparently, men inherently know how to be a successful boss.

mikestopcontinues · 2013-01-05T15:26:51+00:00

When are people going to realize that the worst thing you can do for equality is treat people like they are powerless imbeciles impossible of knowing what's right for themselves?

rightsbot · 2013-01-04T22:02:18+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

funnyfaceking · 2013-01-05T00:15:27+00:00

this is wonderful

ustael · 2013-01-05T00:41:37+00:00

Good on you. I would also bring it to the attention of your parents and any other parents that you can. Thank you for having a logical thought process and an open mind to the fact that sexism is a two way street. have an up vote.

johnmars3 · 2013-01-05T00:49:16+00:00

Kudos!

Larry_thE_Deer · 2013-01-05T02:48:47+00:00

Something similar happened in my high school when there was a breast cancer awareness day. All the girls went to the gym for two periods and had a speaker talk to them about breast cancer. All the guys ended up getting upset questioning why we didn't have testicular cancer or prostate cancer awareness day as well. Two weeks later the school organized a testicular cancer awareness day and the guys had a testicular cancer survivor speak to us.

Wellfuthen · 2013-01-05T04:07:13+00:00

I feel the need to point out something... you are in NO way sexist for wanting to go. It is your right to go. However if some of this happened at my school (junior in high school) I would be PISSED, and I do not mean that lightly. So if a few of the guys show up, and they are told to leave, please just say that they ha e a right to listen, even if they don't interact (or something). I get the point of the lecture, which is to get more females interested in the scientific world, but I think it is a bit wrong not to let guy watch, because those are the ones wwho really want to be there. Thanks for taking the time to consider this note. Your independance and willingness to do what is fair is appreciated!

bahgheera · 2013-01-05T04:50:34+00:00

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

This statement highlights everything that is wrong with society these days.

jameson71 · 2013-01-05T05:41:30+00:00

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

Why? Why not let people do the work they enjoy???

prussianiron · 2013-01-05T06:10:28+00:00

Whatever I could say has already been said, but I would like to point out that /r/MensRights has female subscribers and contributors, whereas /r/SRSWomen has no male contributors allowed. What does that say about both of them?

Stevonz123 · 2013-01-05T06:41:49+00:00

The same exact thing happened in my school, all the girls in my year went to a 'getting girls interested in science and technology' thing. They handed out 5 galaxy Samsung and barred me or any of my male friends who were interested entering. No one saw that it was sexism but me.

truthjusticeca · 2013-01-05T07:14:30+00:00

I'm an engineer. I graduated at the top of my high school and won most of the academic awards. When I went to university I found out that all of the women had 5% lower threshold for acceptance to the program and got $3000 per year from the gov free money just for being female. I got very few scholarships because I wasn't eligible for most of them.

I lived off my credit cards and ate KD and PB&J (male privilege). All of my female friends in Uni recognized this unfairness.

Female engineers and scientists are some of the most reasonable and rational people I've ever met, can't say the same for social(junk) sciences. I've worked with some very competent female engineers.

There are few women in STEM fields and nothing will ever change that, because women aren't interested.

iamnotfromtexas90 · 2013-01-05T08:16:04+00:00

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

This, in a nut shell, is what has destroyed America over the past 40 some years.

nowatermelonnokfc · 2013-01-05T15:30:20+00:00

No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field.

Have they looked at the 'graduating' major?

I hear boys are underrepresented in that

teamhex · 2013-01-05T16:44:02+00:00

This type of thing will always happen when one group is viewed as a child in the eyes of another group. People allow black scholorships because they feel somehow they are more disadvantages than someone with light skin(Completely bs). Just like people think "Well there's not enough women so we need to give them an incentive". It's pretty much nonsense to think that women will want to pursue all types of jobs om the same level as men. Goes both ways too.

kronso · 2013-01-05T16:45:26+00:00

Affirmative action is a chain on our necks, dragging us down.

DerickBurton · 2013-01-05T01:17:11+00:00

Btw, I wish someone would of challenged the head teacher when she said:

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field.".

I haven't heard of anyone giving boy pupils lectures on fields in which they are grossly under-represented.

LePure · 2013-01-05T01:43:37+00:00

What I think you should do, is to go to the seminar, tell the speaker from MIT what you think about the event they are holding, and go back to class.

Ninjaedit: That is, if you want to go back to class.

sherlocksrobot · 2013-01-05T01:45:40+00:00

As a dude in engineering, I can say that exactly zero of us wish that there were fewer girls in engineering. Keep it up! It's good that this is being discussed.

tattooLand · 2013-01-05T01:59:36+00:00

In my school system we had an initiative to encourage more girls to go into science based fields that men currently dominate. I'm pretty sure this is a similar thing (to just encourage teens to pick a technical career). I don't think that your friend is being mistreated because it seems like he already has made his decision to go into engineering. Therefore he isn't the target audience regardless of gender.

hafetysazard · 2013-01-05T02:08:41+00:00

In my opinion achieving a true sense of equality means that it must be mutually accepted; between the ones being treated fairly, and the ones being treated unfairly.

Regardless of the intended ends, the means are nothing but forced exclusion in this case. It is as every bit as demeaning to the principle of equality as forced inclusion is. Anyone who does not see that, is missing the point.

I personally see no need to abolish boys' clubs, or girls' clubs, in the interest of equality. There are many reasons to create exclusive groups of people for any particular purpose, for any number of reasons. Anyone who views the creation of these groups as an expression of equality, rather than divisiveness, must be overlooking the fundamental concept of what equality means in such a context.

In such a context, equality's underlying principle is fairness. To do something unfair in order to be achieve simple proportionality violates the spirit of equality; and is therefore not equality. Such a problem is easy to pinpoint. Clearly whoever thinks such policies are good ideas sees equality simply as a matter of proportional representation, rather than proportional opportunity.

If any of the females interested in going had any sense on the matter of equality, they would either stand up for the guys' right to attend, or protest if the guys are in fact disallowed from attending. So, as the enlightened female, I recommend that you bring the boys who want to go with you, and raise a fuss on their behalf if any issues arise.

I think it is particularly important that the girls do this, because their classmates' status as males has removed any sense of being able to make a choice on the matter.

To me, doing such an act on their behalf would be like a player, or other member, of the football team piping up and saying, "Coach, if the girl wants to play ball, let her play ball, we won't go easy on her."

If there is any reason why it aught to be exclusively female, then the guys will quickly realize it, and subsequently realize their fuss was for nothing. However, if it is not about that at all, then it is nothing more than robbing them the of the opportunity for no good reason.

DH747 · 2013-01-05T02:11:53+00:00

"No there ain't! If you treat all the sexes equally, eventually that'll just balance itself out!" "No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

Just about punched my screen when I read that...

theinfinitecoder · 2013-01-05T02:14:20+00:00

Same thing happening at my school with the women from MIT.

fondueguy · 2013-01-05T02:20:10+00:00

You were the catalyst, great job!!!

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

The very first argument i would have made is that girls are "over represented" in college; considering the importance of this gap, we should be encouraging guys to go to college by using subject they like!

Next time your in school, try to get a sense of what people want to do. The best thing is to get the guys in that mit lecture too. If that won't happen, approach the principal and tell her you are concerned about boys being left behind (keep the focus on outside groups, not the teacher) then ask if she'd be willing to allow a program for boys to get them in college. (I know its not ideal but at least you'd be pressing the issue)

Be prepared for a bullshit response from her.

Again, gj!

dinky_hawker · 2013-01-05T03:04:53+00:00

Go. Stick up your hand at the first opportunity and ask the question to the panel. f they delay all questions to the end of the assembly, stand up withing the first fifteen minutes and ask in a voice loud enough to be heard.

Hamakua · 2013-01-05T03:35:16+00:00

It's sad that MIT, the home of some of the world's smartest people past, present and future, is happy to carry out such sexism and exhibit such double standards.

cggreene · 2013-01-05T03:45:34+00:00

I agree it is sexism, but you got to look at it from there perspective.

The gender balance in subjects like Engineering is very unbalanced, with only a small percentage of females interested, this talk is probably to get girls more interested in the subject, although I can't see why both genders were not aloud to attend.

About the new generation, I don't think they are much different, Most people are tolerant of both sexes and a lot of women are against sexism aimed at males but we only are shown the crazy feminists that despise males.

2013-01-05T04:36:40+00:00

what is it with people who care more about how the genders are represented in the course and how that looks than the actual content of the course? Man that pisses me off. I remember in high school a couple of boys who didn't even WANT to do Integrated Science were forced to do it so there'd at least be 5 boys in a class full of girls. In year 8 we had one guy in our sewing class and the teachers were tut-tutting how there weren't enough boys in that class.

mag2012 · 2013-01-05T05:57:17+00:00

I wanted to compliment you on standing up to the hypocrisy in the education system which is unfortunately becoming pandemic to most of academia. You clearly have great critical thinking skills and a logical mind which will serve you well if you go in to the engineering field. If your up to it you should form a club in your school which points out this kind of thing to other students and parents. Educators like your principle should be reprimanded or fired for what she said.

Your principal, as many educators do, put their ideology ahead of reality and don't want to educate as much as they want to social engineer. You will find most people drawn to careers in the liberal arts such as educators, lawyers, journalists and entertainers factor more heavily emotional aspects to their decision making process rather then logic and critical analysis which often lead to a disconnect between logic and realty.

DEVi4TION · 2013-01-05T06:27:46+00:00

Powerful goofygoobarock!

thatgamerguy · 2013-01-05T07:27:33+00:00

Honestly, enjoy the hell out of the lecture. Just because it's run in a stupid sexist way doesn't mean you should punish yourself. At least you acknowledge the sexism, and that's half the battle.

contraterrene · 2013-01-05T07:53:33+00:00

I wish you much success in your future for your clear thinking and moral backbone, both qualities that are sadly uncommon these days.

Shinokiba · 2013-01-05T07:56:58+00:00

Its the same bullshit in the nursing department at my school. I am one of two guys in a class of 20. The nursing department is always trying to get more guys to go in. I hate this, just let people decide for themselves.

2013-01-05T09:06:50+00:00

Only fair solution: time to start inventing some new genders, folks. Unzips pants;sticks dick into radioactive waste container

AloysiusC · 2013-01-05T09:26:19+00:00

Thanks to the internet, school students are no longer as susceptible to false information. If there's any disagreement about something, they can just inform themselves.

This has been noticed across all fields by the way. Now days, people are often much better informed about the things they care about.

Palmik · 2013-01-05T09:36:38+00:00

Could I suggest you record the lecture? It might be interesting for the boys that wanted to go. I personally would also be interested whether the talk is really just a talk about motivating people to go and study engeneering or if there is some other agenda as well.

Cognosis5 · 2013-01-05T11:07:20+00:00

I'm curious to know who funds the scholarship; guessing its funded by engineering firms.

In Australia, particularly in the field of Mining Engineering, women are in demand for the sake of equal opportunity etc, and therefore paid more as an incentive.

This in mind, I would presume that large companies are funding the scholarship with the intention of poaching female engineers out of university to add females to male dominated fields to satisfy equal opportunity laws.

2013-01-05T11:58:22+00:00

She said there were too many men in engineering.

I love that logic. It's as if engineering jobs are completely saturated and companies all over the world aren't trying to get as many as they can to the point where they're outsourcing.

Overrepresented? Engineering positions aren't even fully staffed! Having a man fill that position won't take away a job from a woman, or vice versa. Haven't these people ever heard of a win-win scenario? You can put both males and females into these positions and they probably still won't meet the demand.

It's as if these people are completely devoid of logic and cannot fathom that not everything is a win-lose struggle between man and woman, and they have to force it into that paradigm to make a case for implementing some exceedingly ridiculous ideas.

They're trying to balance out a scale when they have no fucking clue whether it is even filled to capacity.

ibm2431 · 2013-01-05T12:04:09+00:00

Would you attend the lecture if they were racist instead of sexist?

I'd venture to say that if they only allowed whites to attend the lecture you'd view them as disgusting people and not wish to attend.

Sexism and racism are almost exactly the same - discrimination or prejudice against a person based on an attribute they were born with and had no control over.

But if you wouldn't attend a lecture discriminating against non-whites (well, one would hope you wouldn't), why would you attend one discriminating against non-females?

It's good to see that you question blatant sexism, but seeing you go along with it is entirely frustrating. You know and recognize that half of your classmates are being discriminated against based solely on their sex. But you run with it, choosing to take advantage of something. You were fortunate enough to be born into the speaker's favored group, so why not?

You should feel guilty. You're bearing witness to a gross injustice which you not only plan to ignore, but actually exploit.

Again, it's good to see you question such injustices. But there's no point in waking up if you're just going to stay in bed. I reserve all props for your classmates possessing the moral tenacity to not oblige such injustice despite how they could otherwise take advantage of it. It's nice to see that an accident of birth won't prevent them from following their sense of justice. It's disheartening that there will be those with one who won't do the same.

Coinin · 2013-01-05T15:07:56+00:00

I don't think a black person is racist for taking a college grant on the basis that there's plenty of black people interested in engineering who quite possibly genuinely won't get the chance to study it because they're black.

I can't think of many obstacles preventing a woman from studying engineering if she really wants to: it's not like women are a separate economic class or something.

That said, I don't think you were sexist for attending the lecture, it's not your fault the guys were excluded and it wouldn't benefit anyone for you to boycott the thing.

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field." That's just bollocks, if women are interested in studying engineering they will, if they aren't they won't. But if they genuinely believe in that argument why aren't there scholarships aimed at getting men into hunanities courses, or men into college in general?

Glad to hear about the response though.

deshki · 2013-01-05T15:59:30+00:00

Why would they let this lecture just be held in the middle of the day? Students aren't paying for it, why let them get out of class?

ppfnagain · 2013-01-05T16:51:44+00:00

Totally makes sense to make sure everything is "equal" and "fair" vs letting the best go to the top. I have never, ever understood that. I don't want a bridge built by someone who go into the top engineering program because of anything other than pure skill.

HalfysReddit · 2013-01-05T18:01:04+00:00

I think if I was a student there, I would go anyways, and refuse to leave until they could prove that I wasn't a girl.

Honestly, I'd want to go just to see a woman who's in engineering talk about her experiences.

2013-01-05T18:59:32+00:00

They shouldn't over represent a gender?

I thought equality meant the differences between us meant nothing.

SilencingNarrative · 2013-01-05T19:24:37+00:00

That was an excellent field report. Thanks for writing it up, and for sticking up for men.

yunolisten · 2013-01-05T20:29:25+00:00

"I didn't decide that it was only for girls. They're allowed to do it because that's what their grant was for." (I don't know what that means, by the way.)

So you don't know what a Grant is yet

Then in more recent years, every time somebody was misandrist, hey would take the misandrist's side.

Yet you know what Misandry is

Your post history has you discussing 2010 Politics. Which would put you in Jr. High when that was going down.

Come on this is the fakest bullshit story I think I have ever seen.

LoveThemApples · 2013-01-05T22:12:11+00:00

(Female here) Here is my advise. Get a group of people together, male, female, parents and students alike, perhaps a few of your teachers as well, and goto the source of the problem. MIT. Perhaps you could create a video with all of your protests, put it up on youtube and see what response you get. The more publicity this gets, the more chance you have of getting them to change their policies for the future generation (or yours) you want that video viral!

AboVeritas · 2013-01-06T01:07:09+00:00

Good to hear. I dare say we've reached a point in education where the lack of sexism, which students are told about, has become apparent enough for them to accept its non-existance and rebel against this idiocy the way you did.

Big props to you!

namae_nanka · 2013-01-06T06:05:20+00:00

Marilee Jones, MIT's dean of admissions was fired for falsifying her resume in 2007, according to her wiki page she was hired to address gender-equality at MIT.

2005-2006: 7608 males applied, 10% admitted: 758. Number DENIED: 6850 2832 females applied, 26% admitteD: 736. Number DENIED: 2096

2004-2005: 7669 males applied, 11.7% admitted: 898. Number DENIED: 6771 2797 females applied, 27.4% admitted: 767. Number DENIED: 2030

2003-2004: 7651 males applied, 11.6% admitted: 885. Number DENIED: 6766 2898 females applied, 29.3% admitted: 850. Number DENIED: 2048

http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1319665&postcount=39

There have been Civil Rights cases for lower numbers, case against UC Berkeley which turned out to be an exemplar of the Simpson's Paradox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox#Berkeley_gender_bias_case

two years ago, against liberal arts colleges who were said to be advantaging men in their admissions, the dean of admissions at William and Mary brought up MIT's lopsided ratio as well.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/gender-and-college-admissions.html

and consider Yale's brouhaha over a 30% discrepancy in admissions rates between the sexes, which of course is a brouhaha because it's women at the receiving end.

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2008/11/11/gender-gap-widens/

edit: someone should start a new thread with this, I am not sure how to.

syntheticcfm · 2013-01-06T14:52:54+00:00

There are grants for women because it is a traditionally man dominated field. You and your friends have undoubtably been interested for a long time and if you want you can apply and if you are good then you can get in.

When trying to work toward a more equal society we have to give breaks to those that need them. Most women are societally geared away from math/science/CS so there are grants to get more women in the field. Why is this hard to understand? Those girls that are not interested in engineering, they are the REASON for the presentation. It is to show them that they too could become an engineer. Why do YOU need a sell on something you already like?

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2013-01-07T02:19:08+00:00

Younger males are even more separated from the Mad Men days we're all being punished for.

They have even more distant from the feelings of guilt and have only seen the harm done to them by feminism.

I suspect feminism's success will be it's undoing. They exist because women are viewed as victims. Hard to convince people of that as you're pummeling them.

Also:

She said there were too many men in engineering.

Too many meaning more than half I'm guessing. Ask her how many male teachers she has under her supervision compared to female ones.

2013-01-07T16:28:48+00:00

You rock for questioning the status quo. Bring up the sexism at the MIT meeting for added awesome points.

2013-01-08T03:30:22+00:00

Ariel levy, in her new book, coined the term "Raunch culture" feminism.

ustael · 2013-01-25T21:26:58+00:00

Got this from the post about the women only room at MSU. Thought it really could apply here as well.

~MP: According to the Title IX portion of the Education Amendments of 1972, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

Wouldn't Title IX cover this where the school should at least offer information to just boys as well?

RoninUnderground · 2013-01-05T01:41:08+00:00

"No, <name>, we need to, as educators, make sure that no gender is being overrepresented in any academic field."

Then we should stop having more "Women's [insert any field here]" groups, no? Women's engineering groups seem well intentioned, but it promotes blatant sexism.

The answer to "We have women's engineering groups, why do we not have men's engineering groups?" should not be "Because we don't need them." Well then why do we need women's engineering groups? My girlfriend commented that maybe groups like these exist because women may feel intimidated by something about a typically male dominated field, which certainly may be true. However our response to that should be to instruct educators in such a way and develop better cultural understanding that encourage anyone with relevant interests to enter those fields, not to throw money at unfair policy just to put more people of any particular race, sex, creed, or color into certain positions.

bashar_al_assad · 2013-01-05T03:27:21+00:00

Color me impressed.

Yodamanjaro · 2013-01-05T10:32:14+00:00

Relation question: What makes you think you like engineering? What kind of engineering?

I'm only looking at this at a realistic standpoint.

mavriksfan11 · 2013-01-05T19:36:55+00:00

Y'all are such babies. If the grant is for MIT to give a women's talk on engineering, what's so bad about that? It's been well-documented that men outnumber women in engineering and some sciences. If they want to get women interested in engineering are they so evil?

HokesOne · 2013-01-05T13:50:03+00:00

1: this isn't about excluding men from a lecture.
2: this is about empowering and encouraging women to join a field dominated by men that women have been traditionally excluded from
3: there's no such thing as "misandry" 4: shitthatdidnthappen.txt

1966goat · 2013-01-05T16:04:20+00:00

Nope, I don't see a problem here. As a student at an engineering school, I see there are way too few women in this area. There are a lot of women engineer organizations and grants for getting women into engineering. One of their best plans is to separate high school girls out and talk to them so they know engineering is totally an option and if they are interests, they should go for it!

I'm sure there will be another way MIT will contact everyone else, they are one of the top schools in the nation and people find out about them.

C0CKPUNCHER · 2013-01-05T05:55:02+00:00

Isn't this a lot of discussion to take place in a class? When I was young we would shut up and do the work.

McRibMadman · 2013-01-05T06:18:05+00:00

I want to wife you so hard

yeats666 · 2013-01-05T15:39:38+00:00

The boy glared at me and said, "then why are you going?". "Cause I love this stuff." "Sexist." We got into an argument, about half the class, over whether or not we were sexists by going to the lecture. I think the general consensus was that we were sexists in the same way that black people who get special college grants aimed toward black people are racist, and left it at that.

you are a fucking moron

Grapeban · 2013-01-05T12:05:59+00:00

I think the general consensus was that we were sexists in the same way that black people who get special college grants aimed toward black people are racist, and left it at that.

Right, so it wasn't sexist at all, got it.

SpiritofJames · 2013-01-05T04:22:27+00:00

"No there ain't! If you treat all the sexes equally, eventually that'll just balance itself out!"

This is a myth.

Title	The younger generation is waking up.
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	680
Comments	439
Date	January 4, 2013 10:00 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/15z1cc/the-younger-generation-is-waking-up/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-younger-generation-is-waking-up.1603294 https://theredarchive.com/post/1603294

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