6 ms·

I don't think there are really enough details on the parent comment to judge it either way, but can't you at least see how weird it is that 'Women in STEM' is v

I don't think there are really enough details on the parent comment to judge it either way, but can't you at least see how weird it is that 'Women in STEM' is very accepted but a 'Men in STEM' program would never fly? Whether or not white men have hidden advantages over non white men (and I'm not saying that they don't! Simply that they are not clearly visible), it should be very clear that there are large non hidden advantages for non white / non male people, which is obviously going to foster discontent, whether or not they are actually at a disadvantage in the big picture. As a similar example: my close Vietnamese friend met all of his best friends and girlfriend in college in VSA, a Vietnamese club. All of my non white friends went to 'Latinos in X' 'Asians in X' etc. clubs. There were no equivalents for me! I don't resent anybody for this (by dint of my personality I don't really care), and in truth it was probably good for my cold networking skills (perhaps widening the unseen advantage gap that I supposedly have even further), but I also think it's difficult to look at this and not understand why people are so discontent with DEI identity politics.

dragonwriter 1y ago
> but can't you at least see how weird it is that 'Women in STEM' is very accepted but a 'Men in STEM' program would never fly? I can see how it might seem weird to an alien who knew what men and women were, but had no context for the existing state and history of society. I can't see how it would seem weird to anyone else, however.
- MoltenMan 1y ago
  Maybe I wasn't clear in my previous comment about what exactly rubs me the wrong way, so here's an analogy: imagine you went to school and the the teacher lined everyone up by gender and handed out a cookie to everyone. And then she handed out two extra cookies to all of the girls! You would be annoyed! Does it matter that back at home guys normally get 4 extra cookies every day? No, because as a guy, you don't see or know this! (In this world brothers don't have sisters and vice versa). And even if you do technically know this because you've heard about it, you don't really viscerally understand it because it's not really your lived in experience. So what is the solution? I can't say I know. But I do know that these things very much breed discontentment and it is at the very least important to recognize why.
  - jkelleyrtp 1y ago
    I think a hallmark of 2025 is a resounding lack of empathy and compassion from people. Maybe's it's smartphones, social media, or some sort of existential doomerism. To reframe your scenario: imagine you went to a school and some of your classmates came from poor families and couldn't afford clothes, food, or a laptop etc. To help those students, the teacher used class funds to buy them new shoes and get them a nice laptop to get their work done. Do you still think it's unfair that you don't get new shoes, laptop, or cookies? The solution to your original question is to understand why the teacher is giving girls 4 cookies and then just be happy that more people get a fair shot at life.
    - MoltenMan 11mo ago
      I feel like you're glossing over my main point, which is that this stuff 100% does breed resentment for the average person, which is how we end up with people like Trump (obviously there are many more factors to consider but this is definitely one of them). The difference between your scenario is just how visible it is; I have never ever had somebody go up to me and say 'This opportunity is being given to you because you're a white male'! If anything, it's the opposite! Did you know I was not eligible _to apply_ for a single scholarship for college a few years back, solely based on my race and gender? It was pretty demoralizing! Again, I'm not saying that I _haven't_ benefitted from being a white male in some indescribable unknown way; but unlike in your scenario, I cannot _see_ this. Think about the average person, who goes their whole life seeing others being handed stuff specifically because of their race and gender and when they complain about it they simply get told 'Do you have no empathy? Your life is much better off than theirs!' Again, who knows what the right solution is. But I don't think that it's the status quo.
      - wredcoll 11mo ago
        > I feel like you're glossing over my main point, which is that this stuff 100% does breed resentment for the average person, which is how we end up with people like Trump (obviously there are many more factors to consider but this is definitely one of them). I mean, having to cater to the feelings of overly sensitive men is how most of these problems started in the first place.
- klipt 1y ago
  If you include biological and medical sciences in STEM, STEM graduates have been majority female for decades. Where is the DEI for men in the female dominated STEM subjects?
  - dllthomas 11mo ago
    > Where is the DEI for men in the female dominated STEM subjects? Is that rhetorical? Have you looked, or just assumed their absence? My cursory search seems to indicate that there are some, although I don't have bandwidth to investigate in any depth and I'm not sure just what criteria you'd want to use for qualification.
  - acdha 11mo ago
    Where is your data showing those programs don’t exist? For example, conservatives like to talk about the plight of male nurses but even a cursory search shows that there are exactly the kind of programs you’d expect to find.
    - klipt 11mo ago
      What's the equivalent of "Girls Who Code" - "Boys Who Nurse"? A club teaching First Aid to boys only? Does it exist at the same scale that Girls Who Code does?
      - punchfunk4lyte 11mo ago
        You've never heard of programs to encourage men to be nurses or teachers? I certainly have. Here's what I found after a quick search. If you're interested I'm sure you could research and find more information. https://www.arizonacollege.edu/blog/men-wanted-new-efforts-to-attract-male-nurses/ https://www.arizonacollege.edu/blog/men-wanted-new-efforts-t... > Only 12% of the nurses providing patient care at hospitals and health clinics today are men. Although the percentage of nurses has increased — men made up just 2.7% of nurses in 1970 — nursing is still considered a “pink collar” profession, a female-dominated field. https://www.belmont.edu/stories/articles/2025/men-in-education.html https://www.belmont.edu/stories/articles/2025/men-in-educati... > A critical shortage of male teachers continues to affect K-12 education across America, with men making up just 23% of elementary and secondary school teachers today, down from 30% in 1987, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Belmont University's College of Education is addressing this gender gap through intentional recruitment, mentorship and innovative program design.
cindyllm 1y ago
[dead]
kelnos 11mo ago
> that 'Women in STEM' is very accepted but a 'Men in STEM' program would never fly That's because, in general, STEM itself is already a "Men in STEM" program. We men don't need a program to get us excited about pursuing STEM education & careers; that pursuit is already there, and already common. It goes back to innocuous-seeming things as young boys being given chemistry kits for their birthday, while young girls are given dolls, and continues all the way through teen years as boys are encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in greater numbers than girls, culminating in STEM careers being already full of men with conscious or unconscious biases against women. Creating a "Men in STEM" program would be a waste of time, and would just be about scoring conservative political points.
- bluecalm 11mo ago
  Your argument is based on the fact that more men naturally gravitate towards STEM than women do. This doesn't mean there aren't still men who could go into STEM but lack motivation/opportunity/some other push. Maybe there are more of them than there is women like that, maybe not. You are saying it's ok to ignore all those men just because already bigger % of men naturally go into STEM. This is just discriminatory. Just because some people sharing some characteristic with me do better (in this context) doesn't mean I am in position to do better. This is the mistake DEI proponents make. There is no "we men", there are individuals and discriminating towards them is not ok and also illegal.
  - evilsetg 11mo ago
    It's fun that you say 'naturally' when there have been centuries of oppression and conditioning against women in STEM.
- JuniperMesos 11mo ago
  > We men don't need a program to get us excited about pursuing STEM education & careers; that pursuit is already there, and already common. It goes back to innocuous-seeming things as young boys being given chemistry kits for their birthday, while young girls are given dolls, and continues all the way through teen years as boys are encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in greater numbers than girls, culminating in STEM careers being already full of men with conscious or unconscious biases against women. I don't believe this is true. I think the gendered difference in interest in the cluster of topics we label "STEM" is mostly biological and deeply-seated - one piece of evidence I find very convincing is the observation that non-human primates exhibit the same sorts of gendered behavior with toys that human children do (females wanting to treat any kind of toy as a doll, males wanting to treat any kind of toy as a tool, etc.). I also don't think that boys are encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in greater numbers than girls. I think that girls are explicitly encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in much greater numbers than boys - this is exactly a consequence of the above-noted social fact that "Women in STEM' is very accepted but a 'Men in STEM' program would never fly". And as you say, this is because males are much more likely to be intrinsically interested in pursuing STEM education and careers, whereas females are more likely to require explicit societal encouragement to do so. I've read more than one account of a woman who had worked in some kind of software-related field admitting that she wasn't intrinsically excited about the work, but felt like she would be a bad feminist if she left a STEM track to do something more traditionally female-coded instead.

dragonwriter 1y ago

> but can't you at least see how weird it is that 'Women in STEM' is very accepted but a 'Men in STEM' program would never fly? I can see how it might seem weird to an alien who knew what men and women were, but had no context for the existing state and history of society. I can't see how it would seem weird to anyone else, however.

MoltenMan 1y ago
Maybe I wasn't clear in my previous comment about what exactly rubs me the wrong way, so here's an analogy: imagine you went to school and the the teacher lined everyone up by gender and handed out a cookie to everyone. And then she handed out two extra cookies to all of the girls! You would be annoyed! Does it matter that back at home guys normally get 4 extra cookies every day? No, because as a guy, you don't see or know this! (In this world brothers don't have sisters and vice versa). And even if you do technically know this because you've heard about it, you don't really viscerally understand it because it's not really your lived in experience. So what is the solution? I can't say I know. But I do know that these things very much breed discontentment and it is at the very least important to recognize why.
- jkelleyrtp 1y ago
  I think a hallmark of 2025 is a resounding lack of empathy and compassion from people. Maybe's it's smartphones, social media, or some sort of existential doomerism. To reframe your scenario: imagine you went to a school and some of your classmates came from poor families and couldn't afford clothes, food, or a laptop etc. To help those students, the teacher used class funds to buy them new shoes and get them a nice laptop to get their work done. Do you still think it's unfair that you don't get new shoes, laptop, or cookies? The solution to your original question is to understand why the teacher is giving girls 4 cookies and then just be happy that more people get a fair shot at life.
  - MoltenMan 11mo ago
    I feel like you're glossing over my main point, which is that this stuff 100% does breed resentment for the average person, which is how we end up with people like Trump (obviously there are many more factors to consider but this is definitely one of them). The difference between your scenario is just how visible it is; I have never ever had somebody go up to me and say 'This opportunity is being given to you because you're a white male'! If anything, it's the opposite! Did you know I was not eligible _to apply_ for a single scholarship for college a few years back, solely based on my race and gender? It was pretty demoralizing! Again, I'm not saying that I _haven't_ benefitted from being a white male in some indescribable unknown way; but unlike in your scenario, I cannot _see_ this. Think about the average person, who goes their whole life seeing others being handed stuff specifically because of their race and gender and when they complain about it they simply get told 'Do you have no empathy? Your life is much better off than theirs!' Again, who knows what the right solution is. But I don't think that it's the status quo.
    - wredcoll 11mo ago
      > I feel like you're glossing over my main point, which is that this stuff 100% does breed resentment for the average person, which is how we end up with people like Trump (obviously there are many more factors to consider but this is definitely one of them). I mean, having to cater to the feelings of overly sensitive men is how most of these problems started in the first place.
klipt 1y ago
If you include biological and medical sciences in STEM, STEM graduates have been majority female for decades. Where is the DEI for men in the female dominated STEM subjects?
- dllthomas 11mo ago
  > Where is the DEI for men in the female dominated STEM subjects? Is that rhetorical? Have you looked, or just assumed their absence? My cursory search seems to indicate that there are some, although I don't have bandwidth to investigate in any depth and I'm not sure just what criteria you'd want to use for qualification.
- acdha 11mo ago
  Where is your data showing those programs don’t exist? For example, conservatives like to talk about the plight of male nurses but even a cursory search shows that there are exactly the kind of programs you’d expect to find.
  - klipt 11mo ago
    What's the equivalent of "Girls Who Code" - "Boys Who Nurse"? A club teaching First Aid to boys only? Does it exist at the same scale that Girls Who Code does?
    - punchfunk4lyte 11mo ago
      You've never heard of programs to encourage men to be nurses or teachers? I certainly have. Here's what I found after a quick search. If you're interested I'm sure you could research and find more information. https://www.arizonacollege.edu/blog/men-wanted-new-efforts-to-attract-male-nurses/ https://www.arizonacollege.edu/blog/men-wanted-new-efforts-t... > Only 12% of the nurses providing patient care at hospitals and health clinics today are men. Although the percentage of nurses has increased — men made up just 2.7% of nurses in 1970 — nursing is still considered a “pink collar” profession, a female-dominated field. https://www.belmont.edu/stories/articles/2025/men-in-education.html https://www.belmont.edu/stories/articles/2025/men-in-educati... > A critical shortage of male teachers continues to affect K-12 education across America, with men making up just 23% of elementary and secondary school teachers today, down from 30% in 1987, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Belmont University's College of Education is addressing this gender gap through intentional recruitment, mentorship and innovative program design.

cindyllm 1y ago

[dead]

kelnos 11mo ago

> that 'Women in STEM' is very accepted but a 'Men in STEM' program would never fly That's because, in general, STEM itself is already a "Men in STEM" program. We men don't need a program to get us excited about pursuing STEM education & careers; that pursuit is already there, and already common. It goes back to innocuous-seeming things as young boys being given chemistry kits for their birthday, while young girls are given dolls, and continues all the way through teen years as boys are encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in greater numbers than girls, culminating in STEM careers being already full of men with conscious or unconscious biases against women. Creating a "Men in STEM" program would be a waste of time, and would just be about scoring conservative political points.

bluecalm 11mo ago
Your argument is based on the fact that more men naturally gravitate towards STEM than women do. This doesn't mean there aren't still men who could go into STEM but lack motivation/opportunity/some other push. Maybe there are more of them than there is women like that, maybe not. You are saying it's ok to ignore all those men just because already bigger % of men naturally go into STEM. This is just discriminatory. Just because some people sharing some characteristic with me do better (in this context) doesn't mean I am in position to do better. This is the mistake DEI proponents make. There is no "we men", there are individuals and discriminating towards them is not ok and also illegal.
- evilsetg 11mo ago
  It's fun that you say 'naturally' when there have been centuries of oppression and conditioning against women in STEM.
JuniperMesos 11mo ago
> We men don't need a program to get us excited about pursuing STEM education & careers; that pursuit is already there, and already common. It goes back to innocuous-seeming things as young boys being given chemistry kits for their birthday, while young girls are given dolls, and continues all the way through teen years as boys are encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in greater numbers than girls, culminating in STEM careers being already full of men with conscious or unconscious biases against women. I don't believe this is true. I think the gendered difference in interest in the cluster of topics we label "STEM" is mostly biological and deeply-seated - one piece of evidence I find very convincing is the observation that non-human primates exhibit the same sorts of gendered behavior with toys that human children do (females wanting to treat any kind of toy as a doll, males wanting to treat any kind of toy as a tool, etc.). I also don't think that boys are encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in greater numbers than girls. I think that girls are explicitly encouraged to pursue STEM-related coursework in much greater numbers than boys - this is exactly a consequence of the above-noted social fact that "Women in STEM' is very accepted but a 'Men in STEM' program would never fly". And as you say, this is because males are much more likely to be intrinsically interested in pursuing STEM education and careers, whereas females are more likely to require explicit societal encouragement to do so. I've read more than one account of a woman who had worked in some kind of software-related field admitting that she wasn't intrinsically excited about the work, but felt like she would be a bad feminist if she left a STEM track to do something more traditionally female-coded instead.