hnacc10

Sure, I would love to answer this.

To give some perspective to you, I come from the humanities field and have switched to IT. In the humanities field (from college majors to actual employment), men are underrepresented. Women hold majority positions in many places (and in related fields, HR, communications etc.).

Even still, when looking at job applications many times will be a blurb such as: "Qualified female candidates are especially encouraged to apply."

The issue I have with all of this, is that there is a sole focus on bringing in women into science and engineering, which is of course a GOOD thing.

However, there is zero effort to increase reading rates for boys, and to push boys and men into the communications and humanities fields, ZERO. Boys lag behind girls in many places when it comes to education, and nothing is done about that.

I've actually worked at a place where this was verbally justified. I am not lying when I heard a female senior management official state: "Women are better communicators than men, so it is only natural that they be placed in greater leadership and communication roles."

Why is there ZERO effort in getting men out of dangerous positions, such as mining and logging and hundreds of other fields and instead actually focus on THEIR education? Men die at a much, much higher rate than women in the workforce, but this is ignored.

So that is coming from my perspective.

If you are insulated in the IT field and that is what you have experienced, then I cannot blame you for thinking "Wow, there are so few women in this field! We need more!"

However, please note there are many fields where women are the majority of undergraduate and graduate students.

Sorry, but I do not have specific pay gap data for the IT sector, although I have plenty of reports that address the overall pay gap: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the-gender-p...

When you in fact compare individual jobs to one another there is no wage gap. Plus we have laws (at least here in the US, not sure where you are) that if you find out you are getting paid less because of your sex, you can bring this to court.

And for the record, yes I love meritocracy. I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Educate more women in the sciences, educate more men in communications/humanities/social work/education and get them out of dangerous positions. That is fair.

This article is a result of what happens when you have no idea what to write about but you need to get something out quickly + when you want to sound sophisticated and socially progressive.

I said books written by women for women, not just ABOUT women. These books examine relations between the two sexes and society in general. If you have primarily 50% of the population writing these books to examine society then yes, it is a fallacy and it is a distortion of reality.

This very much differs from subjects like physics or math or biology, written primarily by men. It doesn't matter who writes these books, they are science based, based on logic and facts.

This differs entirely from gender relation based books, which are based on observations. Again, if you primarily have one sex leading the discussion and writing books about observations (NOT science) then it is a distortion of reality.

As such, you now believe that sexism can only be done by men, and other ignorant statements. The problem is now that you TRULY in your heart believe this, because you were told over and over that all the problems which face you are a result of patriarchy and that women can't possibly be sexist against men! This goes against what has been ingrained in your brain, and you've never had any opposition to this naive idea until now, so it will be difficult for you to accept.

Yes, there are many male feminists which actually believe some of the things which you say, but why wouldn't there be? Feminism is a now long-established and UNCHALLENGED institution. Of course there will be men who will be feminists.

All students should definitely not be required to take any GWS classes. First off the problem is in the name already, Gender and Women's Studies. Already biased. Gender implies that women are a part of that gender. Make it simply Gender Studies or call it Gender and Women's and Men's studies.

Until there is a shift in attitudes and Gender Studies actually moves closer to reality, no one should be required to take such classes. There should be simple encouragement for men, however, to attend these classes to dispel decades of myth and ignorance.

So the typical experience is a "conversation dominated by awkward-to-arrogant, entitled males..."?

How is that not sexist? It's like someone saying gender (female) studies classes are filled with by stupid-to-ignorant, entitled females.

When will "enough be enough"? When will we have no more need for these separate groups? Instead of actually choosing the best candidates based on their best abilities, we now resort to purposely choosing people based on their sex or race. That is wrong.

There are much more women than men who attend college now. Women score better than men in reading and other subjects. The wage gap IS a myth. More money is focused on women's health issues.

Do you see that any area where women don't already represent at least 50% of the workforce, there will be loud voices decrying sexism at this?

On the other hand, there are 0 efforts on raising standards for boys, or trying to get them into X field. Nothing. As seen in history, once a group starts to gain power and privileges, it will continue in that direction no matter the actual circumstances.

"Have you read any books on sexism or feminism?"

Books written by women for women examined at female studies classes at Universities which host Women's Centers? See what's wrong with this picture? It's very one sided.

Egalitarianism would benefit greatly from having the male point of view in these gender-based studies. You will however find a very small percentage of men compared to women in these courses.

If you actually want such an informed view, and you actually want to get closer to knowing what sexism really is, men should be much more involved in these courses and thing's shouldn't be so one-sided.

Exactly. It is rather ridiculous that people like mlent spew their own definitions for sexism and feel that women cannot be sexist. It destroys any sort of reasonable discourse by being so ignorant.