Male engineering student explains why his female classmates are not his equals

[Buttoneer]

[CurtEastPoint]

1. I was not expecting that. From 2015, see background story

https://www.today.com/parents/we-re-unequal-engineering-student-s-humble-letter-praises-female-t48856

[Arne]

2. Hmmm,

I could make remarks to both sides of his equation.
But I wouldn't touch that.

[Lonestarblue]

4. So different from Harrison Butker's misogynistic commencement speech.

Praising overcoming hurdles versus telling young women their dreams are unimportant and they’re fit only to be wives and baby machines.

[Brenda]

12. No kidding!

What's really sad is that this was just a letter to a school paper while the commencement speech was recorded and given national media coverage.

It's great to see men like Jared "get it" and write about it so well but I wish we would hear more men with the mic and name recognition on the national/international stage say the same things out loud.

I won't hold my breath.

[Picaro]

5. Bravo, Jared!

[judesedit]

6. So true. And as I worked in the Science and Engineering Dept

of a State University for almost 10 years, I overheard a couple of the professors state that the girls were grading better than the boys in various subjects and projects.

Kudos to the women who dare to go into those fields of study.

Living in the south, I was very well aware of, and fought through, the good ole' boy mentality and favortism awarded the lily white males. It sucked.

[onetexan]

27. It makes me mad such a comment had to be made

As a woman studying engineering in college i was one of the few. Working for over 3 decades now i am still one of the few. Over the years i've experienced discrimination, both subtly and blatant because of my gender. It only toughened me to do strive harder and do better. A third way into my career i was leading global teams > 50 mostly male developers, many from other cultures where women are considered inferior. Many here are MAGAts. Tough shit. I've proven anything you can do i can do better, backwards and in high heels.

[judesedit]

31. And you did it! An inspiration to the female students of the future

[Upthevibe]

7. Buttoneer.........

Thank you for posting this.

I'd read it before but didn't know the backstory....

[Kid Berwyn]

8. Mauldin is a great American name.

Shows in that young engineer’s upbringing.

[hunter]

9. Engineering was definitely a boy's club in the 'seventies.

Family expectations were that I'd be an engineer like my grandfather, not an artist with day jobs like my parents, so I started college as an engineering major. From what I observed, the handful of women who were engineering majors had to be tough.

I didn't feel accepted by that culture either so I changed my major to biology after two years, specifically evolutionary biology, which practically speaking was very similar to my dad's fine arts degree in its utility.

My wife has always competed on the same playing fields as the good old boys and has crashed against glass ceilings several times in her career.

Any equality women now enjoy in the engineering field was hard won.

[onetexan]

28. That glass ceiling is very real. But us women in the various STEM disciplines are creating small splinters

And some have shattered it. I believe it will be a long way before us women get our dues. Doesn't stop is since we're used to it and recognize how assinine that behavior is.

[Martin68]

10. Well done, Jared.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. This reminds me of a yahoo "chat room" around Y2K...

I spoke with a woman who was the only female in her entire CS (computer science) department at a university. It was an eye-opening conversation.

[Shermann]

20. I took CS and I only recall one woman in my class

Last edited Sat May 25, 2024, 06:10 PM - Edit history (4)

This gets into the whole nurture versus nature debate. I'll go against the grain and say there is an aspect of nature here. To be a computer scientist, you have to be a little bit screwed up. If you graduate and get a job, you are likely going to stare at a screen for eight hours or more with minimal interaction with others. On some level you have to be maladjusted and anti-social to do it day after day, let alone to be obsessed with it. And if you aren't, you are going to be competing (and interacting) with those who are. And those flawed individuals tend to be male for whatever reason. Women seem generally more balanced and may be showing good instincts regarding the real nature of STEM jobs. Any man or woman going into this field should have their eyes wide open about this.

[dlk]

13. Men who are feminists are treasures

Thanks for sharing.

[StarryNite]

14. He is amazing.

[lindysalsagal]

15. Good guy!

[raging moderate]

25. Yes! Good Guy! and Smart Guy!

Young people like him will do so much good in the world.

[soldierant]

16. i didn't know whether to expect this or the opposite.

Either was possible. I was pleased it went this way.

[stage left]

17. Hurray for Jared.

He gets it.

[mercuryblues]

18. The last sentence is a bit naive

[excerpt
https://www.today.com/parents/we-re-unequal-engineering-student-s-humble-letter-praises-female-t48856
]“I find it incredibly frustrating, naturally, because it should be getting attention when it is spoken by a woman,” he says. “There’s just a whole series of little slights that occur when a woman speaks.”


If a woman said these things, *some* men, *not all* men would rip it to shreds. Mansplaining, why this is not true because they once had a teacher who they viewed discriminated against them based solely on their sex. Probably more than a few rape and death threats.

[PatrickforB]

19. This is a pleasant surprise - I had expected something entirely different.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

[IcyPeas]

21. Fred and Ginger....

She did everything he did but backwards and in high heels

[Evolve Dammit]

24. love that truth!

[LW1977]

22. Deleted

[MLAA]

23. Right on.

I got an engineering degree in 1982. While in elementary, middle and even high school I don’t recall being encouraged to pursue mathematics, science or engineering. Over the years my wonderful dad said how proud he was of me and apologized many times for not realizing this could be a path for me and encouraging me. I remember thinking, hell if my brother can do it, surely I can.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

26. I went to high school 1962-1965.

(I graduated a year early)

I took UICSM math. Those letters stand for "University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics". I have never, in all those years since, come across anyone who has ever even heard of it.

So anyway, the big deal about UICSM was that we discovered EVERYTHING. Those of you who took geometry, remember how you were given some theorems, and then given problems to solve based on those theorems? Well, in UICSM we were given something like four postulates, from which we derived the theorems, and them we solved the problems. We weren't just mindlessly solving problems. We were figuring out what was going on behind those problems.

As a consequence some 35 years after my last high school math class, taking a placement test for math in my local community college, I tested into algebra 2. I was a bit apprehensive the first week or so, but then settled in. I recalled a lot of specific language from UICSM, things like something is true "if and only if" something else is true.

Anyway, I want to make a huge big deal out of the fact that the man I had for two of those three years clearly believed the girls were every bit as capable as the guys. I still love him for that.

Thank you, Cliff Haugh.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

29. This made me smile

[MichMan]

30. I graduated with an engineering degree in the late 80's

There were only a handful of women in my classes.

In contrast, I started out in Pre Veterinary and at the time it was roughly 50/50 between male and female students. In my interactions more recently with the Veterinary college at my alma mater, I would say that 85% of the current veterinary students are female.