Reply to NYT article on men struggling with their place in society

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Maybe they suddenly are experiencing a lack of sea parting for straight men in society and are having breakdowns and being crybabies. Mad because society has started to value competence and excellence over gender/race/physical appearance/stereotypes of what kind of people should be in what roles in society. [/quote]

Agree. There is an idiom for this: when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

An example is a study done in business meetings. When women spoke 25% of the time, men said that men and women spoke equally as often. When women spoke just 30% of the time, men said that women dominated the conversation. It objectively wasn’t true, but women only had to speak a little more for men to think they were dominating the conversation.

Men (esp white men of a certain age) were raised believing that they would be at the top of the food chain. And that’s still mostly true. But they have to share some of the spotlight now, and boy, they don’t like it. [/quote]

I certainly think we have work to do regarding equality, but in my profession I have noticed that in the past 5-8 years literally ZERO white people have been given residencies, grants, fellowships or stipends in the DC area. Well, I think maybe there was one white woman but she was gay. So, as a white person, I have been going after every single thing and have been shut out. I'm not saying anything of course because the whole world would call me a Karen, but I guess I'm lucky my spouse makes a decent amount of money because I have totally stagnated despite being pretty damn talented and incredibly hard working.[/quote]

I do not work in a field like this (I work in legal, where white men are still very dominant) but my DH does (engineering). He's towards the end of his career, it doesn't affect him, but he sees how it affects others.

But it's also complicated in ways that don't fit the narratives pushed either by progressives or MAGA. Like in some instances, non-white people are being hired because they are genuinely more qualified -- there are certain corners of engineering where US universities don't turn out enough people with specified knowledge, so is common to hire a lot from foreign universities, especially in Africa, that are focused on these specializations. At the same time, sometimes candidates are preferences for DEI reasons, but that specific candidate is actually very privileged. You see this with international candidates a lot -- many we from very wealthy families, attended exclusively private schools, have family in powerful positions, but they will be considered a DEI hire because of the color scheme f their skin. It's easy to see why that engenders resentment among people who may have middle or working class backgrounds, no industry connections, just worked hard at school and borrowed money to attend

Sometimes the quest for diversity actually leads to better candidates. Other times it gives you the image of a diverse workplace but is actually reinforcing inequality. Most DEI programs in the US are not doing a ton to address the impact of systemic racism on groups in US -- black people impacted by slavery and Jim Crow, Native Americans, etc.[/quote]

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