Male Engineering Student Calmly Explains Why Female Classmates Aren’t His Equals

Imagine a guy telling his whole engineering class, loud and clear, that female students aren’t his equals. As I’m typing, your eyeballs might be out of their sockets, and you might be searching for an egg or two to fire. While your mind is busy creating the worst-case scenario of academic misogyny, stay with me. The guy suddenly changes his tone of voice – “you and I cannot be equal. You have already conquered far more to be in this field than I will ever face.” Of course, the female students had to work harder, stronger, better and faster to make it in this world! And what were you thinking? In the blink of an eye, Jared Mauldin transforms into a humble hero of modern class. His thought-provoking letter, published on Eastern Washington University’s student news site, has been taking the internet by storm. No thunder, though, as many have turned to him to say “thank you”. Read Mauldin’s full letter below:

Male Engineering Student Calmly Explains Why Female Classmates Aren't His Equals

Image credits: A Mighty Girl

Male Engineering Student Calmly Explains Why Female Classmates Aren't His Equals

Speaking with the Today show about his piece, Jared Mauldin said: ‘Really, when you look at this letter, I said nothing new. I didn’t say anything that another feminist writer hasn’t said before. The distinguishing factor happens to be that I am a man. That is a problem.’ Sadly, it’s true that women in the field of science face a grim reality. Catalyst, a global non-profit organization that seeks to empower women in workforces, conducted a study and discovered that the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) begins with education. The gap is exceptionally wide in information technologies, where women account for up to only 18.8% of the highest grades in class. As if that’s not enough, a 2014 study discovered that both men and women were twice as likely to hire a man if the job required math.

Take a look at what people had to say about the viral letter:

Male Engineering Student Calmly Explains Why Female Classmates Aren't His Equals

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What do you think ?

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Random Panda 4 years ago

It's cool when men can understand better a woman's perspective on such issues, but this kind of virtue signalling makes me uncomfortable. Women simply want to be treated the same as everyone else. That means not undervaluing our worth, but it also means not treating us as special snowflakes. Everyone has their own struggle.

47points

John Louis 4 years ago

I think understanding the reality of the playing field helps make it more level.

28points

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Hooked 4 years ago (edited)

I always have mixed feelings about this kind of topic. I (born 1968) have a (bachelor) degree in applied physics (since 1992) and worked in Industrial Automation for many years, for what were engineering firms with then 100% male employees. During my time in Uni we were 4-10 girls on a total of 300 physics students. But I have never ever experienced any form of misogyny during those years. No one held me back, no one told me I was not fit to work as an engineer because of my gender and no one suggested to find other line of work. Just the opposite really : when it was time for me to have children, I was the first engineer that needed to give birth herself, in comparrison to my male co-workers, and everyone was very excited about me joining them on the workfloor with my belly pressed into a blue overall ! Maybe on a professional basis things were/are different where I come from (Netherlands) but I just can't relate to these posts made by people from "developed" countries. Sorry.

16points

Falcon 4 years ago

Don't worry. I can't relate either. I was born in the 80s and went into IT and have never been discouraged or heard anything remotely negative about going into the industry as a female. It just sounds like made-up grievances to me. He's right about one thing. Diversity hires and quotas completely undermine us. They are such a terrible idea.

5points

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Madzdad the bard 4 years ago

I think the difference is that in the past (I am about your age) and still somewhat today, women were actively discouraged from STEM fields as kids. So, if they did want to get into the field they were far behind their male counterparts until college. That is changing, but slowly.

2points

Karen Klinck 4 years ago

This appears to be a mostly American problem among developed nations. (Let's not discuss the African continent. They're still deciding whether they want to consider women human for the most part.) We've had the 'big strong competent man, delicate helpless rose-petal stupid female' routine going on for far too long. Women are encouraged to buy into this nonsense 'because you'll never catch a husband, dear." I guess intelligent women scare the Neanderthal men we usually deal with.

1point

Karen Lyon 4 years ago

This comment has been deleted.

0points

Vincent Philippart 4 years ago

I'm getting tired of this. In most industrialized countries, females outnumber males in all fields of higher studies but engineering. High school failure disproportionately affects male students. Most educators are female, and studies have shown they on average have a significant bias against male students. Boys in school have more than five time the suicide rate of girls. Equality should be going both ways. It is true females have it harder in many ways, but not regarding education. Boys deserve that we care about them too.

16points

KatHat 4 years ago

You're getting tired of this after maybe 20 years of "moving towards equality", after MILLENNIA of the opposite? Maybe you're making a point different to the one you intend to be making. Yes, of COURSE we need to care about boys. The point of the letter and the article is that on the whole, as a group, they are already cared for.

10points

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Jace 4 years ago

Found the men’s rights activist. You know what, Vincent? Rights and equality for women isn’t about taking it away from men. It’s not about marginalizing men. Toxic masculinity (as in, the toxic version of the ideal of what masculinity ought to be, not just masculinity itself) is the biggest harm being done to men, and that’s part of male culture. You know who I see acting in men’s best interests in this context? Feminists. You know who I find fighting most against male genital mutilation? Feminists. Rights is not pie. You don’t get a smaller piece because someone else is being acknowledged too.

1point

Evil Little Thing 4 years ago (edited)

@Vincent Phillipart Women outnumber men in higher education because we HAVE to be educated to earn a living wage. Men don't. Also, your statements regarding the sex of "most educators" and their biases are not correct. Women professors are underrepresented in higher education and administration. Further, there is only a bias against boys if you are using disciplinary action as a metric- other metrics (that correspond to actual education effort) are biased in favor of boys. And frankly, these numbers only work for white kids. Once you evaluate POC, you find that black girls face far more disciplinary action than white boys. I'm not saying that boys are getting everything they need to succeed - my son has struggled and I've been angry about it. But your statements are not supported by the data, and therefore incorrect.

1point