STEM equals progress in the demonstrably vital STEM fields. That's why politicians talk about it, hopefully. I can only speak for myself, but I ain't doing this for my health. It is a passion, but at the root of that passion lies the knowledge that we are building a better world.

I gave one as an example.

More like "mentioned". I didn't get to read it.

They all confirmed what I said, there hasn't yet BEEN one that found the opposite.

I'm skeptical. I'm cursorily familiar with research which actually does call into question some of these gender pay gap studies, for example.

So I could say that I know EVERYTHING about the studies that questioned my beliefs - they all ended up confirming them when tested.

You could say that, but it would sound kind of kooky.

Except that every empirical experiment proves you are wrong about that.

That's such an absurd claim. I wouldn't even know where to start if I wanted to.

Vet schools on average admit 4 males for ever female student admitted. But when the personal details on applications are obscured, so that the selection committees do not know the gender of applicants - it switches to 60/40 female selection !

It sounds like you're very familiar with research which, forgive me for saying so, confirms your own pre-existing biases. Have you considered searching out research which may have the opposite effect? Have you examined and verified as unflawed to your knowledge the study you're talking about? ...without citing so I can see, I might add?

to discount your voice by branding you as "privileged".

A brand which becomes little more than a euphemism/dog whistle for "male", because he or she doesn't actually know what the circumstances of my life consisted of. The only information used to reach these conclusions seems to be my gender. So really, it's all about the fact that I'm male.

I'm not sure whether to say this seriously or sarcastically, so I guess a little of both: just because you don't get anything you personally value out of your privilege doesn't mean you don't have it.

Likewise, just because you can baselessly attribute someone's position to "privilege" doesn't make it so. Lacking any salient basis for accusing me of succeeding through patronage, but having leveled the accusation anyway, what you've just done is prejudged me. Based on my gender.

You just responded to a thoughtful, detailed, logical post with a "can't get a girlfriend joke", but you're the one complaining about the tenor of the conversation? How is it even possible to be so shameless?

Lifetime didn't set out to *MAKE* their audience into misandrists, I don't think, although there can be self-reinforcing aspects to it. It set out to *CATER TO* an audience of misandrists. The misandrist sentiment already existed among a subset of the female population, it just hadn't been turned into a niche market yet.

Many even otherwise quite thoughtful people are bigoted. If they have a bad experience with a single individual, or maybe a run of bad luck with a few individuals, who all share a trait not shared by the victim, then many victims will begin to associate the trait with the behavior. They'll begin to expect the same behavior out of everyone who exhibits that trait. It's the same thing going on now with black people and police officers. And it's why every show on Lifetime is about a woman being abused by her husband, or getting cheated on, or stuff like that: because those tend to be at the root of misandrist thought, or at a very minimum serve to emotionally confirm a misandrist bias.

If nursing and elementary education paid the same as STEM

Ah! Maybe now we're getting somewhere.

Go on, ask me if I got into computers in the 1980s because my crystal ball predicted the dot com boom. I'd dearly like to give my seven year old self the credit for being some Warren Buffet Baby, anticipating the growth of the internet.

It's not true, though. I didn't get into my STEM career for money. I got into it because of passion. And that (along with grace and luck) is what I attribute my success to: I love what I do. Nobody and nothing was going to keep me away from computers, from the thing I loved. Not even the inability of my parents to afford anything but outdated second-hand computers. Certainly not by something as trivial as glancing at my ass as I walked out the door.

Show me a doctor who is a doctor for the money, and I will show you a doctor who isn't as good as another doctor who does the same job for the love of craft. The same thing holds true with woodworkers, sculptors, chefs, or convenience store clerks.

If you're trying to get or be involved with a STEM field, and you aren't experiencing the success that you see others experiencing, maybe it isn't because of some deep-rooted gender bias creeping into every person with whom you interact. Maybe it's because you're in it for the wrong reasons.

Ah, the old 'we are abused, so we need someone below us in order to feel better!' argument.

That's not what they said. Not at all. What they said is more like a complaint about hypocrisy and double standards. "Why is this stuff only wrong when people like us do it, not when those who aren't like us, including the people who are complaining, do it to us?"

Nobody is out there writing 10 page think pieces on Medium about how we should not stare at overweight people with neck beards and man boobs because it might prevent them from coming out of their shells and pursuing their career in ballet.

Maybe I'll start listening to them when they get more consistent. For now, I just look at the SJW phenomenon as a bunch of privileged, spoiled brats looking for people to blame so that they can be victims and not at all responsible for the sorry condition of their own existence.

Why does Mrs. Clinton pay women on her staff 87 cents for each dollar she pays men?
Why does Obama pay women 78 cents for each dollar he pays men on his staff?

Probably because both of those statistics derive from studies using flawed/dishonest methodology?

The professor who’d talk to a student professionally and politely, then stare at her rear end while she walked away.

Oh yes, how terrible. Great think piece, Sir Galahad.

If people looking at your ass makes you uncomfortable, wear clothes that obscure your ass. That's what clothes are for, covering the parts of your body that you don't want others to see.

The more recent changes aren't anywhere near as bad as people think.

Drew's failure to reign in moderator agendas is what's so bad, and it is clearly never going to get better there. He's encouraging it and thinks he's on the side of right and justice with making rules about it being fine to say "i hope you die in a fire" but HORRIBLE and BANWORTHY to say "rape rape". If you're cool with that kind of twisted, identity-based morality, maybe Fark is still the site for you.

This, so much this. The problem started with mod Genevieve Marie and all her trolling alts, targeting anyone reasonably well-spoken that she didn't consider to exemplify sufficiently feminist opinions. If you look at my username, you'll probably be able to figure out which Farker I was. Drew circled the wagons instead of fixing his shit. Now we have a forum torn between "anything goes" humor when it targets certain groups and safe spaces with eggshells on the floor for other groups. Who is who? Never fear, the dear leaders will decide for you.

There's no attempt to make Fark more PC. I think what happened is the rest of the Internet moved -far- past us on the anything-goes relative scale.

Really, Drew? You're playing the "fair and balanced" game with us? Anyone can look at Fark.com headlines or comments from 2006 as compared to today and see that Fark simply lost its edge. I'm not a huge fan of rape jokes, either, but I'm less a fan of sacred cows. Remember when Fark didn't have those?

There's no way the politicians will change the law so they can no longer get paid ... it's simply too lucrative.

Lucrative like Enron. Only in the very short term.