I'm glad that there is a growing awareness of the discrimination against men, especially white men. However, in most of the articles on this topic, there is a tendency to take the position that increased opportunity for women has been a good thing. That weakens the argument for changing the environment for men. I would argue that the so-called opportunity for women has been very destructive. From antiquity up to recently, men were the movers and shakers in the public sphere; women managed the domestic sphere. Almost certainly the natural behavioral and emotional characteristics of men and women in those times may be traced to our genes. Human beings are very adaptable and can be lured or coerced into social patterns that are at odds with their nature, but the result is poor. One can point to some problems with patriarchy, but they pale in comparison to the wholesale dysfunctionality we have today. I'm old enough to remember when most women were homemakers, and they seemed on the whole to be quite happy -- in contrast to today. My mother was an example. She was very bright and loved being a wife and mother. A career didn't mean much to her, and we cherished our family life.
Anecdotally, this is one of the push factors that drove surprising numbers of gen Z men to the right in the most recent election. I'm core millennial in age myself, and have multiple centrist-type acquaintances (all living in some of the bluest places in the USA, politically) who either voted for Trump or didn't vote at all for president on this basis. It wasn't policies in general, it was because they felt that the Democratic party tolerates bigotry against men.
Is this principally about academia/media/entertainment (and maybe governmental work)? From my own personal experience (in tech and finance) I don't think there's a problem with white men getting hired in the general labor market-- certainly the numbers do not show anything like that as the white male unemployment rate is less than the national average.
That said, people are having a hard time finding jobs right now-- but that's everyone without exception. Hiring rates are at levels last seen during the Great Recession. And here's an Atlantic article discussing the breakdown of entry level hiring-- DEI is not even mentioned, the villain is AI, though not in the sense of that replacing humans, but rather because its use has badly derailed the entire hiring process compared to even a few years ago.
I'm glad that there is a growing awareness of the discrimination against men, especially white men. However, in most of the articles on this topic, there is a tendency to take the position that increased opportunity for women has been a good thing. That weakens the argument for changing the environment for men. I would argue that the so-called opportunity for women has been very destructive. From antiquity up to recently, men were the movers and shakers in the public sphere; women managed the domestic sphere. Almost certainly the natural behavioral and emotional characteristics of men and women in those times may be traced to our genes. Human beings are very adaptable and can be lured or coerced into social patterns that are at odds with their nature, but the result is poor. One can point to some problems with patriarchy, but they pale in comparison to the wholesale dysfunctionality we have today. I'm old enough to remember when most women were homemakers, and they seemed on the whole to be quite happy -- in contrast to today. My mother was an example. She was very bright and loved being a wife and mother. A career didn't mean much to her, and we cherished our family life.
Anecdotally, this is one of the push factors that drove surprising numbers of gen Z men to the right in the most recent election. I'm core millennial in age myself, and have multiple centrist-type acquaintances (all living in some of the bluest places in the USA, politically) who either voted for Trump or didn't vote at all for president on this basis. It wasn't policies in general, it was because they felt that the Democratic party tolerates bigotry against men.
When that pic of the HuffPost writer’s room first came out, it was attacked not because it had no men, but because it had no black women.
I remember!
Is this principally about academia/media/entertainment (and maybe governmental work)? From my own personal experience (in tech and finance) I don't think there's a problem with white men getting hired in the general labor market-- certainly the numbers do not show anything like that as the white male unemployment rate is less than the national average.
That said, people are having a hard time finding jobs right now-- but that's everyone without exception. Hiring rates are at levels last seen during the Great Recession. And here's an Atlantic article discussing the breakdown of entry level hiring-- DEI is not even mentioned, the villain is AI, though not in the sense of that replacing humans, but rather because its use has badly derailed the entire hiring process compared to even a few years ago.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/grade-inflation-ai-hiring/685157/
Every year, the graduate intake at work gets less and less white and less and less male. It does not bode well.