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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30380 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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In my non-US university, there were a tonne of 'Women in Defence Intelligence', 'Women's night for networking with accounting company people' events. I imagine these kinds of things still happen in the US but aren't federally funded. Any US university people know anything about this?

In my non-US university, there were a tonne of 'Women in Defence Intelligence', 'Women's night for networking with accounting company people' events. I imagine these kinds of things still happen in the US but aren't federally funded. Any US university people know anything about this?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Such events certainly happen at American universities. Whether they are directly or indirectly "federally funded" will vary from case to case. But for example the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a grant program for "Women and Minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Fields" that could probably be used to fund some such things.

I was trying to get at the contradiction between

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

And giving advantages specifically to women.

The logic (which I disagree with, mind you) is that women are being brought up to the baseline level of accommodation by such programs, not that they are receiving preferential treatment.

My understanding is that men are still allowed to attend such things. However, i have no doubts that an equivalent event advertising itself specifically for men (but still allowing women) would either draw the wrath of Title IX, or else be overwhelmed with women showing up in protest.

edit: What Voxel said below.

I imagine these kinds of things still happen in the US but aren't federally funded. And US university people know anything about this?

The typical workaround is that you can host a "women in [field]" event, but you can't restrict who actually attends. To some extent everyone knows what's expected, but I do recall my local Society of Women Engineers chapter was pretty explicit about recruiting all comers, so it's not all a wink and a nudge.

I regularly attend my institutions Women in X meetings and the spin off social events such as the book club. There are usually maybe 1 or 2 men for every 10-15 women on average. If anything we get effusively welcomed and praised for being brave in joining. I suspect should I be in the market I could probably parlay this into a dating strategy.

I suspect should I be in the market I could probably parlay this into a dating strategy.

I am not sure about that...I would suspect that this is only a viable option for people who are neurotypical and at least average-looking. Anything less than that seems likely to get unceremoniously booted at best and tarred and feathered at worst. Good luck finding work as an engineer if you've got a reputation for harassment or something...

Not that there is anything wrong as such with this; the idea that awkward or unattractive men people need to "know their place" and never express interest in sex or romance in exchange for ordinary social inclusion isn't exactly new or terrible.

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