Male engineering student explains why his female classmates are not his equals.

[ancianita]

[CrispyQ]

1. Well that was an unexpected surprise.

I'll bet there are some strong women in this man's life.

[PatSeg]

7. It really was wasn't it?

Fortunately I do know men like that.

[geardaddy]

10. Yes,

I was expecting some assholery, but what great LTTE!

[Wounded Bear]

23. Actually, it was pretty much what I expected...

Oh, and there is a lot of truth in it, as well.

[soldierant]

63. I only expected otherwise up until the words "for example."

Then I saw it coming.

And it still choked me up.

[Demovictory9]

46. It was.

A good surprise

[paleotn]

62. Unexpected is right....

When I saw male engineering student I was like....Oh, shit. What now? But, no. The more I learn about this younger generation, the more I like them.

[calimary]

65. Indeed! I was bracing for something that wasn't nearly as highly evolved.

[Cracklin Charlie]

2. I think this should go to the Greatest Page!

Let’s kick it!

Thanks, Jared!

[druidity33]

3. Any idea what year this was written? K&R, nt.

[ancianita]

4. Years ago. Dates differ, but it's not recent.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. Fall, 2015

https://www.google.com/search?q=jared+mauldin+mechanical+engineering

Here he is today:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-mauldin

[ancianita]

9. Thanks. Today? 51% of the U.S. will be stripped of their 1st, 9th, 13th & 14th amendment rights.

Women and their allies need to GOTFV.

[niyad]

51. And the 19th if they can manage it.

[Upthevibe]

66. mahatmakanejeeves....

Thank you for posting his current information.

I've read this before but it's been awhile and it's heartening to read again.

[secondwind]

5. K&R

[Farmer-Rick]

8. Exactly

Glad it wasn't one of those hate letters. This guy is very intelligent.

[pnwmom]

11. His story, and his friend Holly's, was told on The Today Show. Here it is.

https://www.today.com/parents/we-re-unequal-engineering-student-s-humble-letter-praises-female-t48856

[ancianita]

12. Cool. Thanks.

[momta]

13. Thanks for posting this.

K&R

[ancianita]

41. Thanks back, momta.

[fantase56]

14. A big K&R

[Warpy]

15. Ugh, flashback to engineering school in the 60s

and an essential class taught by a middle eastern man. His speech was heavily accented, and he told all women to sit in the back row of an enormous lecture hall, with about 10 rows of seats separating us from the precious males in front, so we couldn't see the blackboard.

I lodged a formal complaint. I was told it was his culture. I replied he was in my country, he needed to respect my culture. I'd paid for the damned class, I needed it, and I was being deprived of what I'd paid for. Dead silence while they rebooted, then I was ushered out without a word.

That was it. I left. I ran away from home and became a stage hand.

[ancianita]

18. Sad but great story, Warpy. Thanks for sharing it.

[sinkingfeeling]

16. A well-raised young man.

[Wild blueberry]

17. Excellent letter

Thank you.

[The Magistrate]

19. Hear Hear, Mr. Mauldin

[wryter2000]

20. Sweet

Lots of men get it

[keldridge]

21. What a nice surprise

I am a woman who graduated from UC Berkeley with a Civil Engineering Master's degree in 1976, with Honors. There were no understanding males in any of my classes and my professors openly told me I should leave.

Oddly enough I never experienced as much discrimination in any of my jobs as the University supplied.

[Six117]

22. This person is exactly who terrifies the tuckums of this country.

Mr. Mauldin sees something wrong in his world and uses his privilege to shine a light of justice on the hurt it causes. Very unlike the tuckums.

To the tuckums: we don't seek to replace you. We seek to build a world better than all you represent.

[exboyfil]

24. At least in my community it has gotten much better

My daughters received nothing but support in their math and science classes. My oldest went on to get a BS in Mechanical Engineering. My youngest was never quite so good in math even with lots of support from her teachers and me so went into nursing.

Girls were very active in the robotics club at the HS. Actually the robotics club were a bit arrogant (kind of like you imagine varsity athletes).

The most important thing in getting through engineering in college is spending lots and lots of time doing math problems in high school. Without a strong math foundation, it is very difficult to get through engineering.

[Victor_c3]

25. For years, I was the only male chemist where I worked

I worked with three other chemist (all female) and my immediate supervisor was also a woman. In the group, I was the least educated (I only have a bachelors degree while everyone else had a masters or better). Just because I was an ass, I used to try and remind my coworkers that chemistry was clearly “man” work and women didn’t belong in the field. To make my point, I’d try to name all of the great male chemists, realize all of those names were physicists, then cede that the only famous chemist anyone could name was Marie Curie.

I try to explain (mansplain) the same lessons to my daughters (11 and 13 years old) and they just tell me to shut up.

Incidentally, Marie Curie was the first person to win Nobel prize in two separate fields (chemistry and physics). Not just the first woman, but the first person to do so.

In all reality, the women in the science and engineering fields historically are better qualified and under paid relative to their male counterparts. I believe that is slowly changing, but there is still room for improvement.

[FakeNoose]

26. My father was a professional civil engineer

He received his engineering degree in 1949 after having served in the Second World War. My Dad grew up in the "males-only" environment and it certainly shaped his attitudes toward women in the professional fields.

All that changed however when my parents bore and raised 7 daughters (along with 2 sons) and 3 of those daughters grew up to become engineers in their own careers. All 7 daughters earned bachelors (and some masters) degrees in college, and both sons did also. Having the encouragement and approval of one's father makes all the difference to the young women who grow up to break the glass ceilings of this world. Of course not all girls will break glass ceilings, but FIRST they have to WANT to do it. They need to think they CAN do it.

Something tells me by this letter that Jared Mauldin did receive encouragement and approval from both parents, and perhaps his mother is a professional in her own field. He certainly will be a great father some day and encourage his own children (daughters included) to succeed.

[ancianita]

27. Thank you for this wonderfully encouraging story!

[Paladin]

28. Go to the head of the class, Mr. Mauldin.

I suspect that Mr. Mauldin is aware of how many human resources departments (even at engineering firms) have a great number of females in leadership positions.

[ancianita]

30. Wait. That's his point. He shouldn't be at the head of the class. Just sayin'.

[Paladin]

37. Which makes him brighter than most of the engineers I know. (nt)

[Happy Hoosier]

29. And so very true. My little story...

One of my best friends in college was a fellow engineering student who was a woman. She was brilliant. But we were both struggling with fluid dynamics... a notoriously difficult junior level course.

We both had the same advisor. When I visited the advisor, he basically told me to suck it up and work harder.

He told her that maybe engineering wasn't for her and she should consider a major change.


I had a GPA of around 3.0 at the time, and she had a GPA of around 3.8 at the time. 3.8. In Engineering. And he suggested she might not be up to it.

Yeah.... just plain ole sexism. Naturally, she basically told him to fuck off and we both worked our asses off to pass that class.

[ancianita]

31. That's a great one! I LOVE 'FUCK OFF' STORIES.

[2Gingersnaps]

45. The only thing I love more than a good fuck off story,

is a guy (or anybody really) with just basic fundamental human decency. It is far more rare than it should be.

[TexLaProgressive]

32. I spent the greater part of my working life working with male engineers.

Because of their personality and very narrow focus I was sure that women could never be a part of that cadre. I live near Texas A & M University and have met women engineers and engineering students. I was pleased to be wrong in my earlier accesment, and a big plus, is that not only are they competent engineers they bring something to the field that is needed.

And Jared writes well for an engineer, maybe a woman engineer helped him with it.
This is just a bit of light hearted sarcasm. Most of the male engineers I worked with had poor communications skills.

The former head of the college of engineering at TAMU is now the president of the university. M. KATHERINE BANKS 26th President, Texas A&M University. I never thought I’d see the day that a woman would head the engineering school and become the president of a formerly all male school. Bravo, Dr. Banks.

[ancianita]

38. Thank you!

I love these changes of heart that come from exposure to women in the field.
I just can't grok that Texas keeps voting for misogynist leaders.

[Johnny2X2X]

33. Fanatstic awareness

It's human nature to be proud of one's achievements, but too often it gets in the way of seeing the reality for other people.

I am an engineer, I see this in action, everyone worked hard to get through school, so there's not an appreciation for how much harder some others might have had to work.

When I hear senior engineers complain, "These young kids want everything handed to them. They demand so much." My response is usually something like, "well, they've had to work a lot harder than you or I, so they can demand some more." That usually garners shock. People don't understand when they have it easier, they just can't bridge that gap in their minds. As a straight white, male I had a leg up. And as someone who mentors young engineers, I am continuously struck of how much more serious today's college students are than I remember from my time in college in the 90s. They drink and party less, they study longer and harder, they're expected to do more than 1 internship now. Because of AP classes they're often graduating in 3 years and are expected to then join the workforce when they're barely adults. They haven't grown up in a world where they could make mistakes and still achieve their goals, for them, one slip up could cost them everything.

It's like people forget, I remember what it was like in college and I wasn't blessed with parents who could help so I had to work too. I still got through school working, partying, and finding time to study. I saw my peers then too mostly doing the same things and getting by. Yet they fail to recognize that the younger generation doesn't get that luxury of just getting by, more is expected of them.

[ancianita]

35. Yours as well. I'm grateful for your description of increased difficulties across generations.

You make me think it's almost as if, by design, engineers got left out of our societal design.

[Johnny2X2X]

40. Diversity is underappreciated

There's this attitude among engineers to hire people like themselves. There's a blind spot for the strength that diversity offers teams. It's a real cultural problem that needs to shift.

[ancianita]

42. Yes. I just really hate the standard for 'diversity' to include 51% of the country, along with

anyone not white. That's the cultural problem men (white and non-white)benefit from and so their inertia unnecessarily drags on half of humanity's progress.

[Johnny2X2X]

43. I'm reminded of a firm my friend works at

My friends is an excellent staff engineer, nearing the end of his career. He helps design and manufacture medical devices. He works for a world class company, that has had a huge diversity problem. Their lack of diversity has been documented in many articles, so now they're trying to rectify their problem. So here he is, a white male decision maker who now frets that the only candidates HR sends him are women and people born in other countries. He doesn't think it's fair that white males aren't getting interviews. He misses the fact that when he was hired, only white males were getting interviews. He doesn't get that the company is recognizing a weakness and trying to turn it into a strength. Diversity will help his company recognize threats and opportunities better in the future.

Companies who respect diversity have a competitive advantage, those that lag on that front will fall behind in the market.

[ancianita]

44. An all too common reality. The reality of the privilege of either not "seeing," or not

clearing one's perspective.

[llmart]

34. As a retired female HR specialist I can say one thing about Jared...

If I had him in my office looking for a job, this op ed would earn him a spot in any engineering position I had open.

I have been surrounded by engineers for most of my life. The older generation of engineers which were almost always men had some real ego problems when it came to their careers. I started out at 18 as a secretary in engineering departments in many different companies, and the amount of sexual harassment I experienced was beyond the pale. Not all engineers graduate with a 3.0 or higher. All they had to do was graduate with passing grades. I married an engineer thinking what a catch he would be. He brought home a good salary but he had such a sense of entitlement and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Things are better now for women in the programs. My son is an engineer and he had a strong mother (thank you very much), so he has no problem with women in his field and in fact has had several female bosses during his career. He is currently a software engineer for NASA and they have the first ever female Launch Director. Almost half the people in the astronaut program are now female.

[ancianita]

36. Great info. Thank you for your post. I'm feeling better by the minute about women in STEM fields.

[pnwmom]

49. My experience with older male engineers is different than yours. I think their egos

are nothing, compared to marketing and financier types.

The engineers I've known have been more concerned with fixing things than with showing off.

(And sexual harassment was everywhere for women in the older generation. The only fields where women were safe from harassment were fields with few men -- like elementary school teaching -- or mostly gay men.)

[Shermann]

56. Yeah, and that's to say nothing of the egos in upper management! nt

[TeamProg]

39. K&R Thanks for posting. n/t

[love_katz]

47. Thank you for this post.

The entire thread is great. I didn't receive anything like this kind of support when I entered college in the early 1970's. My advisor did everything he could to discourage me from going into my chosen profession, including trying to gross me out with graphic descriptions. I loved science throughout my school years. I chose going into veterinary medicine because I thought the ecological field was overcrowded. After trying hard to discourage me, he actually told me to "go home and have babies ". I ended up dropping out of college. I tried to go back several times at later points in my life, but never managed to make it through. I have always wondered how different my life would have been if I had been met with a supportive counselor and system back when I first entered college. Congratulations to everyone who managed to make it through college. This horrid mess with the SC trying to overturn Roe vs Wade and take away human rights and personhood from over half the population makes it crystal clear that now, more than ever, we need more women elected to important positions in government and industry. Getting a good solid education in science and math can really help. MAY PATRIARCHY FALL!!!

[ancianita]

48. Oh, love_katz, thank you back.

Thank you for your story of the beating patriarchy has given you, and as we know, so many other women. I've had my share, too.

Yes, may misogynist, murderous, rapist patriarchy fall and never rise up again. The crisis of manhood is real, but it is men's responsibility to stop their own suffering, stop passing it on to women and children, stop hiding their problem from themselves by institutionalizing and normalizing it as others' problems. Soon, we'll all see how tragic all this suffering has been as cascading climate disasters bear down on us all.

[love_katz]

50. ...

[summer_in_TX]

54. A sad thing about many "top tier" schools (I assume

that was one) is they are set up to weed out those who "can't make it." As a result, there is very little caring or support for students.

I made it through but floundered, taking two extra years.

My boys went to a different university, got great support, so when I went back for a Masters degree, I decided to go there. Made a huge difference to have supportive faculty and advisers. Can't say enough good things about Texas State University.

[love_katz]

57. No, it wasn't a top tier school.

It was a local college. My parents couldn't afford a more expensive school and I had to work in order to come up with the money. I had begun saving up for college from the time I was 15 years old, when I worked a full time babysitting job to beef up the savings account that I had had for most of my life. At 16, I took my first full time job to build up my savings. It was just the tenor of the time that I was living in. I also talked,years later with a woman who did manage to make it through veterinary school at that same time. The things that she told me about the simply breathtaking sexism that she had to endure to get through left me speechless with rage. Sadly, this kind of stuff was all too common back in the early seventies.

[summer_in_TX]

67. I'm sorry you weren't able to finish like you'd hoped.

On the other hand, I'm glad you did not have to deal with that level of harassment back then.

[Turbineguy]

52. As I tell my engineering students:

"A woman can lift a 5 ton piston just as well as a man!"

[niyad]

53. Sadly, my mind immediately went to the Montreal Ecole Polytechnique Massacre.

Last edited Tue May 17, 2022, 06:56 PM - Edit history (1)

So glad that it was so different.

Dec. 6, 1989. Anti-feminist, woman-hating failure marc lepine murders 14 women engineering students, injures 10 more, along with 4 men.

[ancianita]

55. You're from Canada? I ask because I can't recall it.

[ancianita]

58. Ah. I now see what you're talking about, and over 30 years ago, no less. Thanks for bringing it up.

https://theath.ca/science/the-montreal-massacre-and-why-were-still-talking-about-it/

[niyad]

59. I am not Canadian, but that massacre is burned into my soul.

[ancianita]

60. I have Canadian background on my father's side, and glad you posted about it.

[niyad]

61. You are most welcome. I see from the article that you linked to that, for

some people at least, the mindset has not changed.

[11 Bravo]

64. I did NOT see that coming.

Someone certainly raised that young man well.

[Lunabell]

68. I love it when a man "gets it".

Good post.

[AllaN01Bear]

69. yet another self centered selfish jerk.

[Escurumbele]

70. I read it on my phone yesterday and then again today, and I promise that neither time

did I get teary eyed...really, the reason I had a tissue was because my eyes itched...

What a beautiful letter, I have daughters, I am a man, and I have always believed so. When I had my consulting firm I always made sure to have a 50-50 balanced gender employees because I was never disappointed with the quality, enthusiasm, and quality of work that having that mix produced, and why it made us all successful. Besides the fact that it was a lot of fun with such a diverse group.

I hope Jared Mauldin will lead wherever he works at, and takes that mentality with him, he will not be sorry.