THE FAIRER SEX

Short Stories on Male Privilege

No. 2

Equal Opportunities

'Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.

Luckily, this is not difficult.'

- Charlotte Whitton

The average human being has ten toes, two eyes, one breast, one testicle, half a cervix and half a penis. It follows therefore that, if any workplace contains breasts and testicles in unequal ratio, then some form of discrimination is afoot. And discrimination, as we know, is a Very Bad Thing. If testicles exceed breasts, then we have sexism, and something must be done pronto; while if breasts exceed testicles, then let's not trouble ourselves too much about it.

Enginex Engineering, where I worked, employed three hundred engineers. Now it is no secret that, amongst engineers, breasts are a rarity. This should not be confused with the fantasy world conveyed by Google Images. When Google began, they gave us what we searched for; today they give us what they think we should have. In other words, they give us the world they want, not the world we have. And in the world of engineering, which is the world we have, testicles stubbornly predominate.

Most engineers at Enginex Engineering had renewable short-term contracts: they hung in there, hoping for that much-coveted permanency. There was a recession, and therefore a hiring freeze - with one exception, though. After three weeks of a six-month contract, one engineer was transferred to permanent hire. Many of us had proven track records and were ideal candidates, but we could not apply for the job, as we knew nothing about it: everything was cloak-and-dagger. No advertisement; no interviews; no open competition. The engineer walked into HR a temporary hire, then walked out a permanent hire. We knew this, because the engineer's security badge had changed from green to blue.

The rumour-mill immediately went to full-throttle. There was never any real vacancy - it'd been jimmied open. The job was not a real job - it was a nonjob. There was no interview - it was all a put-up job. The engineer had not been hired on the usual salary grade, but two or three grades higher. The engineer was as thick as pudding, but was hired nonetheless. The hiring was a corruption of due process. And so on.

According to other rumours, these were calumnies. Rather, the engineer possessed some unusual skill which the company wanted desperately. It was therefore necessary to make an exception.

The problem, as it turned out, was sexism: too many testicles, too few breasts. Our management had realised that breasts, as well as testicles, are necessary to the design of internal combustion engines. 'If we had more breasts', they said, 'then we will solve knocking combustion gasoline engines'. 'If we had more breasts', they said, 'then we'll have reliable autoignition in homogeneous-charge compression-ignition engines'. 'If we had more breasts', they said, 'then we'd have a competitive advantage'.

Also, the Government had announced legislation mandating equal representation of breasts and testicles in all workplaces. That is, those workplaces in which breasts were underrepresented; for that is sexism. And in engineering, where the supply of breasts was miniscule, employers now fought over the latest crop of them.

I know what you are thinking: what happens, when supply is unequal to demand? You are wrong: Enginex Engineering would never pay a woman more than a man for the same work. And Enginex Engineering would never hire an engineer who's as thick as pudding, just because she's a woman.

Last week I attended one of those yawn-packed sessions on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the goal of which is to educate you out of your bigotry. This was in HR. Now in engineering companies, if male employees want to talk to female employees, it means a trip to HR. Why are HR departments overwhelmingly dominated by breasts? Well, that's just the way things are, and it's pointless to dispute it. Dispute it, and you're a bigot.

Around forty bigots were assembled, awaiting their re-education.

'Good afternoon', said the speaker. 'Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Janet Maylbascher, professor of Grievance Studies at Bogthorpe College. I daresay you'll already be aware of the utmost importance that Enginex Engineering attaches to gender equity. The training sessions I'll be holding every month are part of this admirable aim.

Professor Maylbascher loaded her first slide, The STEM Gender Gap.

'Gender representation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or STEM', she said. 'The workforce at Enginex Engineering is 75% male. Worse still, engineers here are 93% male. This inequity reflects the patriarchal bias of industry more generally. But oddly, in education, the opposite situation prevails. In schools, girls outperform boys in STEM subjects. And more girls than boys go on to higher education - they just don't study STEM. Well obviously we need to do something about this injustice.'

A second slide appeared, Reasons for the STEM Gender Gap.

'Efforts to narrow the STEM gender gap face ongoing problems. Gendered norms and gendered stereotypes are deeply ingrained. Perceptions of women engineers are negative. We must chip away at a problem that begins with negative influences at school, and extends into the workplace. This imbalance is the result of bias - not overt, as in the bad old days, but covert, in the form of discouraging information and hidden gender barriers. Not overt sexism in hiring, but rather covert - unconscious bias means that men are still being hired in preference to women. Women are 'othered' - seen as not belonging in STEM. Attempts to change subtle prejudices are resisted. There are few role models, networks or mentors for women. There is the stereotype threat; the phenomenon where women are encouraged to self-handicap, and to blame themselves for their failures. Or they have to bite their lip. Women still find that their gender defines their role. They face discrimination on a daily basis. They are seen not as engineers, but as women engineers. Or they're treated as second-class engineers. Downgraded, just because they're women.'

'That's not true', came a voice from the back. 'Not here.'

A third slide appeared, Benefits of Gender Diversity.

'A gender-diverse team is more productive, more creative, more efficient, more innovative and more likely to lead to gender-neutral outcomes. It is more likely to create products than meet people's requirements. To the contrary, a male-dominated team means missed potential - decisions are based on male experiences, male opinions and male judgements, leading to male-slanted bias.'

A fourth slide appeared, Bringing Women into STEM.

'Gender equity requires fifty-fifty representation in every walk of life. To ensure fairness, therefore, a range of grants, stipends and scholarships are only available to female students. The British Mechanical Engineering Society, for example, provides ten excellent studentships open only to women. The Civil Engineering Association has several female scholarships as well. There are also prizes for student projects undertaken in the final year of degree programs - as part of the drive for inclusion, only female students are eligible. Women are sticking up for themselves to get the respect they truly deserve - there are new and exciting organisations like the Association of Women Engineers, Girl Geek and Chix Who Fix. They offer a wide range of educational services and networking programs designed to foster professional growth and greater public awareness of women's contribution to engineering. Yes, there's a bright future ahead.'

'I don't think we got the "oppress women" memo', Geoff Gudgeon whispered to me.

'Well, that's the end of my talk', said Professor Maylbascher. 'We have plenty of time for questions.'

Geoff put up his hand.

'Many of these women-only scholarships have been going a long time', he said. 'I remember some of them from when I graduated twenty years ago. But the percentage of women engineers hasn't budged that much. Isn't that true?'

'Well, what you need to understand is that gender stereotypes have deep roots in our culture.'

'These special scholarships could well encourage women to enter fields that they may neither enjoy nor excel in. These funds are, after all, essentially bribes. Preferential perks of this nature are also given to universities, as a result of which academics are hired not through merit, but because they're women.'

'I don't agree', said Professor Maylbascher. 'That attitude is rather cynical. But even if that were the case, there's still a need to address past wrongs. Some bias may be necessary if we're to promote fairness.'

'I have a question about diversity', said another engineer. 'I have some quotes here from Thomas Sowell. Excuse me - did you just roll your eyes?'

'No, I did not.'

'I thought you did.'

'Well, I didn't.'

'I see. Well, what Thomas Sowell says is this. If there is any place in the Guinness Book of Records for words repeated the most often, over the most years, without one speck of evidence, "diversity" is a prime candidate. This word is a bludgeon in ideological conflicts. If there is ever a contest for words that substitute for thought, this one should be recognised as the undisputed world champion. The very idea of testing this wonderful, magical word against something as ugly as reality seems almost sordid.'

'Thank you, you've made -'

'What I'm coming to, if I may - manterrupt - is that we're an engineering company, and that in engineering, new ideas are quite rightly subjected to empirical verification - the entire process is data-driven and evidence-based. Otherwise, we couldn't possibly tell the best ideas from the worst ideas. Now I'd be ecstatic about the fifty-fifty demographic, if it were demonstrated that engineering companies with gender-parity do indeed perform better. But you did not cite any evidence. Or was I asleep?'

'The whole evidence thing is highly problematical, and much more complex than that', said Professor Maylbascher. 'Current evidence is unreliable, because of unconscious bias, male privilege and the patriarchy. '

'So in other words you don't know. You just want us to carry out some massive sociological experiment on this business. Possibly putting our jobs on the line.'

A voice from the fifth row said, 'I'm unclear how a woman will design an exhaust-gas recirculation valve any differently. It'll be just the same, if it's done properly. Or is there a female way of solving the Bernoulli equation?'

'I see we're out of time', said the professor. 'But I refuse to respond to sarcasm. If I'm not treated with respect, then I'll take it up with your management.'

On our way back to the office I told Geoff of my intention to write a short document exposing the errors in Professor Maylbascher's argument.

'If you want to commit hara-kiri', he said, 'Then go ahead.'

'Weren't you listening? She emphasised that management wanted feedback.'

'Yeah, right. Wokies invite feedback all the time, but what they really mean is feedback that they agree with - anything else is hate speech. I'd rather not join your remonstrance - I pushed my luck just now, but since I want to keep my job then I'll keep shtum, if you don't mind.'

I posted my thoughts on the company's website for Diversity, Inclusion and Equity. And what I said was this.

The STEM Gender Gap

Peter Wrench

1.      I believe that women should be engineers if they want to be. I also believe that women make just as good engineers as men. Nothing I say here controverts either of these points.

2.      Most engineers are still men, despite extensive efforts to recruit women. I wonder if there might be other explanations than prejudice or barriers or stereotypes. I think we should lay out all possible hypotheses and then scrutinise them carefully and individually, eliminating the false ones.

3.      Inequality of outcome might show inequality of opportunity, but not necessarily so. I believe there is a more sophisticated understanding of the STEM gender gap - one that is more respectful of women, and of the choices they make.

4.      Although men and women have similar abilities in STEM, they may just have different interests, different motivations and different preferences. If people are cable of doing a certain job, that still doesn't mean that they'll enjoy doing it or they'll want to do it. Consequently, the pool of women who want to be engineers is so much smaller than the pool of men who want to be engineers.

5.      Even when women study engineering, they tend to end up in the less technical and more administrative roles like project management. The more technical the role, the fewer the women. There are far more female biologists than female physicists. If there are sexist barriers in physics, then why are there no sexist barriers in biology?

6.      Men are more likely than women to be fascinated by fuel injectors, spark plugs, pistons and crankshafts. Men are more attracted to jobs dealing with 'things'; boys are more attracted to abstract or investigative pursuits, classifying, collecting. Women are more attracted to jobs dealing with people; girls are more attracted to humanitarian and altruistic goals.

7.      Boys and girls prefer different toys. Boys prefer construction sets; girls prefer dolls. We are told that these differences arise through socialisation and enculturation, and that this is wrong. And yet one-day-old boys will look more readily than girls at mechanical mobiles; and one-day-old girls will look more readily than boys at human faces.

8.      Similar preferences for human toys have been demonstrated in monkeys. Male monkeys are more to likely to play with mechanical toys like wheeled vehicles; female monkeys are more likely play with plush toys like dolls and animals.

9.      In other words these differences can arise quite independently of the social mechanisms so often invoked to explain them - out of neurobiological differences, say (genetic or hormonal). These differences seem to be innate, and may even have evolved from differential selection pressures on males and females, long before the emergence of a distinct hominid lineage.

I was proud of this: I'd diligently read the pertinent science literature, and watched numerous videos by Gad Saad and Jordan Peterson.

Over the following days I monitored my post for comments.

'What news on the Rialto?' asked Geoff, toward the end of the week.

'It's been three days now. Looks like a squib of the dampest sort.'

'Give it time, give it time. You're impatient for your immolation, aren't you. Someone's probably piling up the bundles of sticks as we speak.'

'Oh, here's the first comment. Hey, it's from Joanne.'

Joanne was the permanent-hire I mentioned earlier, the one with the remarkable skills that Enginex Engineering wanted so desperately; skills which remained a mystery to everyone else.

'No kidding! What does she say?''

' "I thought we'd moved on from this". '

Together we scrolled down the page. The comments were from men as well as women. 'You want to keep women in their place.' 'I bet you keep your wife chained to the kitchen sink.' 'You're just afraid that women can do better than men.' 'You are underestimating the skills of womankind.' 'As a woman, I see this as a personal attack.' 'This is a double standard - women are not monkeys, men are.'

'There aren't many supportive comments', I said. 'In fact I don't see any.'

'You speak like a green girl, unsifted in such perilous circumstance.'

'Do you know, numerous people have approached me in the canteen or carpark, saying that they agree with me. Why aren't they posting their comments on the website?'

'Are you a fan of Gary Cooper?'

'Sort of.'

'Have you seen High Noon?'

'A long time ago.'

'Well, Cooper goes round the entire town trying to raise a posse. The key moment, is when he realises that he's been deserted by everyone, even his friends, or those he thought were his friends, and he's now on his own. It's all in his facial expression.'

Someone posted my memo on the internet, which incited a social-media pile-on.

The Bogthorpe Gazette picked it up: 'Engineer writes anti-diversity memo.'

The national press then got hold of it. 'Institutional sexism in engineering', said the Guardian. 'Far-right activist defends male privilege.'

BBC News covered it. 'Women aren't interested in spark-plugs, claims far-right male supremacist'.

I received an email from the Chief Engineer, summoning me to discuss a 'possible violation of the company's Code of Conduct.'

When I left for the Chief Engineer's office, Geoff offered more of his customary support. 'Be of good cheer and play the man; you shall this day light such a candle in England, as I hope, by God's grace, shall ne'er be put out.'

'Fuck off.'

'Such repartee.'

I knocked on the Chief Engineer's door.

'Come in', she said. 'You know why you're here?'

'My memo.'

'Quite. What do you have to say for yourself?'

'Well, erm, I just think that, erm, well, I just think that everyone should be treated equally, and not judged according to their sex.'

'We agree on that at least. Go on'.

'Well, erm, discrimination doubtless exists, I don't deny it; I just don't think it can account for all disparities. I've done a lot of reading around this subject, and, well, erm, I've learned that many, erm, psychological differences between men and women are innate, at least to some degree - biological; instinctive. And I think, erm, that it's more helpful to accommodate these differences, rather than to deny that they exist.'

She sighed.

'Haven't you learned anything from your diversity training? There are no relevant cognitive, behavioural or psychological differences between men and women. As engineers, men and women are entirely fungible. Interchangeable.'

'The mental ability to manipulate three-dimensional objects - '

'Yes, that's well known - another tiresome excuse. Men are better at manipulating three-dimensional objects mentally - imagining what they look like from other angles. That's very useful and often necessary in engineering, especially mechanical engineering. But biology is not destiny. Some colleges give additional classes to help students - only women students, that is. If all students are given this additional tuition, then the men get even further ahead. Other than that, men and women are entirely interchangeable in engineering.'

'Then why must we hire more women engineers?'

'Well obviously because women are fifty percent of humanity, but only nine percent of our engineers.'

'But if women and men are entirely interchangeable - '

'Women rightly feel excluded; they see an engineering company as a men's club.'

'But if our engineers are nine percent women', I said, 'then I don't understand why that is wrong - about nine percent of engineering students are women. That is at least proof that we do not have sexist hiring practices.'

'It is sexist, because fifty percent of our engineers are not women.'

'It is surely not the business of Enginex Engineering to engage in social engineering.'

'That decision is above your pay grade.'

'It is surely sexist to hire a woman engineer for being female, rather than hire one for her knowledge of exhaust-gas recirculation systems.'

'No; we do not hire women engineers because they are women. We're a meritocracy, and we hire solely according to ability. But we'll only be a true meritocracy when fifty percent of our engineers are women.'

'So you're going to discriminate against men - by having quotas for women.'

'We don't have quotas - those would be illegal. We have preferences. When you hear equity, this means fair and impartial. What we're aiming for is equity for women and men - in that order. That means it's quite appropriate, given the present demographic, to hire women rather than men - all other things being equal, of course. The backlash to your memo is entirely understandable, as these imagined male-female differences work to the detriment of women. There's that old-fashioned patronising phrase, 'the fairer sex' - an archaic chauvinism which implies that women are emotional, vulnerable and neurotic creatures. Do you know, some of our female staff were so upset by your memo that they've had to have time off for stress. I know of two who've been given counselling. One I won't name has been diagnosed with PTSD. We can't have anyone claiming that women are emotional, vulnerable and neurotic creatures! We want a tolerant and inclusive workplace - where everyone feels welcome. In fact, I've got a duty to protect my staff against ideas that threaten them. This is fully detailed in our Code of Conduct, which all employees are expected to abide by. We need more diversity, and all employees must conform.'

'Now I'm confused. Have I transgressed by holding the wrong opinion, or by publishing the wrong opinion?'

'You have said that women engineers have biological traits that render them less suited to engineering. That is offensive and it is not okay. Suggesting that women are not the equal of men in STEM subjects is a very clear violation of our Code of Conduct. There's nothing men do as engineers that women can't.'

'Well I agree with that last remark. Even if there are average differences between male minds and female minds, then that has nothing to say about men and women as individuals. That's why we should judge people as individuals, rather than project the average characteristics of the group onto them. My memo does not say anything about individual women not being the equal of men in STEM. It just says that not as many women as men want to enter STEM.'

'That bit is at least true; but they won't come into STEM for a variety of reasons; stereotypes, for instance - ones that your stupid memo thoughtlessly perpetuates. I haven't got any more time to bandy words with you. There's been quite a lot of reputational damage to Enginex Engineering - I hope you're aware of that. Because of you, we're now portrayed as hive of misogynists'.

'My memo has been misreported, and deliberately so. I'm surely not responsible for that.'

'Nevertheless, I refer you again to our Code of Conduct - transgressors face a range of sanctions, up to and including dismissal.'

'Feedback from Professor Maylbascher's talk was explicitly solicited, if I remember rightly.'

'Feedback that doesn't cross the line, that is.'

'But how do we know where the line is?'

She looked up in the air for a few seconds, and then said: 'No, I'm not going to tell you were the line is. If I did that, you'd just go right up and keep testing it. It's for you to determine where the line is.'

I turned to leave her office.

'Remember, men still hold all the power', said the Chief Engineer.

(c) Cufwulf

Cufwulf@aol.com