“What’s happening to the men?

It’s an honest question. While women have been soldiering onward in search of education and equal pay, men surely haven’t been sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Or have they?

While female aspirations have been raised a thousandfold in the past decades, aspirations for men have declined.

Men have been VIPs since the beginning of time. Obviously, every president has been a man. Where else is there to go but down?

Growing up, boys are taught that expectations are fluid and not to worry because there are jobs out there.

Girls learn quickly that if they don’t excel, they won’t succeed. I know. I’ve been there, and I’ve done that.

We need to raise expectations for men. It’s not enough to just get by anymore — now, you’ve got to beat the rat race. And right now, the girls are running harder.”

I was very offended at her ascertain that men have been “twiddling their thumbs” throughout history. Actually, not really offended… I’m horrified that after thousands and thousands of years, Amy Gordon of The Auburn Plainsman, has figured out our secret: We’ve been slacking since the beginning of time. Ms. Gordon is right. I haven’t had to work or study a single day of my life and I owe it all to being born a man, every success has been given to me, just like every other man in history.

Ms. Gordon mentions in her article that women still make up a small number of engineers.

“Admittedly, in fall 2005 men vastly outnumbered women in Auburn’s business and engineering programs.”

We engineers are very thankful for this. We would absolutely HATE having women in our classes. When in class, we men are always saying stuff like “Good thing there aren’t any women folk around here!”… then we chomp on our cigars throughout class, while twiddling our thumbs. We don’t actually do any work in the engineering classes… after all, we are men.
Actually, we do have one class we have to pay attention for. During every engineer’s sophomore year, they have to take a class explaining how to outsource engineering work to female engineers in India. Other than that, life for engineers… and all men for that matter…. is cake.

You may have heard rumors from time to time about the existence of female engineers. In fact, there was a movie made not long ago called “Flightplan” about a lady engineer… yeah, I know…. Hollywood comes up with the wackiest movie ideas.

Some of you may know women who “claim” to be engineering students, but I assure you, it’s just an elaborate hoax between the university and the few females involved. Some of these hoaxes can be pretty elaborate. Last month, my girlfriend actually made me sit through an entire graduation ceremony where she received her fake aerospace engineering degree. It amazes me how far Auburn goes to make the government think women are actually getting fancy degrees. Don’t be fooled, it is a scientific fact: women can’t do integrals unless it has something to do with finding the surface area of the casserole they’re making for their man that evening.

Anyways, in all seriousness, it’s good to hear women are getting more degrees and moving up the corporate ladder. Lets just make sure they achieve equal pay on their own merit through free enterprise and not because some editor whined about male oppression. It’s too bad certain editors have to resort to cheesy man-hating, girl-power articles that say girls work harder than guys.

I guess I’m just sad I don’t get to be a VIP just because I’m a man.

E-mail mark at mark@theauburner.com