Bias Interrupted

CHAPTER 5

Are you saying that white men have it easy? I don’t feel privileged

“As an older white male, I have faced significant reverse discrimination and find it very ironic that I’m told that I have some inherent advantage because of who I am. It’s nonsense and the exact opposite of what I have been confronted with.”

—White male engineer

The backlash against diversity is very real, though it varies a lot by industry. In our national surveys, engineers commented at a rate of over four times higher than lawyers that diversity was threatening the quality of their profession.1

Men in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) are more reluctant than women, and more reluctant than men in other fields, to accept evidence of gender bias.