Oh no I'm sorry for the lack of clarity, that was certainly not what I'm implying. They do, and it's an extremely unfortunate problem that we ought to do something about. I was merely suggesting that these differences we tend to eagerly attribute to biology (a la James Damore) could very well be caused by a bunch of cultural and societal factors, of which bullying could be one.
Also, over the last two decades there has been a significant increase in cultural recognition and representation of male "nerds," as people who belonged to that category have gained positions of influence, thanks to the tech boom in the 90s, which can sometimes inspire students to pursue their interests despite the bullying. The lack of such representative role models for young females is disconcerting and could even cause some people to be slightly more affected by the bullying, because perhaps they don't know a female who works in STEM or know of anyone in recent years who made it big, and simply didn't know it was possible to go against the social tide (which happens all too frequently.)
All in all, I think there are a lot of factors at play here and reducing it to one cause seems like wilful ignorance at best.
How could you even know that it wasn't? Besides, kids never got bullied for wanting to become engineers, kids got bullied for all of the hyper-focused interests and trait expressions that makes them in to good engineers.
Because the cultural zeitgeist is pretty much entirely for the things stereotypically dumped on in past decades. Because STEM's importance is axiomatic in the same culture. Because the arts/humanities/SocSci outgroup is far more universally derided upon (the merits of that derision are not relevant to this discussion).
The culture you're describing sounds like something that might arise in SV, but trust me it doesn't really describe America... Propaganda campaigns rarely set what kids think is cool.
The impact of all of these weird pro-STEM programs is a really complicated discussion, but let me suggest that it doesn't really make high school any easier for the vast majority. (The social structure of kids doesn't really look to DuPont for ideas about which way is up...) Your response almost reminds me of how some people are feeling left out of minority help programs ("what did I do to deserve a landscape devoid of scholarships," that kind of thing.) without realizing exactly how little help those programs really provide. In a sense, overestimating the effectiveness of a response to privilege so harshly that you think the privilege has been reversed.
>The culture you're describing sounds like something that might arise in SV, but trust me it doesn't really describe America... Propaganda campaigns rarely set what kids think is cool.
I didn't mention my geographic location (Toronto) or the root causes of the cultural shift (I can't speak to that), so these are some strange assumptions to make. I'm also not really following the rest of your argument, tbh.
In any case, I stand by my argument that this:
>are you implying that male students who go for stem don't face bullying akin to being "geeky" or "nerds"? Please...
is a fairly tall order in 2018. Positioning yourself as someone who seeks a career in STEM, regardless of your gender, is not marking yourself out for bullying, and hasn't been for a long time.
Also, over the last two decades there has been a significant increase in cultural recognition and representation of male "nerds," as people who belonged to that category have gained positions of influence, thanks to the tech boom in the 90s, which can sometimes inspire students to pursue their interests despite the bullying. The lack of such representative role models for young females is disconcerting and could even cause some people to be slightly more affected by the bullying, because perhaps they don't know a female who works in STEM or know of anyone in recent years who made it big, and simply didn't know it was possible to go against the social tide (which happens all too frequently.)
All in all, I think there are a lot of factors at play here and reducing it to one cause seems like wilful ignorance at best.