+2. Founder of $XXB fintech. I had heard rumors about their shady practices, but I was young and dumb and was excited by the prospect of an acquisition (good thing it never materialized, in hindsight). Patrick has a proven history of using this ploy to just get more information on sensitive assets. After a couple months of talks with Patrick I found out my wife was having an affair with him. I've sent email after angry email asking him why, why he passed up my company and didn't have the decency to tell me he chose a better candidate, but have never gotten a response. I don't even want an apology, I just want Patrick to admit that he fucked my wife.
Men certainly aren't valued for being masculine, but what are they valued for, beyond what they can provide to other people? Nothing. Feminism took away the roles but didn't replace it with anything useful for men and valuable to others.
Capitalism invented the birth control pill and as a consequence the labor supply doubled, making men and women into fungible economic units. Feminists who worked to elevate human dignity are laudable, but unfortunately there were more entrenched interests at work.
>for men to feel valued just for being alive, not for any deed they perform or value they bring to others, just their intrinsic value
This is the void feminism left us with: men who provide nothing have no value and are at best invisible and at worst trash you avert your eyes from. It's not obvious that they're wrong.
Either we're not looking at the same DEI guidelines or this is disingenuous. It's not enough for a professor to merely state a commitment to fostering a respectful classroom environment permitting no disrespect to anyone's identity or dignity. DEI statements[0] don't want professors to merely block offensive and disruptive behavior, they want them to make diversity, equity, and inclusion a core part of teaching, research, and the candidate's personal life. A professor researching, for example, graph theory who merely creates a respectful classroom environment and treats students and research associates without distinction based on their identity doesn't meet these criteria. This results in a form of dog-whistling. Like all dog-whistling, it relies on the core message being subtextual.
It definitely is real for 95% of people, you just don't have it. I doubt you could draw well from imagination even with artistic training, so there's that. Everything else is just pure cope.
You must excuse me if I am not swayed by this since no one would expect university faculty to admit to the motives I described (such a letter filters out far more than just those who don't incorporate "diversity into their teaching practice" according to your institution's definition). Yours is exactly the bias I am speaking against.
They basically want you to swear loyalty to the Party, and even after that, if you're a straight white cis male your diverse experiences are judged insufficient and you won't get hired. Universities are no longer grounds for intellectual exploration; they're factories, and professors are assembly line workers pushing out tiny variations from the accepted ideology du jour.