rheya19

The person is not invalidating anyone's experiences by asking more questions, but by not listening to the answers.
I'm glad I stayed out of the debate since it went precisely as I had predicted. But a short version of my reply to some of the more outrageous posts above would be as follows: I don't have a penis, and don't expect to grow one any time soon (nor would I want to). Any system that inherently advantages men simply by virtue of them being men is one that I would fight against, because it inhibits my own growth and development, as well as that of my students and friends. The idea that I should "adjust" to a system that disfavors me by its very nature could only be uttered by someone blinded by their own privilege. The (wrongheaded!) belief that e.g. women aren't good decision makers or whatever other bullshit was written above is a symptom of this ailing system. Recasting the debate in terms of "evidence" (male) vs "emotion" (female) is likewise misguided. But in my experience having this kind of discussion is simply useless: it's too abstract. Young men, find a young female scholar (poc scholar, disabled scholar, etc) near you -- a fellow student, a postdoc in your lab, an assistant professor, etc -- buy her a coffee and *ask her* about her experiences. *Listen* to the experiences of women in your field. Do some reading. Develop an awareness. It's totally fine to be skeptical and ask questions, but you have to be willing to listen to the answers. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. 

Fear us. 

Fear us. 

At my program you have the opportunity to teach intro to composition with your own class of 15-20 students (the university uses grad students to let all undergrads be able to take composition in a smaller class setting.) If you do so, you get a week of teaching orientation before and weekly professional development meetings during your first semester teaching it. Most religious studies grad students are TAs for religious studies courses, though, and training is up to the professor. Sometimes we can TA for professors outside of our departments as well, since we do a lot of interdisciplinary work anyway.
After we finish our exams, we can apply to teach a course independently and even suggest our own curriculum. I'm looking forward to designing a course around early Christianity and material culture someday!

Emotional appeal is not fallacious. It's human. I could appeal to someone to not yell at someone else because they're hurting that person's feelings, or to support war refugees on the basis of empathy for the refugees' emotional trauma, and those would not be fallacious arguments. Emotion is not necessarily false. It is simply another way of interpreting the world and other people. And the inability to accept others' emotions as reason to treat them with dignity (ie believing they are being discriminated against and are unhappy about it despite not providing you a data set and chart) is neither mature nor healthy.

Fear us. 

Fear us. 

Well, would you support making the nursing and teaching fields more competitive and less cooperative in order to entice more men to join these professions?
Work environments are not static entities. They adapt through time, largely through innovation. The current system may not be the best but it's certainly changed organically countless times based on what works and what doesn't. 
No one automatically gets more respect and recognition because they present as male or have a male name. That just simply does not, or very very rarely, exists. However, some environments or systems may favor personality traits - such as disagreeableness - that are more predominant in male populations, hence benefit them. However, that doesn't necessarily mean there is discrimination. In fact, it could just be a pareto-optimal situation that favors a certain kind of person which is causing a certain gender imbalance. There's a significant difference. 

There's no such thing as "male" and "female" professions. Women are pushed to professions such as nursing and teaching because as infants we are conditioned to be "motherly and caring", while men are conditioned to be aggressive and build stuff. Men are not gifted with special math brains, they just grow up being more exposed to logic-based games and such. Also, competition over cooperation in science (and in most places) is bad for everyone.
Work environments are dynamic, but they change according to the views of whomever is in charge. The system has evolved organically to favor men because men have always been in charge of these fields.
Regarding your comment about men not being regarded with more respect, it is not true. Various studies have shown (some were posted here if I'm not mistaken) that men get more credibility than equally qualified women. You may not notice because you are a man and are blind to the microaggressions women in academia suffer in their everyday lives, but please stop denying our experiences, you're part of the problem.

Are you seriously saying that women are incapable of making decisions quickly? Wow! You must know that such generalized beliefs are a clear example of the biases which you personally possess against women.
P.S. Your crude language? Precisely an example of the biases which keep women out of STEM and other male-dominated fields.

So I think @TakeruK covered a lot of what I was going to contribute (their point about microaggressions really hit home for me as a woman in STEM) but I also wanted to say that these statements above don't really match up with what I and other women in STEM have experienced, especially the latter statement about sexist behavior being constrained to the older generations. I actually experienced behavior by male graduate students that are approximately my age (mid 20s-ish) during one of my prospective school visits that frankly can be considered sexual harassment, and unfortunately this experience made my school choice for me. If I experienced the type of behavior I did during a short visit, that made me highly concerned on the type of environment I would be in for my time as a doctoral student. I was so surprised and disappointed by this because luckily in biology I don't experience a ton of sexism and never before from peers my own age. The experience left me drained and feeling like I was treated as so much less than a colleague. It was unprofessional and extremely insulting to me as a highly qualified prospective student.
Before this experience I was always aware of possible sexism from the older men in my field, but now I realize that it unfortunately is still found in younger men. And I also realize how being treated as less than a colleague can make you feel worthless and can make you feel like the science that you do doesn't matter one bit.
Also I would like to add that even if there isn't "active discrimination" occurring, the passive and unconscious discrimination that women often experience can itself make you question whether or not you belong in the field or make you feel very frustrated that others still see you and your work differently because you are a woman. One example I heard from a colleague was that after her presentation a male professor came up to her and complimented her on the fact that she didn't do several things he was on the lookout for (such as not using the word "like" too much). While she wasn't completely sure that this was said because she was a woman, it did make her feel that the only reason he felt he had a right to say this was because she was a woman and the presentation behaviors he was on the lookout for were generally associated with feminine mannerisms. This, I think, relates back to the statement you previously made that "masculine qualities" are preferred in STEM. So just because a woman presents in a fashion that may have some uniquely feminine mannerisms/speech patterns, that makes her presentation less than (at least in this example)? That is sexist - even if it isn't "active discrimination."

I agree with you. Upward trajectory is good, but I don't think that means we should be content / think that our work is done.
I see a huge juxtaposition of ideas here. You say that the system isn't perfect and has traditionally favoured men. This is discrimination against women. (The system doesn't only favour men, as you point out). Telling people to adapt to the system nicely glosses over the real issue (in my opinion), which is why is it that men like me get to benefit from a system that favours me? I don't want to be part of a system where I automatically get more respect and recognition because I present as male and have a male name. So I think I should work to change it, not demand that everyone change to the system that conveniently already favours me. In addition, how do we even know that the current system is actually the best one? If we were truly scholars/innovators and we desire to see a better world, we would not be afraid to lose our male privilege in order to create a better system.
Discrimination is not just overt actions like you have said here. And by the way, I have seen men in their 20s and 30s have the same attitudes and mentalities that you ascribe to these old guys. I agree that I notice it much more in the older generation of scholars but I don't think it's safe to say that all (or even a majority) of these people will disappear in the coming decades. For example, one case of overt sexism I know about from my school was spoken by a young assistant professor.
Perhaps you have heard of micro-aggressions? I only started to notice them more and more in recent years when I started to be more involved in addressing these issues and listened/read to more women about their experiences. They are little actions that generally create an impression on a woman (or minority group) scientist that suggests they don't belong in science. They are often unintentional in the sense that the person doing it does not intend to cause harm and often come from a system where there is already an imbalance in demographics.
Each micro-aggression on their own is usually pretty innocuous. You can often chalk it up to some other reason that isn't sexism. But the problem is that women and other minority groups face many of these throughout their career, much more than men, and it could lead to pushing these thinkers out of the field for no reason other than their gender. Here's one example article (although the article seems to focus on some of the more direct micro-aggressions): https://www.nature.com/news/speak-up-about-subtle-sexism-in-science-1.19829 and some stories shared because of the article: http://www.speakyourstory.net/stories
The article also makes an interesting point. The author tells a story from when her colleagues question her math background. She isn't sure if it was because of her biology background or because of her gender. If a man was questioned by his colleagues in the same way, he likely would have not wondered if it was because of his gender, only because of his training. The article mentions this as an example of not a microaggression, but it is an example of the not-overt discrimination I mentioned above. We are not operating in an level playing field because women (in this example, but is true for other minority groups too) due to this. (e.g. see also: http://mahalonottrash.blogspot.ca/2014/10/race-and-racism-why-wont-you-believe-me.html for a similar discussion).

So you feel that you got burned, which is the crux of your frustration.  That is to say that you are upset that the woman with the lesser application got into the same caliber of program as you while the woman with the same application as you got into the better program.  If you examine yourself and not the situation you'll likely find that you are suffering from a case of entitlement; for what-ever reason you feel you deserve a better program.  Ask yourself this:  instead of comparing yourself to those two women what if they were men instead?  
Now, is the situation you present justifiable?  I dunno.  What I do know is that all three of you are obviously otherwise qualified.  You do not know what exactly qualified the woman into the better program.  Perhaps she has interest in area of mathematics and/or prospected an area of research that is not only different from yours but also one that just happened to line up with what her program was looking for.  Perhaps she better sold herself in her SOP or had stronger LORs.  Maybe she was found to be interesting during the interview or maybe the person who brought her on board was a woman, too?  And if so, good for them.
 

Two minutes on google, and this is all I'm going to contribute to this debate at this point. I've been active for about four years now in a study that has collected actual measures from my field, and I can talk about actual real trends and numbers. Everyone else here seems to be talking about their own personal experience and little else, and having done this for several years now, I've learned that engaging in that debate is a waste of time. Find a female colleague near you and have a one-on-one conversation -- meaning as her about her experiences and really listen to the answer. You might learn something. 
http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-job-rather-jennifer
https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/woman-who-switched-to-man's-name-on-resume-goes-from-0-to-70-percent-response-rate-060816
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/25/463846130/why-women-professors-get-lower-ratings

I was going to write a thoughtful long response, as someone who is active in advocating against gender discrimination in my field. I have a lot to say, both from personal experience and based on a large dataset I've collected along with a committee I'm active on showing bias in almost all aspects of a woman academic's life once she graduates from college. (Before you ask for the data, it's confidential and we're in the process of writing up a paper, so if you're *actually* curious, ask me about it in a few months.) I'm in a field where there are more women undergraduates and about as many graduate students as male students. But fewer women get onto shortlists for academic positions; in fact, even once on a short list, they are still less likely to get hired than a man on the same list; fewer women currently serve as faculty members; fewer women get chosen to present papers at conferences; fewer women have their papers published in peer-reviewed journals; fewer women get invited to contribute to handbook articles, which feature the top scholars in the field giving an overview of their main research topic(s); fewer women are invited speakers at conferences; fewer women get their work funded by government agencies. I could go on.
But this poster thinks that being a woman magically opens all doors for a candidate, from sample size N=1, and not even having a full picture of that particular one. To which all I can say is, Wow. 

I do think the gender bias in the mathematical sciences (and especially theoretical branches and pure math) is disproportionate relative other STEM fields, but OP, coming in here with aggressive one-sentence arguments and no evidence will not lead to a productive discussion. If you're upset about your results and want to rant, this likely isn't the place because you will get shot down (as you can already see), and you'll probably feel even worse.
fwiw at least on the applied math side, every woman I know who has wanted to get a PhD has gotten in (programs of their choice or of similar caliber). That said, I think the bias starts way earlier than grad school applications (you're lucky if it starts in college), and I think it continues in perpetuity after them. Part of it is that nobody wants to address gender bias or sexual harassment (which disproportionately affects women) because it damages the reputations of people and institutions in myriad ways, and part of it is that mathematical science is still a boys' club. It's not limited to STEM. This is an article on gender bias in economics. I tried sharing it along my institutional channels and nobody gave a shit.

In my committee work, we have seen clear empirical evidence to the contrary. That is, we find women underrepresented in the candidates that were accepted to the program. In all of the STEM fields. We find further underrepresentation in the number of women that choose to attend (i.e. the fraction of women that attend our school is lower than the fraction of women accepted to our school). Our school is a top tier program. 
I don't think there is a bias against men at all in STEM admissions, if that is what you are implying. If we want to discuss Math specifically, I can point to many examples of gender bias against women / for men. For example, the Fields Medal in Math has been awarded 56 times since 1936, to 55 men and 1 woman (in 2014) [citation]. There will be another round of medalists this year so maybe that number will increase. Yes, I am aware that the Fields Medal is certainly a different type of competition than a graduate school application, but to match your statement, I would say that anyone familiar with the field of Math would contend that the field itself has a bias towards men and the Fields Medal list is just one example.
As @Comparativist said, can you provide any evidence for your claim that math graduate schools are biased towards admitting women?

I am about to finish my PhD, and I have been a TA for almost 7 years. (2masters+5PhD). I have worked with too lenient professors, too strict professors, and most troubling; I have worked with professors who would not eve bother to attend the lectures most of the time, canceling them with one reason or another and still being too strict on students because some of them have talked bad about them on social media or generally they want to prove that they are "hardcore" professors that needs to be feared and taken seriously. The only advise I can give you is; do not own the grading, do not own the class and do not own the course, do not own the students. They are not yours, but his. He can decide on whatever he wants as long as he is within his legal limits. Do it according to his wishes. In this changing of the grading scale situation, just inform him that this change might cause such problems with a level and nonemotional tone and let him decide.
You will feel much better if you do not personalize it.

As most people have noted above, there are multiple factors at work. 
SBC actually reports a respectable "vocational placement" out of the PhD  program.in general. However, I have a feeling that their choice of term does include those who work in ministry outside of an academic context as well to be counted. So before anything, find out the placement of the program into academic jobs. Those academic jobs are also probably at small Southern Baptist colleges. If that is where you want to end up, then SBC may be ok for you.
Also, the attrition rate of the program is around 40%. Multiple factors are probably involved. Money is definitely one of them. 
See http://www.sbc.net/cp/ministryreports/2017/pdf/seminaries/sbts/sbts-ats-report.pdf
 
If this is your first go around in your applications, I would highly encourage you to do all that you can between now and December and beef up your applications. Learn a language. Present papers/get them accepted to conference. Rework your statement. Add more research to your paper. Not getting in your first year does not doom you from not getting in anywhere. Also, while other threads have downplayed the UK PhD route, if you are going to go ahead and pay money to a SBC program for a PhD it may be worth your while to try your hand at doing a UK PhD (even part-time from distance). While it will not have the prestige of a Tier 1 US school, it will give you more opportunities than a SBC school. 
 

If you were going for law or business, or even a field where direct from UG to PhD was normal I would be more willing to consider options B or C, but religion works different. Ministerial jobs are middle class for a lot more education than is normally required to be middle class. The process isn't as competitive and prestige-driven as other professional programs. Also the type of knowledge that you need to succeed in a religion PhD is so particular that you can do fine with an unknown UG if you have other factors going for you (learn languages!).
My Recommendation, as someone who went from Tier 2 state to YDS is this: enjoy the free ride, learn a language or two, volunteer or find a social justice niche, and go to a top Divinity School for your MTS/MAR. Your masters level training will be the main point of interest for PhD adcomms. Save your money now and break the bank on HDS/YDS/Chicago later.

Unless you are looking at a major leap up (to an Ivy or t20ish) the UG distinction won't matter much.

Also, take up your prof's offer on independent studies; that is the stuff good LORs are made of.

Not that this is exclusive to grad school. I feel like much of my adult life has been on the swing between feeling bored, trivial, and useless and competent, respected, and motivated.

Does your university have a writing center? Often, there's one or a few folks who specialize in working with graduate students. If you can find someone there, try to meet with them regularly (e.g., once a week) to go over your writing. They may be able to help you identify specific patterns in phrasing which you could eliminate to make your writing more concise. 

I love Lego Grad Student!! I have been following Lego Grad Student and I do believe Lego Grad Student defended in the last academic year and is currently a postdoc. Furthermore, Lego Grad Student has accepted a TT job offer and will be an assistant prof this fall!!!! Of course, everyone asked if there will be Lego Assistant Prof, but the author is understandably very busy and does not want to commit to anything yet
 
 
 

Girl, I feel you SO MUCH. As a black female hoping to enter grad school next year, I keep wondering that maybe things will get better for my dating life there. But I have soooo lost hope on that. I had that same hope when entering undergrad, and I still have had not one drop of a romantic life. I've heard all the cliche advice ("It'll come when you're not looking", "You just need to put yourself out there", etc), and yet seen friend after friend get pursued by guys. Like, if you've ever watched Dear White People and seen that scene with Coco waiting for a guy to ask her out after all of her white friends have been, I feel like that describes my life.
And nobody ever understands how it feels. I have grown so much as a person to where, though I have moments of insecurity like a normal person, I am happy with the way that I look and who I am. I am not sitting around feeling as though I am a low-quality person because of this. It's just that one aspect of my life that I'm insecure about. Why don't boys like me? And it's never an easy question to deal with. You can never 100% know if it's the color of your skin (well, I suppose with real jerks you can), and that makes it all the more mind-gnawing. Like, is there something I can be doing better or is this just the life to which I'm resigned? It sucks too. If you're a successful black woman, then you're intimidating and emasculating. But if you're not, then you're just another  "ghetto" girl. There is no winning. I know I'm ranting, but with who my close friends are, it's not very often that I get to talk to someone else who gets it.