The Latest Painful Letter from a Victim of Reverse Discrimination

Because I've written widely on the topic of discrimination against men, I receive many letters from victims of it. Here's one I just received and found particularly painful to read.

Thank you, Dr. Nemko for being brave enough to write about reverse discrimination against white males. I'm writing here to provide yet one more case for what must be a very thick file.

My experience with reverse discrimination against white males started way back in the early 80s. In my interview for a job at the National Forest Service, the interviewer literally said to me that I wouldn't get hired because I was a white male. Indeed, two women without degrees (I had a forestry degree) got hired and I didn't.

More recently, I've suffered terrible discrimination in the pharmaceutical industry. I developed terrible back pain and so I requested to work part-time. Even though countless women at the company are granted permission to work part-time/job share, merely because they want to spend more time with their kids or simply don't want to work full-time, my more seriously based request was denied. H.R. told me, off the record, that part time/job shares were only for women. And don't think I was a bad employee--I have a 4"-thick collection of my accomplishments.

I tried litigation against my first company but no attorney would touch reverse discrimination. They told me they were afraid of being labeled sexist.

Finally, I got myself hired by a competing company, where I became the very first male job share. A colleague told me that my boss (a woman) hated me for being the first male job share. She did in fact try to make me go full time and insisted I get an MRI and EMG to prove I needed to stay part-time. I did so, which revealed two types of spinal stenosis, nerve damage on my whole right side, my spinal cord being pushed into my spinal canal in at least two places and herniated discs. I have extreme pain in my spine (cervical and lumbar) and both legs and arms.  As I said, women get to work part-time merely by saying they wanted time with their kids.

I have more experiences to share. It is so sad that political correctness is now so dominant in America. No longer are we solely judged on our efforts and result but on whether you're a woman or a minority. I'm sure that this issue is one of the unspoken reasons for America's decline and China and India's rise. I'm certainly glad I don't have a son. It would be terrible bringing him up in today's world.

Rich Scheben
mtmountains@gmail.com