I have a close friend who expresses similar sentiments sometimes, as someone who is sometimes the target of DEI initiatives.
I've seen DEI hiring initiatives abused to paradoxical ends. Once department administration got into an attempt to basically hire someone using funds set aside for DEI, essentially with the plan to terminate them later, just to collect the support monies that came along with the position. The situation was complex but none of this had to do with hires' actual competence, it had to do with the available pool and this zealotry in unit aims at the time (basically the minority applicants were all working in areas different from the types of projects administration thought people should be working on).
In any event, it created this disturbing situation where an attempt to increase DEI by the higher powers that be was actually having the opposite effect on a hire arguably, by creating this opportunity for unit management to use them for support funds with no actual intent to support them in their career or keep them around long term.
This was infuriating to me, especially the opening anecdote. And I'm highly educated and married to someone from an "elite" university.
There's something ironic to me about that anecdote if true — it illustrates everything wrong with "meritocracy" in a nutshell. But people are people — it seems we always have to have some superficial way of rank ordering ourselves, even when it's to our own detriment.
I think that the first mistake people take when they read an article like this is that they immediately jump the gun and move from correlation to supposed causation.
Men who do work full-time, and who do get a higher education, may excel in other ways too. E.g. men who put in the effort to work a steady job probably are more likely to put in the effort to stay in shape than men who don't care to work. Or, another example, men who pursue a higher education often have to sacrifice things for it, and this perseverence/dedication points to a type of character that potentially could attract a mate. It demonstrates that a man is capable of putting in the work, and making a commitment.
I think instinct, consciously or not, impacts a lot of the choices people make, not only in dating but for life in general. Observing people on the street, for instance, our instinct is telling us a lot more than what we consciously see. There are prejudices we all form, subtle behavioral queues we subconsciously pick up on, and social assumptions we make without even knowing it, that all helps form the way we think of each and every person we know.
Working a steady job, pursuing a higher education. These are the observable qualities of likely dedicated, hard-working, virtuous men. Virtue, work ethic, and dedication are not generically measurable. But these qualities tend to make men successful, and successful men generally hold steady jobs and pursue higher education. Women want a successful man. I don't know any woman who wants to marry a loser. Why would she?
I've seen DEI hiring initiatives abused to paradoxical ends. Once department administration got into an attempt to basically hire someone using funds set aside for DEI, essentially with the plan to terminate them later, just to collect the support monies that came along with the position. The situation was complex but none of this had to do with hires' actual competence, it had to do with the available pool and this zealotry in unit aims at the time (basically the minority applicants were all working in areas different from the types of projects administration thought people should be working on).
In any event, it created this disturbing situation where an attempt to increase DEI by the higher powers that be was actually having the opposite effect on a hire arguably, by creating this opportunity for unit management to use them for support funds with no actual intent to support them in their career or keep them around long term.