STEM and Women

The seemingly never-ending campaign to recruit more women into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continues in Australia. On November 26, 2025, the federal government’s Department of Industry, Science and Resources announced that it would invest another $9.77 million into the Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship program. According to the Department, the program supports “investment in gender equity initiatives that aim for lasting systemic change by eliminating barriers for women’s participation in STEM education and careers, and entrepreneurship.”

More specifically, the program will fund projects that:

(a) reduce and/or mitigate systemic and cultural barriers to participation in STEM education, careers, innovation and entrepreneurship by girls and women;

(b) reduce the multiplier effect of intersectional barriers to participation, development and leadership of girls and women in STEM education, careers, innovation and entrepreneurship;

(c) address inequality or discrimination against girls and women in STEM education, careers, innovation and/or entrepreneurship.

Psychology and …

Interestingly, a couple of weeks later, on December 15, 2025, the Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing announced funding of $16 million for its Postgraduate Psychology Incentive Program. This program is part of the government’s larger grant scheme called Addressing Critical Psychology Shortages. The scheme is intended to resolve current bottlenecks in the psychology training pipeline that are apparently impacting workforce availability and service delivery.

If one traces back the various rounds of funding associated with this scheme, one finds that a purpose of Round 1 of funding in 2024 was to support universities who create “additional postgraduate psychology places in courses which lead to general registration and can lead to relevant areas of practice endorsement.” Importantly, this round of funding was contingent upon universities demonstrating the ability to grow postgraduate student enrolments by at least 8.7%. However, unlike the STEM grants, no mention was made of student sex. Instead, the government stated that half the internship and supervisor trainings associated with the programs will be offered to “people in First Nations communities, culturally and linguistically diverse communities and people living in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia.”

Sex Bias in the “Underrepresentation” Argument

The main aim of the psychology workforce grants is to increase the number of student placements. Secondary aims appear to be to increase student enrolments in psychology and to create an overall more efficient psychology training pathway to meet society’s mental health needs. Thus, given that sex differences in proportional representations are the bases for other Australian education and career development grants, such as those aimed at increasing women’s representation in STEM, it is odd that sex differences in proportional representations were not considered in the desire to create an overall more robust and efficient psychology workforce.

In Australia, the proportion of university psychology students who are men (presumably ~20%) is significantly less than the proportion of university STEM students who are women (37%). Moreover, the proportion of registered psychologists in Australia who are men (19.6%) is not too drastically different than the proportion of persons employed in STEM jobs who are women (15%). Thus, Australian bureaucrats exhibit sex bias when they use “underrepresentation” as a basis for sex-specific education and career development grants in STEM but not in psychology.

The criticisms of the government’s philosophy do not end there.

Need vs. Luxury Grants

The “needs” put forward by the government in the STEM and psychology grants are not the same. In the psychology grants, the government has stated that a workforce shortage in the mental health sector exists, and the purpose of the grants is to resolve this societal need. For the Women in STEM grants, the government did not state that the purpose of the investment was to resolve a workforce shortage. Therefore, the Women in STEM grants appear to be luxury grants, influenced by gender ideology. Their motivation is political not practical.

This illustrates the depth of gynocentrism in the government. Even when there is a societal need that could be helped by using the “underrepresentation” philosophy, which the government uses regularly when it argues for women’s education and career development, it still will not adopt the philosophy. Doing so would show an explicit interest in men’s education and career development, and that is something that bureaucrats and academics are not willing to do.

Contradictory Aims

Another issue with these two grant schemes is that their aims somewhat contradict each other in terms of women’s workforce participation. By not framing the psychology grants in a male-specific way, the Australian government presumably believes that the psychology grants will incentive more women to enter and stay in the field of psychology. In fact, one media report implied that “a flood of female graduates” could be the solution to the psychology workforce shortage. Yet, resolving the psychology workforce shortage by increasing the number of female workers conflicts with the idea of getting more women into STEM fields. There are only so many women around, and most of them prefer psychology over STEM when given a choice.

Men in Psychology

In terms of overall bodies that could be recruited to enter psychology to resolve a workforce shortage, many male bodies in the community are available. Fewer men than women are enrolled at Australian universities, with men comprising 43%of students. Thus, there is a larger pool of non-university men than women to incentivize to enrol in university to study psychology. Also, of the men who are already enrolled in universities, many of them are studying topics other than psychology. Thus, the Australian government could incentivize male university students to switch fields to psychology. Such incentives might appeal to male students who are “on the fence” about different career options or who have equal interest in psychology and another field.

Nevertheless, sex differences in vocational interests and preferences exist, and they are rooted in biology. Consequently, incentives and other social engineering schemes will only go so far in changing proportional representations in vocations. In one survey of more than 45,000 high school students in Australia, males ranked psychology as their 17th most popular career choice, whereas females ranked psychology as their top choice. Moreover, males rated six different engineering fields in their top 20 careers, whereas females did not rate a single engineering field in their top 20. Thus, neither STEM nor psychology should be expected to exhibit equal male and female representations.

Still, if the government is going to use workforce “diversity” as a reason for recruiting more women into STEM, then the same rationale ought to apply to the field of psychology, and patient preferences support doing so. One study of approximately 2,000 men in Australia found that 19.1% of the men prefer a male psychologist. In a different study, 17% of men and 5% of women indicated that they prefer a male psychologist. In both studies, approximately 60% of individuals did not have a preference for the sex of their psychologist, meaning that they would happily talk to either a male or female psychologist, whereas approximately 20% of men and 34% of women said that they would prefer to talk to a female psychologist. Thus, unlike the Women in STEM grants, which are luxury grants, there is a practical reason that might justify the psychology workforce grants being sex-specific: consumer demand for male psychologists.

Nevertheless, government incentives alone will not be enough to cause large numbers of men to start swarming to university psychology departments. Part of men’s arrival in those departments is likely predicated on those departments uprooting the misandry and anti-male bias that exists in them. Few men of healthy self-esteem will want to dedicate their life’s work to a field and professional community that continually bashes them. Such men do not want to learn about and implement masculinity measurement tools that are rigged from the start. Such men do not want to care for boys and men using feminist-informed guidelines. Such men do not want to read academic papers on “male privilege,” “mankeeping,” “mansplaining,” and other topics that reflect a misguided understanding of human nature.

Evidence of the disconnect between men and academia, particularly the humanities departments, is all around us. One male student recently described his experiences in a psychology program as one of feeling unwelcomed, isolated, monitored, and silenced. Similarly, I was recently contacted by a male psychology student in Australia who expressed frustrations with the program that he is enrolled in. He told me that the university that he attends regularly pushes DEI and gender pay gap propaganda on him. He added that his psychology coursework often includes anti-male, anti-white, and anti-heterosexual asides. The man said that he is thinking about dropping out of the program. He asked me if I was aware of any psychology programs that do not push critical and feminist theories onto students. Sadly, I did not have a positive answer from him.

Government bureaucrats and university administrators also do not have positive answers for men like this, namely, because they do not care. They are not interested in hearing his concerns. They believe that they are doing a fantastic job – sex-biased grants and all.

Related Content at The Nuzzo Letter

SUPPORT THE NUZZO LETTER

If you appreciated this content, please consider supporting The Nuzzo Letter with a one-time or recurring donation. Your support is greatly appreciated. It helps me to continue to work on independent research projects and fight for my evidence-based discourse. To donate, click the DonorBox logo. In two simple steps, you can donate using ApplePay, PayPal, or another service. Thank you.

Thanks for reading The Nuzzo Letter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jameslnuzzo.substack.com