Is it acceptable for a professor to tell male students to not think that they are smarter than female students? The situation occurred  in the first lecture of an undergraduate course in a STEM field at an university.

The professor said that there are less than 20% female students in the class, while the usual ratio is 40% (across fields and different academic degrees). The topic was brought up to "discuss microaggressions", such as letting female students do the easier tasks in group work. It should be noted that there is no selection of students for the field of study at the university (apart from a high school diploma) and AFAIK there also is none for the course. 

Then the male students were told to "not think they are smarter than their female neighbor", that "your female neighbour not asking questions does not mean that she is not following, maybe she is a lot smarter than you think" and that the professor is much better at the field than all of the male students (the last part was told with a smirk, not sure if it was a joke or a sign of satisfaction) and it was finished with a "GO GIRLS".

These main reasons why I find  this offensive/disrespectful: 


The students were viewed and addressed primarily through the lense of
group membership, and not as individuals. 
Replacing "male" with any other group makes the statements offensive or absurd.
While the instructions to not look down on/patronize female students
are correct, they are (in my view) indirect accusations of sexism.
The contents of the talk, which took 5-10 minutes, were not related to the lecture and thus
were a waste of time for students. The issue might be important, but I was there to learn different contents.


Is my view justified? Is such behavior acceptable for a professor? Should I let the professor know the way I feel?
(edited this answer to consider some points raised in the comments and try to address OP more constructively)

Yes, it is acceptable for a professor to work to counter the effects of gender discrimination.

Yes, it is acceptable for a professor to warn a male-predominant class to not discriminate against women by giving them the "easy" tasks.

The professor is not accusing you as an individual of sexism, they are pointing out researched ways in which women are discriminated against, especially in STEM areas where women are under-represented.

Although your initial reaction was that this was a waste of time, I think you can use this experience and the feedback you get here as an opportunity to reflect - it seems from your comments that you are open to this.

I'd suggest you try the implicit bias test from Harvard, I was surprised by how much implicit bias it showed that I have. Some research has shown that people who take this sort of test are more introspective about their own biases afterwards. Even if you show little bias on that test, it may be instructive to see how much bias is seen in the population as a whole because people tend to underestimate bias experienced by other groups.

I don't think having implicit bias is something that reflects poorly on any individual, it's more of a product of society. What reflects on individuals is whether they try to become aware of the biases experienced by others and how their own implicit biases might influence their behavior.

I think your professor was trying to point out some of these biases to make students in the class more aware of them. It seems unlikely to me that any men in the course would literally think to themselves "Let's give the women the easy/secretarial tasks in group work!" (and if they do, they are probably never going to be convinced otherwise) - instead, they might accidentally do it by simply not thinking. By simply thinking about it more, and even by asking this question here, it seems to me like your professor was successful, even if you ultimately decide that you disagree with the approach.



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