It isn’t anti intellectualism, it is a overcorrection for the decades of insisting that going to college (and taking on massive debt in the US at least) isn’t worth it anymore. It isn’t saying that knowledge and learning are bad, but they aren’t as economically advantageous as they were a couple decades ago.

The trades are good for a fairly quick return, but you are correct that they and to take a physical toll and the pay is generally exaggerated.

Offices are full of misogyny, homophobiaz and other forms of bigotry too.

A better approach would be to promote both on their own positives and negatives, but humans tend to swing wildly from one extreme to another.