Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers • Hacker News Board

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#271

Post by tptacek » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 1:56 PM UTC

exstudent2 wrote: post #112

harryh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, what is the largest # of consecutive hours you have been responsible for a young child? I love my son and watching him progress over the last 11 months has been amazing but the day-to-day of raising a child can be mind numbingly boring.

I know it's boring and very, very hard work. Which is why I believe that we should support stay at home moms (and dads) by elevating the position in society and recognizing the hard and rewarding work it is. Going back to a career and paying someone to take care of your child is quite frankly the easy way out. Women leaving the workplace to raise kids should be seen as a victory, not a "problem" that needs to be fixe…

What do you think happens when your kids reach school age? You can kid yourself that changing diapers is part of some noble struggle (it is not), but there's no way to fool yourself during the 7 hours you'll spend waiting for them to get back from school. And, as they get older, those 7 hours become 9, sometimes 12, as they join clubs and go hang out with friends.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#272

Post by dagw » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:01 PM UTC

larrik wrote: post #33

throwaway293810 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you might as well just stay home But why does it have to be the woman who stays home? Why is this just the tacit assumption? I'd love to see not just solid support for moms at work, but solid support / encouragement for dads at home: paternity leave up-to-par with maternity leave, a normalization and acceptance of stay-at-home dads where desired, etc. It's kind of amazing how prevalent the assumption is that childr…

As someone who has taken the kids out and about during the day, I have to say that it's awkward . You end up being the only man in a group of dozens of women with their kids, or you are the guy at the playground sitting by himself while his kids play on it (which looks a ton like you don't have any kids to an outsider). Society, at least in most of the U.S. is frankly a bit hostile to males as the caregivers. I can't…

Here in Sweden I'd say it's always basically 50/50 when I take my kid to the playground, no matter what time of day. Make it easier for dads to take paternity leave and more will do it and it will become more common and stop being awkward.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#273

Post by MollyR » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #122

H0n3sty wrote: post #117

What would people think if the genders were reversed and this institution was discriminating against women and only helping men? Women have a far larger presence in other fields like biology and education, but you don't see new organizations popping up every other month to change that in favor of men. Discrimination like this should be illegal.

The reason women dominate in certain fields is that those fields were generally seen as less important, so women were pushed into them. E.g., doctors were men, women were nurses, and there was an enormous pay and prestige difference between the two. (Hint: it did not favor the nurses.) If you're interested in learning more, researching "pink ghetto" will get you started.

This is a little weird comment to me. I have lots of friends who are nurses that make 90k and higher on the east cost, and have way more prestige,class, respect from other people than me a software engineer.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#274

Post by belorn » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

facepalm wrote: post #248

belorn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it quite interesting that a similar number of 50% of men who enter the teacher profession also leaves while the number for women is about half. In stark contrast however, the quote text, the theory on why men drops out of female dominated professions share nothing in common with the theories on why women leave male dominated. In a 2009 report by the Swedish national agency, they argue that the reason why peopl…

Do you have a citation for the "50% of male teachers leave"? I'd be interested in the details. Thanks!

Rapport 2009:7 R, Swedish national agency of higher education.

A start would be to read page 18 and down, but the conclusions on page 31 and 56 is what most of my comment is based on. To translate a section with title "why do men drop out":

"Our conclusion, somewhat simplified, are three main root causes. First, men who start studying to become a teacher can be less convinced in their decision, because they are walking outside societies norms and are not doing a typical male job, and thus the decision to become a teacher is questioned from the beginning. The second reason is that men are faced with a traditional feminine culture which they either have to assimilate or rebel to, both which makes life more difficult. Thirdly, there are few male role models compare to female role models."

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#275

Post by foldr » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:10 PM UTC

HarshTruth wrote: post #206

DanBC wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see people fighting there for equal rights. every time the gender imbalance comes up on HN someone makes the same comment you have. Did you try Google? Because those programmes are trivially easy to find. People will often make a similar comment about the lack of programmes to get women into construction or mining. But those programmes are really easy to find too.

Well clearly they aren't as common as ones for tech, or else OP would have seen them. If both types of programmes have the same presence it is vanishingly unlikely that OP would not be aware of them. So either he is a liar or your overestimate their presence..

>Well clearly they aren't as common as ones for tech, or else OP would have seen them.

Obviously false, since OP has more interest in tech and most likely reads tech-specific sources of news (like this website).

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#276

Post by MollyR » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

larrik wrote: post #7

Women who are halfway into their careers in tech are leaving at a rate of 56%, which is more than double the quit rate of men. One reason for the high quit rate may be that women have a much lower chance of being promoted, even when they have the same amount of experience and tenure as their male peers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. So around the time a lot of people have kids? They probably…

I've never been pregnant myself (yet).

But I have friends who are new mothers, who say they can't imagine leaving their newborn child, who they carried for nine months. It's a special bond, and most of them wanted to be stay at home moms after.

Only a few went back to work because they had financial issues due to costs from delivery complications.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#277

Post by exstudent2 » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:20 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #271

exstudent2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's boring and very, very hard work. Which is why I believe that we should support stay at home moms (and dads) by elevating the position in society and recognizing the hard and rewarding work it is. Going back to a career and paying someone to take care of your child is quite frankly the easy way out. Women leaving the workplace to raise kids should be seen as a victory, not a "problem" that needs to be fixe…

What do you think happens when your kids reach school age? You can kid yourself that changing diapers is part of some noble struggle (it is not), but there's no way to fool yourself during the 7 hours you'll spend waiting for them to get back from school. And, as they get older, those 7 hours become 9, sometimes 12, as they join clubs and go hang out with friends.

I'll stand by my statement that the hard work you put in when raising an infant is rewarding. Just as cutting firewood to stay warm in the winter would be, but I digress...

When they go to school is when the stay at home parent has time to indulge in their actual interests. By that time, if one partner is working and the other is SAH, the finances should be pretty stable so the at home partner should be able to enjoy their free time a bit.

I still maintain that a huge part of the problem is that people tie their identity to a career. When the child goes to school, the at home partner should not just sit around watching tv and getting existentially miserable. They should start working on their interests. It's really a valuable opportunity and a bit of a pay off for all the hard work they did when the child was an infant.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#278

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

exstudent2 wrote: post #277

tptacek wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think happens when your kids reach school age? You can kid yourself that changing diapers is part of some noble struggle (it is not), but there's no way to fool yourself during the 7 hours you'll spend waiting for them to get back from school. And, as they get older, those 7 hours become 9, sometimes 12, as they join clubs and go hang out with friends.

I'll stand by my statement that the hard work you put in when raising an infant is rewarding. Just as cutting firewood to stay warm in the winter would be, but I digress... When they go to school is when the stay at home parent has time to indulge in their actual interests. By that time, if one partner is working and the other is SAH, the finances should be pretty stable so the at home partner should be able to enjoy…

[deleted]

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#279

Post by tptacek » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

exstudent2 wrote: post #277

tptacek wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think happens when your kids reach school age? You can kid yourself that changing diapers is part of some noble struggle (it is not), but there's no way to fool yourself during the 7 hours you'll spend waiting for them to get back from school. And, as they get older, those 7 hours become 9, sometimes 12, as they join clubs and go hang out with friends.

I'll stand by my statement that the hard work you put in when raising an infant is rewarding. Just as cutting firewood to stay warm in the winter would be, but I digress... When they go to school is when the stay at home parent has time to indulge in their actual interests. By that time, if one partner is working and the other is SAH, the finances should be pretty stable so the at home partner should be able to enjoy…

Cutting firewood to stay warm in the winter is practically the definition of pointless unfulfilling labor.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#280

Post by exstudent2 » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #279

exstudent2 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll stand by my statement that the hard work you put in when raising an infant is rewarding. Just as cutting firewood to stay warm in the winter would be, but I digress... When they go to school is when the stay at home parent has time to indulge in their actual interests. By that time, if one partner is working and the other is SAH, the finances should be pretty stable so the at home partner should be able to enjoy…

Cutting firewood to stay warm in the winter is practically the definition of pointless unfulfilling labor.

I think we have very different definitions of unfulfilling. Doing something hard to stay alive is the definition of fulfilling in my book. What does fulfillment mean to you? The task in and of itself has to be rewarding? I'm purely judging by the outcome of the task and not how difficult the task itself is.