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As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

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Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I thought having a nice home would get me a satisfactory social life. It didn't. How does that even make sense? Were you hoping to live around wealthier people and impress them with your nice sofa?

My mother had a great social life. It involved inviting people over, serving dinner, having the ability to allow people to stay overnight as guests. Replicating the nice dining table and means to allow for overnight guests failed to magically cause guests to appear. I never figured out what piece of the puzzle I was missing. My mother put a lot of emphasis on being able to serve her guests and make them comfortable a…

I don't know why people are reacting so negatively. It's a normal occurrence for there to be "people persons" who are great at creating and maintaining a social life and doing these kinds of events, and many of us introverts being unable to replicate that... (Actually, I personally am able to create a lot of friends, but it's mostly through the introvert's favorite venue - online chats)

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#302
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you cannot just ask. It's more complicated than that, as Amartya Sen laid out in many publications on his capability theory . People have "adaptive preferences".[1] For example, if you ask a women in a very poor rural region of India whether she wants to become an engineer, she might value the possibility far less than she would if that career choice was a realistic, valuable option for her in her current situati…

Maybe people don't always prefer what's best for them, but I believe that even when they don't, they are the best arbiter of that. In other words, maybe they don't know what's best for them but then neither does anybody else. I mean, when I talk about asking, you can make education part of the asking the question. I am certainly not against more education, like showing what is it like to be engineer. I might disagree…

If I understand you correctly there is a short reply to your kind of critique in Section 5 of the first link I gave, under the subsection titled "Illiberalism". It's a viable critique that has been (and still is) discussed extensively, of course.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#303
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> expectation is sometimes that women dont swear etc. FWIW, a woman swearing definitely lowers her attractiveness, at least to me, by quite a bit.

My wife knows how to tell a story and use just a few curse words, if the company is right, to really deliver an impactful, humanizing, and relatable event. It's part of why I love her. Different strokes for different folks.

Profanity as a part of speech. She gets it.

Lazy profanity carries most of the value in the expression.

Carlin: Fuck the fucking fuckers.

Not lazy profanity adds to strong value, and is valid and potent.

You picked well. I have one of those in my life too. She is a gem.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I hire the person who was away for a solid year on parental leave over the guy who has been working diligently during that time? Maybe I'm coming from a place of privilege but that point of view makes me incredibly sad. I can't imagine being able to discriminate based on parental leave

But it isn't "discriminating based on parental leave". It's "discriminating" based on experience. The reason why someone takes a year (or whatever) off isn't the issue. Does this feel unfair in some sense? Yeah. But would it be less unfair to artificially punish the person who didn't take time off? Questionable...

I guess there may be some situations where one year of experience more or less makes a big difference, but it doesn't seem like that big a deal? It would be like hiring someone one year younger.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#305
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surgeons can and do take a year off from their practice, and return to work. I would absolutely be patient #1 after some surgeon's sabbatical. I also find it deeply depressing that "a person should be able to take a year off work" is now utopian, fluffy unicorn ideology on a forum for forward-thinking technologists.

Oh, you totally should be able to take off for a year. The same way you can elect not to go to university. Or look in the laser. You just have to live with the consequences. And in many, many professions, a year or so out of practice means that you are measurably worse. Maybe (but likely) worse than before you left, but almost certainly worse than you could be if you would have used that year to get better at what ev…

Are you still going to be worse after a month of work?

Are companies that short-term-oriented?

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to me that you're kind of equating a year of holidays with that of having a baby, which ensures the continuation of our species. In our (HN) case, that is putting a few more technologist offsprings into the mix for what that's worth. I can assure you looking after a baby the first year is not leisure time.

I am in no way saying that taking care of a baby is leisure time, or anything of the sort. I'm just saying from the perspective of an employer evaluating two candidates, if all other things are equal, and one took a year off and one didn't, and the employer chooses the candidate who was at work continuously, they weren't specifically discriminating against "parental leave".From that point of view, the reason doesn't…

>I'm just saying from the perspective of an employer evaluating two candidates, if all other things are equal, and one took a year off and one didn't, and the employer chooses the candidate who was at work continuously, they weren't specifically discriminating against "parental leave".

Gender aside, this is still discrimination based on a persons “experience”, as you call it, or very simply: their employment status.

This is against the law. Plain and simple. Look at some of the laws enacted over the years, starting in 2011 [1].

[1]: http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/discrimina...

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#307
post #140
post #47

The strongest correlations seem related to the wealth of the country. One reading of this finding is that more effort is directed toward gender performance in rich countries. This could be due to a number of factors. I wouldn't discount the difference in the quantity of media consumed by both countries.

That's what spun me out when I first traveled in Asia. Backpacking through Thailand there was (as far as I could see) pretty equal representation in almost all different job roles, from street vendors to travel agents to IT. (Come to think of it, tuk-tuk drivers and taxi drivers were universally male, though...) After years of being told that all women loved tech and only shied away from it because it was full of hor…

> That's what spun me out when I first traveled in Asia. Backpacking through Thailand there was (as far as I could see) pretty equal representation in almost all different job roles, from street vendors to travel agents to IT. (Come to think of it, tuk-tuk drivers and taxi drivers were universally male, though...)

Prostitution is not punished in Thailand and it's cheaply available. Maybe that's why males don't bother harassing women?

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#308
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm coming from the same place, except I don't think it's privilege, I think it's wanting to build a world where anyone can take a year off for anything and not have that held against them if they later want to go work for someone. Do YOU want to have surgery from a surgeon that hasn't performed in year? Your idea is fine utopian, fluffy unicorn, ideology. But practically it just won't work. This doesn't have anyth…

Surgeons can and do take a year off from their practice, and return to work. I would absolutely be patient #1 after some surgeon's sabbatical. I also find it deeply depressing that "a person should be able to take a year off work" is now utopian, fluffy unicorn ideology on a forum for forward-thinking technologists.

> I also find it deeply depressing that "a person should be able to take a year off work" is now utopian, fluffy unicorn ideology on a forum for forward-thinking technologists.

There is nothing stopping you from taking a year off work. Go right head. You won't get paid, and they won't hold your job, and you will have gap to explain when you are interviewing for a position when you want to return. Don't expect the world to bend backwards and ignore realities so you can take a year off.

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#309

This follows a series of validation studies (incl. e.g. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617741719 ) from this year especially. The results seem to consistently show the same 'paradoxical' outcome. J. Peterson came to my campus last week and I think he mentioned this one specific study, and also noted several other ones, which brought the one I linked to my attention. It really isn't the only one, a…

Don't you think it's strange that it's seen as a 'paradoxical' outcome? The modern trend of gender-associated differences being primarily attributed to cultural influences seem unscientific at best and politically motivated at worst, especially when for many years we've had well-documented differences in the male and female brains that are clearly evident in brain-imaging studies. All else being equal, of course ther…

Recent paper on the possibility of gender studies being blind to biological differences because of political assumptions:

http://ratio.se/app/uploads/2016/09/ls_ideology_insights_gen...

Re: As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I'm coming from a place of privilege but that point of view makes me incredibly sad. Why? It makes me sad that anyone would want to force business to take on risk that it wouldn't otherwise in the name of "equality". Choices have consequences, if you choose to stay out of work for a year to raise your child then you will be less employable.

1. Have you ever wondered whether there's other human values - perhaps kinder and more loving values - than venal self-interest and capital accumulation? 2. The word 'choice' is not really apposite here, given that one sex, by the mere lottery of birth, carries the burden of pregnancy (and, culturally - with a similar determinacy - women are expected to rear their children in their early years).

> 2. The word 'choice' is not really apposite here, given that one sex, by the mere lottery of birth, carries the burden of pregnancy

Welcome to life, it isn't equal, and never will be. Maybe we should stop trying to make the playing field level and just appreciate and celebrate the differences.

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