As women have more equal opportunity, the more their preferences differ from men • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by aklemm » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #372

toxik wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still pay the opportunity cost, even if you are getting a monthly income. 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? Forcing parents to have equal amounts of parental leave, as we do in Sweden (well, we incentivized it,) is a form of imposed equality of outcome. Equality of outcome is often said to be some disease of…

Stop believing feminists when they say they want equality of outcome. They don't - they completely ignore how men die at work at ten times the rate of women, put in more hours, take more competitive roles, and generally tend to make more sacrifices in pursuit of well-paying jobs and careers. Feminists don't want equality of outcome. They want to point at the fact that women make less money as a group than men in orde…

It's fair for dangerous jobs to pay more, and I've never heard a feminist argue otherwise. The feminism I support simply asks for equal opportunity to various industries and for "care work" to be valued appropriately. Taxing people to pay for family leave is not a "concession" from society, it's more like balancing values and one that pays dividends.

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

#382

Post by claudiawerner » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

apatters wrote: post #371

claudiawerner wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not any specific one, but I'll try and summarize the points: * Feminists really do fight for representation in these jobs[0][1][3] to the point where one of the largest sexual discrimination lawsuits was brought up by women trying to get into the coal mining industry. * Women already have significant representation in such jobs and especially in other low wage jobs, such as textile manufacturing (in sweatshops, for i…

Your two comments don't really answer the question I posed. The first one denigrates it and attempts to outsource the task of answering it to Reddit. The second one is, I guess, mostly a recitation of various things feminists have done or not done in relation to this question, among other issues. But nowhere do you make a clear statement about whether you would advocate for pushing women into these jobs, and why or w…

I didn't know the question applied to me personally. I'm not entirely sure myself, which is why I gave various reasons (some conflicting) for what other feminists think. I'm not even sure I'd advocate 'pushing' women anywhere, I think that we should try and counter bias that may set in from society or parents from a young age, and also make clear that various opportunities are available to all, including opportunities in jobs which are unfashionable nowadays.

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

#383

Post by lgleason » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

This, along with the study in the UK on preferences of kids based on testosterone levels is why we will probably not ever have equal representation of women in engineering. It has nothing to do with discrimination, or a woman's ability to do the job etc., it's about how hormones etc. affect ones preferences.

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

#384

Post by tomp » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #223

classicsnoot wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is only a paradox if one has calcified their thinking about the desires of women _in general_ in a particular way. If one starts from the presumption that men and women are exactly the same (in terms of desires and methods), than it is indeed a paradox. If one retains the traditional perspective, a much disliked but surprisingly defensible position, of the disparate desires of men and women, these results comport…

> If one retains the traditional perspective, a much disliked but surprisingly defensible position, of the disparate desires of men and women, these results comport well with the presumption. It's odd though how so often this "traditional" viewpoint is eager to suggest, "These are the preferences of women and their outcomes," when it's suggested women result in a net disadvantage, but is a crisis when men see these o…

> An excellent example of this is how a 6-10% wage gap is considered an acceptable outcome of biological differences and choice, but a 10% average difference in primary education among young men is a crisis, with multiple think tanks suggesting society caters too much to young women and that being a young man is "a liability."

That's just so wrong... (1) it's not that 10% wage gap is considered an acceptable outcome, it's that wage gap (as a sexist discrimination) is a bogus concept in itself - obviously people with better/worse education, more/less experience that spend more/less time working are going to be paid more/less - e.g. noone complains about the much greater wage gap between old and young workers; (2) 10% education gap is a problem, just like it was a problem when less women went to school compared to men... and even that's mainly a problem because for a society it's beneficial to have highly-educated people, so it's worth considering the possibility that we're actually doing something "wrong" when it comes to education everyone and that maybe we could be doing something better (especially given that it's generally accepted that there is no difference in intelligence between the sexes).

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

#385

Post by aklemm » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #352

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

it's not just unfair to the business though. if i have five years experience as a c++ dev and you have four years plus one year as a stay at home parent, it is unfair to me if the hiring process treats us both as if we have equal amounts of experience.

Is it actually unfair to you that someone put in the appropriate effort needed to raise a functioning member of society? Lot's of people in this thread are failing to value parenting appropriately.

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

#386

Post by probably_wrong » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #188

probably_wrong wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing from myself from an old comment [1]: there is a difference between what Damore intended to say (assuming the best case) and what his memo actually said. He might have wanted to say "women tend like other things", but his memo ended up saying "women are incapable of doing this thing". He may have had good intentions, but in writing the difference matters. A similar result is seen when authors argue that widel…

I just went back and read Damore's memo, and that idea does not appear anywhere in it. I'm curious how you tortured that out of his words.

I don't want to copy-paste from myself, so I would suggest checking the comment I linked, or even better, the article where I commented.

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

#387

Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

alliecat wrote: post #202

apatters wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would 50/50 gender parity across all industries ever be a desirable goal? Coal mining is male dominated -- should we push more women into becoming coal miners?

Coal mining is a historic industry; we should not be pushing anybody into coal mining (Looking at you, Australia) I’m assuming you picked coal mining because it’s an example of a dirty, dangerous position in an industry that’s rightfully stigmatised by most modern countries. If you’re suggesting that we shouldn’t push women into dangerous jobs but it’s okay to push men into them, then I would counter that we should m…

Its also highly paid at least in the west even more so when you get to supervisory roles eg £2k for a single 10 hour weekend shift for a pit deputy.

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

#388

Post by seagullz » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

LyndsySimon wrote: post #347

seagullz wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, addressed at the macro level, probably calls for the societies to function in ways that incorporate exercise of sufficient sense of solidarity and empathy. A relevant argument is made strongly here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBSUkDXekMM

I can't agree with much of anything in that video. The question is immediately reframed as a strawman ("childcare is not work"), but that's not at all what I'm saying. My household absolutely derives value from my wife's labor. What is impacted here is earning potential ; if my wife were to need to seek employment outside the home in order to earn income, her income would be substantially less than it would have been…

The lecture and the Q&A where the points were made predates your comment here and is not necessarily about the pros and cons of an individual on the short term, assessed under rather unfair political-economic regulation.

The analysis is at the macro level, with a view to why/how a society can pursue reforms towards fairer socioeconomic reality, instead of being submissive to the prevailing order. Slavery, for one, seemed unmovable too at one point in history.

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

#389

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #289

jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #220

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…

>Do YOU want to have surgery from a surgeon that hasn't performed in year? There can be something like a transition period. The world is not binary. Surgeons get sick. They get injured. They take time off. Just like everyone else. The reason they took time off should not be relevant.

The reason should not be relevant.

The fact that they did could be (in some cases), IMO.

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

#390

Post by KirinDave » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #329

KirinDave wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If one retains the traditional perspective, a much disliked but surprisingly defensible position, of the disparate desires of men and women, these results comport well with the presumption. It's odd though how so often this "traditional" viewpoint is eager to suggest, "These are the preferences of women and their outcomes," when it's suggested women result in a net disadvantage, but is a crisis when men see these o…

>but a 10% average difference in primary education among young men is a crisis I don't know how a PragerU video convinced you that this is considered a crisis outside the right-leaning think tanks but I haven't heard a single soul talk about it outside that sphere. It's easy to prop up what a political opponent labels important as something a lot of people care about but I certainly don't see this issue come up in en…

It was on Fox news not even a week ago, and I've seen UK news segments on this as well.

I am fairly sure some of the audience here is acutely aware of this line of thinking. Note, for example, how many people are assuming I'm talking about the more common complaint of college statistics. I never once mentioned college or university. They think they know the argument I'm presenting even though I used language that in fact didn't present this population at all. The majority of respondents to my post have read into the argument, because they're aware of a variant of it, and have filled in the perceived gaps.