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Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

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Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#131

Post by TheCoelacanth »

zeroname wrote: post #106
jfrankamp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because this isn't a binary result. If group a and b both have bias 1, that bias won't be cancelled. But if they differ on bias 2, the combined group has less bias than a or b while not having 'cancelled all biases perfectly'. Perfection is a false goal while 'lower risk' is attainable and worthwhile.

Fair enough, let's forget the word "perfectly". Let's have a "practical" example. A society is made up of 99% "ethnic Germans" and 1% Jews. The year is 1933. A faculty is made up of 90% "ethnic Germans" and 10% Jews. According to the hypothesis, getting that makeup closer to the societal demographics will result in a "lower risk of bias". I hope it is now obvious to see that the hypothesis is a non-sequitur.

How is that a counter-example? They diverged from the overall population to an extreme level (one demographic over-represented by a 10x factor compared to the overall population) and also had an extreme level of bias (imprisoned and murdered a specific demographic).

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#132

Post by aeredhel »

throwaway770210 wrote: post #126
DoreenMichele wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Certificate in GIS. I worked at a Fortune 500 company for over 5 years in a Pink Collar Ghetto department. I wanted a job in the IT department, where jobs generally paid better. In all the years I worked there, I met only one person who knew what GIS was without me having to explain it. He was a senior programmer in the department I wanted a job in. He asked me for a date, thereby making it vastly less likel…

I too have been discriminated against due to my gender. One of the first jobs I took (in IT) was for a large regional airline. After I had worked there for about a year, a position opened up that would have amounted to a promotion, both in pay and position. I had both the experience for the position, as well as a good reputation in the company. Further, my supervisor (with whom I had a good relationship) was in charg…

You weren't particularly discriminated against due to your gender but rather fell a victim of both incompetence and immaturity.

Whether actual gender discrimination is also incompetence and/or immaturity is up to discussion. But it seems to still be acceptable in some places in the US. I hope Western Europe is doing better, but I don't know.

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#133

Post by elliekelly »

commandlinefan wrote: post #16
ancorevard wrote: post #12

Life is short, few things are more meaningful and rewarding than raising human beings.

... which is why civilization built up a particular way over the course of 10,000 years ...

Many modern anthropologists now believe that to be a myth attributable to, wait for it... implicit gender bias among male scientists in the early 1900's. You should check out the book "The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory" it's a very interesting read.

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#134

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway770210 wrote: post #126
DoreenMichele wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Certificate in GIS. I worked at a Fortune 500 company for over 5 years in a Pink Collar Ghetto department. I wanted a job in the IT department, where jobs generally paid better. In all the years I worked there, I met only one person who knew what GIS was without me having to explain it. He was a senior programmer in the department I wanted a job in. He asked me for a date, thereby making it vastly less likel…

I too have been discriminated against due to my gender. One of the first jobs I took (in IT) was for a large regional airline. After I had worked there for about a year, a position opened up that would have amounted to a promotion, both in pay and position. I had both the experience for the position, as well as a good reputation in the company. Further, my supervisor (with whom I had a good relationship) was in charg…

[deleted]

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#135

Post by elliekelly »

mikekchar wrote: post #31

Completely anecdotal evidence, but every female coworker I've ever worked with has left work to raise their child after the first baby. Every single one of them said that they were definitely coming back before they went on maternity leave (and I believe that they believed it). The main issue in every case was that as the new mothers got to the end of their maternity leave, they started to think about day care. In th…

Your point is actually very much backed up by science and Iris Bohnet devotes an entire chapter to it in her book "What Works." Arguably one of the easiest ways to reduce gender pay disparity is to give both women and men the _exact_ same amount of parental leave for the birth of a child. She actually argues we should go one step further and require new parents to take the leave because even men who are employed by companies with generous parental leave are under a tremendous amount of social pressure to return to work quickly and often do not use all of the time available to them even when they would have liked to stay home and spend more time with their family.

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#136

Post by TheLilHipster »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #109
gdhbcc wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest it sounds like you just have unreasonable expectations about the way things work, and choose to look at everything from a negative perspective. Maybe readjusting the way you view things would make you happier, because it sure sounds like you have a siege mentality.

I've barely eaten for six days because I'm so broke. I said so in the comment. I don't doubt that I sound particularly negative in the comment, but your comment amounts to monstrous callousness of exactly the sort that fosters my negative perspective.

> fosters my negative perspective.

I learned pretty quick that STEM was a meritocracy.

You either solved-problems and adapted to working in a office - or you made excuses, passed blame and were eventually pushed out because of it. This was discrimination against an attitude, not discrimination based on sex.

Sexism/racism is like a synonym for sin in the 21st century. Instead of trying to understand the humanity and nuance of workplace interactions, we assume malice and scream "sinner" at individuals without merit. It's a lazy catch-all, its based on assumption and literally just fosters a culture of silent disagreements. It's regressive, it's primary school all over again, except we're 30 and bitter.

> but your comment amounts to monstrous callousness of exactly the sort that fosters my negative perspective.

Yeah yeah "your comment is offensive to me so please don't contribute to my 'tolerant' and 'inclusive' world-view".

Ugh. Your words are offensive, your thoughts are offensive, your existence is offensive. There does this line of thinking end?

I'm so apathetic to how immature discourse is getting. Outrage culture needs to die in a fire.

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#137

Post by chimpburger »

phil248 wrote: post #118
chimpburger wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you being facetious? How does science benefit from a diversity of genitalia? I'm not saying women should or shouldn't do this or that.. but the irrational compulsion to force equity between the sexes is stupid. Providing equal opportunity is good. Forcing equal outcome is evil.

I believe what I said was that science benefits from a diversity of "perspectives". But go on, rant against those straw men if it makes you feel better.

Gender quota != diversity of perspective

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#138

Post by elliekelly »

User23 wrote: post #58
chriskanan wrote: post #2

While the title focuses on female scientists, males are also affected. From the article: "...23% of men and 43% of women who had become parents had left full-time STEM employment. ... This compared to 16% of child-free men and 24% of child-free women."

I wonder how much of this is people leaving science to pursue far more lucrative opportunities like running mathematically intricate financial scams for Wall Street banks in order to assure a good financial future for their children. I know STEM PhDs who have left their field to get a bog standard devops job on account of it pays twice as well.

Yes, all of the women scientists are rushing to Wall Street where the old boys club is welcoming them with open arms.

In my time on Wall Street I've had many colleagues with STEM PhDs. I can't think of a single one who is female.

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#139

Post by qaq »

bobwaycott wrote: post #128
qaq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think a stay home dad with equal employment gap would have an easier time rejoining a workforce ?

I do--speaking as a single-dad who spent a few years working as a consultant and would never work more than 6 months out of the year (I always took time off during school breaks, summers, etc.). When I've applied for jobs over the years, I've never once been asked to explain those gaps. Of course, they were rarely longer than 6 months ... but there were quite a few of them. I've never even had the impression an emplo…

6 month gap when working as consultant is hardly comparable to say 6 year gap.

Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child

#140

Post by itd00d »

gervase wrote: post #39

My wife and I are both STEM PhDs, and she left research after our first child was born; we could be a case study for this article. For us, it was because her field (immunology) was simply less lucrative than mine (computer science). Given the differences in gender distributions between both fields, and the pay gap between fields, I think simplifying this as STEM collectively isn't sufficiently granular. I wonder what…

Face it. Your wife went to school (like most women) for a MRS degree. Don't act like you and her had this long drawn out, complicated and deeply researched decision making process. She, like most women, wanted something to do between High School and marriage. The marriage alone still forced her to work...the baby gave her an excuse to quit.

I predict in 10-15 years she'll try to go back to work in academia or aim for some management gig and moan about sexism/ageism in the workplace.

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