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An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

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Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#111

Post by hammeringtime »

amb23 wrote: post #34

Mothers--the vast majority of mothers, not the aristocracic ones we model our current family structures off of--have always worked. They'd strap the baby on their back and go to the fields to plow or gather the harvest or cook or weave or chop firewood. Motherhood as as a full-time job is a modern invention; historically, it was a side gig. I'd love to see a startup tackle this problem: think a benefits platform that…

To the extent that was generally true...

* most mothers were still with their infants and very young children. The babies weren't being taken care at a daycare where you can have one staffer trying to deal with 4 crying newborns.

* mothers were doing active work, not work that requires sitting in one place, not work that requires long-term concentration, not work that requires being on someone else's schedule.

I have noticed it is no problem doing active work like cooking or the dishes or grocery shopping while bringing along an infant. But I cannot do computer work -- baby goes crazy from lack of stimulation.

Also, being on a schedule while trying to take care of a baby causes immense stress. What if you have a client meeting while baby is crying because he needs to be fed ... or is crying just due to lack of comfort and attention? Or sometimes (oftentimes) baby has a bad night and keeps you from sleeping, but you still need to be up and at work at a given time, instead of being able to nap when baby naps?

Both parents doing a schedule-bound, desk job while raising a newborn baby is not how we evolved to do things, and it's always going to be a source of stress and problems, even if you have "high quality" daycare available.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#112

Post by pgeorgi »

oefrha wrote: post #51

> We spend billions of dollars training women in STEM. By not making full use of their skills, if we look at only the american economy, we are wasting about $1.5 billion USD per year in economic benefits they would have produced if they stayed in STEM. So here’s a business proposal: ... With all due respect, I don’t understand this call to action. Faculty position is basically a zero sum game. If more women end up as…

> With all due respect, I don’t understand this call to action. Faculty position is basically a zero sum game. If more women end up as faculty, fewer men will. So, unless it costs more to train women than men, I doubt any “investment” would be saved

The assumption is that aptitude for these positions is roughly the same between genders, so if there's a significant imbalance, society doesn't get the best people on the given set of seats.

The later calculation is along the lines of "society is pouring so much money both into these positions and into getting-women-into-STEM programs without reaching this supposed goal, so here's a counter-proposal to use this money more wisely"

> Btw, this maternal wall idea is nothing new.

She's quite upfront that she borrowed the term as well, so the idea can't be new. But it might be time to reiterate that point (as opposed to the popular reduction of the problem to sexism only), and since she did a good job (IMHO) to collect sources...

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#113

Post by mdorazio »

toufka wrote: post #29
GCA10 wrote: post #15

Thanks, Karen Morenz, for providing a unified, panoramic view of the ways that the standard academic career progression short-changes many female scientists, even if each step along the way seems to make sense. It's worth taking a look at three other professions with long, high-intensity pathways from apprentice to master --all of which have been wrestling with the same challenges. They are management consulting, law…

There is an unfortunate distinction between those other professions - STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equivalent talent in those 3 professions are generally making double to triple (if not more) by the time STEM graduates reach the same moment in their personal lives. And that 'moment' is generally delayed in STEM compared to those professions; you start generating…

This is simply not true. I have friends and colleagues in all these categories and the tech workers on the coasts easily make the most money, especially if you balance for hours worked. The only exceptions are at the partner level, but the number of people who actually make it there is minuscule in comparison to the number of people who easily make it into 300k+ total comp roles in tech.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#114

Post by klyrs »

I'm not a fan of this title. Throughout the piece, sexism is regarded as a key factor. The thesis of the article, and indeed the article's title, suggests that sexism isn't the only factor. This isn't an "alternative argument," it's another piece to the puzzle.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#115

Post by toufka »

fizwhiz wrote: post #73
toufka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an unfortunate distinction between those other professions - STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equivalent talent in those 3 professions are generally making double to triple (if not more) by the time STEM graduates reach the same moment in their personal lives. And that 'moment' is generally delayed in STEM compared to those professions; you start generating…

> STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equivalent talent in those 3 professions are generally making double to triple (if not more) by the time STEM graduates reach the same moment in their personal lives. These statements couldn't be further from the truth. You don't need to hang out on HN for long to figure out that FAANG SWEs comfortably make upwards of 400k in their…

And this is another semantic issue here.

The article (and my experience) both deal with the "Science" part of STEM, and specifically in biology/biochemistry, and specifically in academia (professorships at universities in hard-science fields).

And defining those boundaries of discussion should be very much a starting point for any of these discussions.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#116

Post by clairity »

darawk wrote: post #89
clairity wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, the employer is beside the point. the implicit assumption that women's work is not valuable is still (structural) sexism. that was the point. edit: e.g., > "Choosing to take on the burden of childcare is choosing to spend less time working."

No, the employer is not beside the point. The employer pays your salary. If you do less work, you get less salary. That isn't saying their work isn't valuable, it is saying it isn't valuable to the employer . The person who values work pays for it. In this case, it is the woman herself who values the work. She is literally choosing to pay herself, in the form of a well cared for child. In the same way that when I cle…

and that's the systemic sexism--the systemic choices about what should, and what doesn't need, to be paid for.

why don't we instead have a society where all childcare is paid labor and we just "pay ourselves" for other self-benefitting labor (growing food, for example)?

(collective) assumptions like these are the systemic sexism. note that this is different from calling a specific person a sexist.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#117

Post by e12e »

Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems to be typical sexism: there's work at work which is paid, and work at home which is not. Men do little enough of the latter, that doing the paid work isn't a problem. Women do such a large part of the former, that they feel the need to chose between which part get done.

Sure, the positive way to change this, is to reduce the unpaid work (child care professionals are paid, cleaners are paid etc) - that is, to acknowledge it as work that needs to be done, is productive, and should be part of what society rewards/share resources to get done.

But the equal rights / equal opportunity path indicates that we also need a (bigger) culture shift so that the unpaid work of running a home is more equally divided.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#118

Post by ghaff »

thereisnospork wrote: post #107
fizwhiz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equivalent talent in those 3 professions are generally making double to triple (if not more) by the time STEM graduates reach the same moment in their personal lives. These statements couldn't be further from the truth. You don't need to hang out on HN for long to figure out that FAANG SWEs comfortably make upwards of 400k in their…

SWE's are a tiny slice of 'STEM' and by far the most profitable. How much do you think the average phd in biology makes? maybe 30k/y till 27, then 45k/y till 30, then followed by 75-90?

And SWEs at a handful of large US tech employers are an even tinier slice.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#119

Post by 40acres »

This seems like a really long argument just to end up at the main point being: "It really is sexism". The light bulb moment here is that it's not necessarily sexism on an individual level but on an institutional one.

I believe there is an obvious difference men and women which, on a general level, incites women to weigh family responsibilities over career prospects. However, industrialized nations exacerbate that difference by making it very difficult for women with children to spend the time necessary for career advancement.

The key here isn't necessarily throwing your hands up and saying there's nothing you can do about it, but more robust programs for parents to help lessen the load of parenthood.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#120

Post by hackinthebochs »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #32

>> I’ve got a big scholarship, and a lot of people supporting me to give me the best shot at an academic career — a career I dearly want. But, I also want a family — maybe two or three kids Oh. Up to this point I was keeping notes with my criticism of this article, but this caused me to stop and reconsider. If I may advise the author, I understand how difficult it is to balance life decisions that seem to be at odds,…

>How is that not sexist? How is that not the sexism that's keeping women from advancing their careers in STEM academia?

Why should the academy structure itself so that women who choose to put their attention into their families do not have a career impact? If academic positions are necessarily zero-sum, it seems impossible to correct for this without seriously unfair negative externalities?

How is it that the biases inherent in collective decisions of individuals within society are the responsibility of the academy to correct for (that men tend to choose to focus on career and women on family)?

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