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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

#281

Post by foogazi »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #246
sequoia wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In her article, she explains her hypothesis that women leave top-flight STEM/academic careers because the demands (and, crucially, when they must be met: 20s & 30s) conflict with the demands of bearing children during a woman's most-likely-to-be-successful childbearing years. She goes on to suggest that creating more supports for mothers such as affordable childcare and possibly collaborative academic working environ…

Having kids changes a lot of priorities about passion and socialization, although this generally affects all genders.

Is there a Paul Graham like post out there about children from a woman’s perspective?

http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#282

Post by AlexCoventry »

hinkley wrote: post #230
Konnstann wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are plenty of people who believe "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." I'm lucky enough that my job is both interesting and impactful. The people that surround me are either incredible scientists or like working for a company that strives to, and does, make an impact in the world. I think it's perfectly fine to not care about your job to a higher degree than necessary, and I…

I've been guilty of that myself. Question is, which problem ? There are so many problems (some of them personal, some of them management won't say out loud) and everyone has their own priority queue. Maybe the real problem isn't even technical. Maybe Jim and Tom just hate each other because something happened when they first met. We can keep arguing about haproxy vs nginx 'til the cows come home, or I could say to my…

> Question is, which problem?

My problems, of course.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#283

Post by codingmess »

entee wrote: post #220
detoxdetox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost in the modern rush for status and money, "obscenely convenient high quality daycare" used to be called "Motherhood" and was supplied by Mothers themselves. Some would argue, the most valuable contribution to society, even if not directly monetized. To sustain a healthy population, we used to need 10 children per fertile woman, which made "stay at home Mother" an obvious necessity for the vast majority of women.…

Not sure I follow. Given two mothers (gonna leave aside some of the baggage here, fathers can do child care, not all women/people are straight or fit in the conventional framework): Amanda wants to have kids but also wants to be a Supreme Court litigator. Jane wants kids and wants to stay at home to raise them. Why is giving Amanda the option hurting Jane’s ability to chose her preferred outcome? Should we force Aman…

It's hurting in some ways, for example in increased prices for housing. If families with two income earners compete with families with one income earner, the outlook is bleak for one earner families. Prices simply rise to what the two earner households can afford. In fact many families can not afford the single earner model anymore.

There are also changed expectation, although presumably those can be managed. But once daycare is available, pressure can be on women to actually work. Where I live, you get strange looks if you don't give your kid to daycare from age one.

Apart from that it seems to me if somebody has a well paying career (like Amanda), they should be able to afford daycare anyway. If they don't, I'm not sure if society should pay for daycare just so that somebody can go to work to satisfy their ego (if their work yields less than the cost of daycare).

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#284

Post by fnord77 »

hinkley wrote: post #87

I can't speak for women, and I'm just smart enough not to try. But what I can say is that I don't hold all of the values that I did as a young man. I'm not excited about the same things, and today I find some of those ideas uncomfortably naive or even off-putting. As I've engaged in more activities, as I've socialized with more people, I've encountered many more ideas and a lot of nuance. Nothing has simple answers a…

> you have some unresolved issues that you need to work through if you so desperately need to believe how transformative your work is going to be.

I think those issues are called narcissism.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#285

Post by codingmess »

kalenx wrote: post #175
skinkestek wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoa, 50's regression much? Why not make room for fathers to take care of their own children? Nothing wrong with that, but mother goes first for obvious biological reasons.

After pregancy and the very first months of life, I fail to see any "obvious biological reasons".

Mothers have the first pick because they invested more into the kid coming into being. They risked their life and invested 9 months into bearing the child. So they get first pick to also be the person spending time with the child.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#286

Post by AndrewKemendo »

tharne wrote: post #60

I think the author buried the lede here. My biggest takeaway from the article is that you'd have to be an absolute sucker to work in academia given how poorly you'll be treated. Each person that puts up with this only makes the problem worse, giving at least tacit approval to the status quo. If folks were to start opting out of academia in larger numbers for jobs in private industry, schools would be forced to improv…

You should also add to this that increasingly, large tech companies have access to much better data for nearly any area that is interesting for research.

Further, companies can go from research to product that ostensibly makes a difference at scale with a speed that absolutely no University could.

I'm really not seeing any reason to stay in academia whatsoever if you want to do the most exciting applied research today. Maybe if you want to do basic science or something more obscure where the applications are very far off.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#287

Post by Nouser76 »

proc0 wrote: post #267

Why do we care that there are equal women and men again? Why does representation actually matter again? I would find it more exciting to see a field with no representation because I could make a greater impact! This whole ideology of having representation everywhere is very dumb and conformist.

Because diverse opinions lead to better end products. Having homogenized groups of people means you're leaving some viewpoints out, and those viewpoints have sometimes been extremely helpful for me as a software developer.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#288

Post by badfrog »

bArray wrote: post #178

I think people have been hinting towards the point that it's generally maternity and not sexism that mostly creates the differences in career progression. Of course there was a time in history where sexism played a major role, but I think that in modern times this is mostly gone (although I know of recent cases). We can take several actions to balance the books, but the important point I would like to ask is: Do we r…

> Spending time with your children in those crucial fundamental years before pre-school is incredibly important and rewarding.

Yes, and employers should be more flexible to allow parents of all genders to do more of this and keep their jobs.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#289

Post by watwut »

darawk wrote: post #240
watwut wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could have compared it to caring about elderly dad, doing volunteer work or anything else boring, unpaid but useful. Instead, you compared it to playing games which rubs people wrong.

Who cares what the evocation is? Are we not adults capable of following chains of reasoning without descending into literary analogy and euphemism? We're not analyzing Shakespeare here.

Where do you see euphemism?

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#290

Post by ck425 »

entee wrote: post #220
detoxdetox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost in the modern rush for status and money, "obscenely convenient high quality daycare" used to be called "Motherhood" and was supplied by Mothers themselves. Some would argue, the most valuable contribution to society, even if not directly monetized. To sustain a healthy population, we used to need 10 children per fertile woman, which made "stay at home Mother" an obvious necessity for the vast majority of women.…

Not sure I follow. Given two mothers (gonna leave aside some of the baggage here, fathers can do child care, not all women/people are straight or fit in the conventional framework): Amanda wants to have kids but also wants to be a Supreme Court litigator. Jane wants kids and wants to stay at home to raise them. Why is giving Amanda the option hurting Jane’s ability to chose her preferred outcome? Should we force Aman…

It's hurting Jane in the sense that her family has to get by on one income vs two and due to 'keeping up with the Jones' her family then feel poor and disenfranchised because they can't have all the same stuff Amanda can. Forgetting of course that they then have the privilege of Jane being able to raise get kids personally.
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