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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

#371

Post by Cpoll »

slumdev wrote: post #337
willhslade wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law and medicine don't Logan's run you out with a constantly and pointlessly changing tech stack every five years.

It would happen in medicine if the public generally knew the truth. The risk of a medical error rises by about 1% for every year a doctor is out of school. Either AMA's continuing education requirements are lacking, or something else is at work.

I've heard that number before, where is it from? Does it control for the idea that more experienced practitioners tend to be called on for more complex operations?

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#372

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Fomite wrote: post #321
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 toda…

I work in the health sector and honestly, it comes down to a couple things: 1) They have more data. It's not clear that it's better. 2) That difference is, to the eyes of many of us, showing up, making things worse, and then "pivoting". 3) I get to decide what I want to do. I want to add a project on X? I go work on it.

I would seriously quibble with the anarchic independence you describe in #3 because (depending on the field certainly) you need to fund that work with grants and postdocs etc... Do you might feel like you can but it's generally largely dependent on convincing other groups to fund that work.

I'll Grant that The above doesn't really apply to pure math or philosophy

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#373

Post by xerxex »

Her argument just shows how entrenched sexism runs in our society.

Anecdotal evidence/sample size one story: My wife has a doctorate in chemistry and 2 postdocs under her belt, but she had to leave her field purely due to sexism she encountered during her post docs. The PI (her boss) was quite abusive, outright sexist and a horrible racist. My wife wanted to move on to industry jobs but her wouldn't let her leave. So he kept giving bad references. We didn't know about this until after my wife looked into why she got rejected.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#375

Post by jameane »

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.

Sort of, but generally speaking, in the work world, men are rewarded for having families and women's careers are penalized on multiple levels.

Dad's are paid more, more sympathetic and even cheered on when they leave early for the talent show. Women on the other hand are considered less committed, less capable and less flexible.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#376

Post by chadcmulligan »

tylermenezes wrote: post #272

I think it's still a form of sexism to assume women are the ones who need to care for a child. That's something that very few diversity-in-STEM folks are really thinking about. Many years ago an ex-girlfriend, who works in STEM academia (and is otherwise a liberal, progressive feminist), expressed concerns similar to the author about having kids. When I brought up that it wasn't written in stone that she would need t…

I became the primary care giver for my daughter for a number of years (My wife died - some years ago). My experience is that there is no flexibility in IT jobs - if you want to work not 9-5 5 days a week then tough luck, when you have a kid to look after, pick up from after school etc this just isn't possible.

I envied doctors at the time, they could just name their hours, some other professions can - but not STEM fields for some reason. I'd say the reason is sexism - its a bunch of guys who are married to women who look after the children, so flexibility is not built in to the system.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#377

Post by badfrog »

epicureanideal wrote: post #330
chadlavi wrote: post #180

So... it's not sexism, it's the structurally sexist way that child-rearing is handled? I mean, it's a more actionable level of detail, but it's still sexism, no? Just maybe more structural rather than at the level of individual hiring or advancing decisions?

I think a larger percentage of society would be willing to call this "structural gender-based inequality" rather than sexism, because most people including myself use the word "sexism" to refer to a belief that one sex is less capable or somehow worse than the other. Similarly, men live fewer years than women, and so receive less retirement benefits. This is a structural gender-correlated inequality (maybe gender-cor…

Your framing seems to suggest the entities that established the unequal structure are blameless, which I do not think is the case. The leave policies and overall working environments that most of us have came from the belief that men should be dedicated to work and women should stay at home. Whether the people who established these norms had malicious intent or not, they were incorrect and harmed society.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#378

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

tzs wrote: post #358
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we move 3,000 miles away to somewhere more economically prosperous (and also, more expensive) so the grandparent's couldn't financially make it viable to come with. All of my parents grew up and lived in the same state as their siblings. All of my siblings live in different states, and none of us live in the same state as our parents. My siblings and I don't have any kids yet, but their family life and amount of t…

> Or we move 3,000 miles away to somewhere more economically prosperous (and also, more expensive) so the grandparent's couldn't financially make it viable to come with Judging from my neighborhood at least, the answer to that seems to be the grandparents get a class A RV [1] or a large travel trailer [2] and move to their kid's lawn for a few months to help with the grandkids. Probably only can reasonably work, thou…

This also only works if your grandparents are in good enough shape to live in a trailer, and, also, you have a lawn, which many people living in multi-family housing do not have exclusive access to.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#380

Post by dave_b »

entee wrote: post #40
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…

I agree with this and the subtlety of the OP’s argument. There is clearly a problem, there are clearly many contributors, I have personally seen The OP situation play out with my female friends/colleagues in STEM (and other “high power” sectors). This does NOT discount that sexism still is a problem nor that there may be cultural/societal norms that influence the family planning issue. It’s a complicated issue, it ne…

How is it a problem that women are looking at the biological realities and choosing motherhood over a 9-5 job? Most people were originally sold on the “problem” being the supposed sexism that prevented women from doing what they really wanted. Now we’re seeing that women don’t really want to work for the man over their children, and suddenly we’re supposed to believe that equal outcomes is the goal in and of itself. Seems like a bait and switch.

Solving this supposed problem with “convenient” (aka tax-funded) childcare is a huge misapplication of resources from the perspective of the family. It benefits big business by increasing the labor supply and driving down wages. It benefits big government by adding taxpayers and creating a problem to be solved with more bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the family is trading the value of motherhood (an untaxed $160,000 according to the article) for an average 9-5 job in most cases, plus losing out on quality mother-child time. If a family really wants to make that trade then they can pay for it themselves, but it would be unconscionable to push people toward that outcome by subsidizing childcare.

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