Live data from Hacker News

An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

medium.com

451–460 of 748 posts

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#451
post #428

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.…

Non-working mothers is a modern anomaly. It used to be a sign of wealth for a man to have a non-working wife. That is why the newly affluent men of the mid-20th century wanted it so much. They came out of the great depression, fought a great war, and wanted a wife at home. You should not judge all of history by this one era. The work of child care used to fall on the entire extended family. The nuclear family reduced…

Of course! But that's only a tiny minority of wealthy women. Nobody is claiming that, historically, women did not work. It's just that female work was performed in proximity of their young children and interweaved with their care. Which is work in itself as well.

The historical norm of peasant societies is gendered work roles. Roughly speaking, the male works in the fields and the female works around the house / village. This pattern is even present across age groups, not uncommon to see 10 year boys herding the cows to pasture, and 10 year girls milking the cows at home. While I'm aware there are task and/or region and/or period specific exceptions, we're talking of the general pattern of [european] peasant societies here.

Women working away from their house and young children is the prevalent modern anomaly.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#452
I have always been skeptical of the need for the intense career paths in management, law, medicine, finance, and academics. I totally understand the need to put in hours to become an expert, but a lot of it seems gratuitous. I wouldn't call it hazing. I think these careers are structured as championship systems, where the winner takes all, for the sake of the winner.

Winner takes all is a very male attitude, and I think it gets back to men being more expendable because their sexual refractory period is orders of magnitude shorter than women's.

But does it make sense? Does the 80th hour on the ward as a resident make you a better doctor? Does the fifth publication make you a better professor? Does another fifteen minutes of billable time make you a better lawyer?

I don't think they do. I think these careers are needlessly intense and stupidly so. I contemplated going down a couple of those paths and recoiled because it seemed so unnecessary and gratuitous, and I didn't want to spin my wheels fitting into a nonsensical system.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#453
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-working mothers is a modern anomaly. It used to be a sign of wealth for a man to have a non-working wife. That is why the newly affluent men of the mid-20th century wanted it so much. They came out of the great depression, fought a great war, and wanted a wife at home. You should not judge all of history by this one era. The work of child care used to fall on the entire extended family. The nuclear family reduced…

> Non-working mothers is a modern anomaly. It used to be a sign of wealth for a man to have a non-working wife. You really need some data to back it up here. "I worked, my mother worked, my grandmothers worked, and my great grandmothers worked." is not good evidence. For one, there is a representative issue. For another, there is a huge difference between part-time work and full-time work. We don't know how many hour…

Labor force does count the actual workforce. They only count "wage slaves". One grandmother was a farmer. She took over from my grandfather when he got sick and he became the house husband. So she would not have been counted. I am not clear if it would have counted my other grandmother since she was a business owner. She owned a beauty salon. She also opened the first health food store in Berkeley with her sister to put my mother and her cousins through college. I doubt either would have been counted as labor force participation. My mother was counted.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It is almost never mentioned but most men won't respect other men who are stay at home parent. So there is also an expectation on the man to be the bread winner. That too, is sexism, of course. Sexism also harms men.

I don't agree it is sexism. It is the simple fact that our species is sexually dimorphic. This guarantees that there will be asymmetry between the genders regardless of the social engineering that is attempted. There is about 4 billion years of evolution and the thinking that it can be socially engineered away is a folly. > Sexism also harms men. Yes it does. But this is not one of those circumstances. However that i…

How is it not one of those circumstances? Men find it extremely difficult to make a career as a nursery teacher, for example, because nursery schools and parents of young children don't trust men as a nurturing caregiver. It's a clear cut example of how a sexist view of men - biologically inspired or otherwise - is harmful to men.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#455
post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad take! There's no distinction between "biology" and "social engineering". Our biology underpins us having these discussions. Our biology underpins our society. Our biology underpins our thinking that things can be better. Our biology encourages us to improve our own quality of life and that of others in ever larger social groups. Everything we do is true to our biology.

There is an obvious distinction between people trying to socially arrange society and our biology. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous.

You're suggesting we should arrange society a specific way because of some connection to "biology". I am saying that the arrangements you seem to be for are no more rooted in biology than the arrangements you seem to be against.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is certainly something to be said about the way stay-at-home mothers are perceived by many in our society. They provide one of the most valuable contributions to society and should be praised. The issue is: many females take this issue at a personal level. Being a stay-at-home mom is a choice and most people don't look down on women who choose a different path. Also, some women can't simply cope with the fact t…

With such a large percent of this generation destined to be childless you don't think that conversation is coming? I'd bet on it once more start to realize the reality of their decision. Men or women, really.

Absolutely. And there is a gap here to be bridged. In the current political discourse, I see a narrative of men and women being put as adversaries, as if they were competing for something whereas in most cases they are complements and their whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And I repeat, males are just as guilty here. Divorce has gone through the roof, single mothers are an ever increasing share of the parental composition. Men are running away from their responsibility which is to raise their children in conjunction with their partner. I hope we turn a corner sometime soon.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A woman would still need almost a year of special work consideration for the pregnancy, appointments, and post-birth recovery, even if they're not a primary care giver afterwards.

That's a really small part of the problem. The article actually cites data from Italy, which already requires 5 months of maternity leave.

That's per child. It's really not a small part of the problem.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#458
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an obvious distinction between people trying to socially arrange society and our biology. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous.

You're suggesting we should arrange society a specific way because of some connection to "biology". I am saying that the arrangements you seem to be for are no more rooted in biology than the arrangements you seem to be against.

> You're suggesting we should arrange society a specific way because of some connection to "biology".

Nope. I didn't say that.

> There is about 4 billion years of evolution and the thinking that it can be socially engineered away is a folly.

I didn't make any statement on how to arrange society. I simply stated that I believe they would all eventually fail.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

That does not sounds like IT jobs, it sounds like most jobs. In every sector, I'm sure you can find employers who are more flexible than others. I work at a software company and there are single parents leaving early or coming in late or both due to raising their kids. Consider finding a better employer.

Yes, I used to say that before I experienced it - but the system is built around workers that will work long continuous hours - you have to beg for the exception, and you take a pay hit - forget any thoughts of promotion - the glass ceiling women complain about. The attitude is oh yes we're being generous by letting you leave early - it shouldn't be that way, work should be planned around life.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#460

The author is missing the forest for the trees. She argues that a specific kind of sexism (harrassment) is not sufficient to explain why so many women are forced out of their careers in STEM academia. She argues that the real reason is that those women want to start a family and they can't do both at once. She herself is considering leaving academia to start a family (she wants to have two or three children). Yet she…

Probably going to get downvoted for this, but how exactly is this sexism? It seems to be just plain old biology.
Post reply on HN