Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 748 posts

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#491

Post by barry-cotter »

maire wrote: post #428
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.…

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.

Running an aristocratic, bourgeois or farming household is a full time job, just as much as being an office manager. Post WW2 mass affluence with lesser time demands for running a household due to domestic appliances and other convenience led quickly to women exiting full time household management and joining the labor market.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#492

Post by astura »

Jagat wrote: post #50
blub wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, the extended family and neighbors were contributing to raising children. For a couple that doesn't have family close by and lives in a city, parenthood is at least a part-time job.

Also, mothers didn't have to keep an eye on the kids all the time past infancy. It was fairly common to leave them on their own with other kids to play, only ensuring they're fed on time. And once they reached a sufficient age (10 or 12), children usually helped the family with their craft. Before the industrial revolution, what's considered norm today was the norm only for aristocrats.

>It was fairly common to leave them on their own with other kids to play, only ensuring they're fed on time.

This was the norm 25 years ago, it's how I grew up.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#493

Post by bduerst »

hguant wrote: post #93
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…

>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. Every now and then I get an overwhelming sense of guilt when I talk to/think about my friends who are engaged in academia or pursuing advanced degrees (I'm 28, for reference). The crazy workloads they have, the insane restrictions on how they can do their jobs, and the cut-throat n…

I had the opportunity to work with a dozen or so phds as an undergraduate, both in academia and in the industry, and what I saw was that the vast majority of them were not happy with their careers. Even the ones who were gainfully employed in the narrow field of study they specialized in. It definitely influenced me to skip the phd and go a different route.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#494

Post by uncle_j »

Faark wrote: post #465
uncle_j wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Woman give birth, men cannot breastfeed. That are indeed biology. Kids being picked up from school predominately by woman is a social arrangement, the kind we hopefully at least try to change if we consider there to be better options. But yes, many kinds of social arrangements come up naturally and woman taking care of house and kids seems to be one of them. Another one is "the powerful rule over the weak"... somethi…

> Kids being picked up from school predominately by woman is a social arrangement, the kind we hopefully at least try to change if we consider there to be better options.

Define "Better". Why should we be trying to change it? Why should we be meddling with other people's lives? People aren't being harmed here.

> But spending effort to keep pre-defined gender roles in check must be somehow bad?

Both men and women at least in the western world enjoy the same rights and discrimination by gender is not only frowned upon but can be brought before a court. I seems to me that they are already kept in check.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#495

Post by adjkant »

gfodor wrote: post #489
adjkant wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While implication versus what was literally written is quite muddy with this comment, what is missing from the entire comment is why it has to be a mother and not a father. The ending part also shows a lack of understanding of how childcare actually works today as well.

I give people the benefit of the doubt. To do so otherwise is both uncharitable and also can seem to be mind reading.

Implication, grammatical choices (such as capitalizing mother consistently), and topic focus are of course not the full picture, but they are not mind reading either.

The internet can lose a lot in translation, and I think I was quite charitable with it, and only addressed the explicit parts.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#496

Post by barry-cotter »

n4r9 wrote: post #448
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #395

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…

In full agreement. It's frustrating that increasing paternity leave and encouraging new fathers to spend more time caring for their children is not highlighted as a potential solution.

Doesn’t work. See Sweden. Men who do more parental care work and up having fewer children. People still end up costing between work and family.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#497

Post by throw7 »

Daycare is not the answer. Not even "High Quality Daycare" (whatever that means?) is something to be proud of???... unless by "high quality daycare" you mean a personal nursery next to your executive office.

High quality parenting is the goal. We could provide adequate time off for anyone wanting to spend their time parenting THEIR child. Will they lose their job? No. Will they not get a raise or promotion? Yes.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#498

Post by erikpukinskis »

hanniabu wrote: post #460
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #395

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.

If it turned out that it was just women’s breasts that caused the disparity... that women who have mastectomies do just fine in Academia, would you consider that to be “case solved, situation normal, plain old biology, no sexism here”?

Or would you keep looking for a solution that allows women, who have the very normal female attribute of “having breasts”, to also be catered to and be able to get work done and be compensated despite the whole “breast having” thing?

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#499

Post by buzzkillington »

maire wrote: post #428
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.…

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.

If by modern you mean common for the lower middle class in 1850 sure:

>And here occurs a curious inversion. It is a fact of common observance that in this lower middle class there is no pretense of leisure on the part of the head of the household. Through force of circumstances it has fallen into disuse. But the middle-class wife still carries on the business of vicarious leisure, for the good name of the household and its master. In descending the social scale in any modern industrial community, the primary fact-the conspicuous leisure of the master of the household-disappears at a relatively high point. The head of the middle-class household has been reduced by economic circumstances to turn his hand to gaining a livelihood by occupations which often partake largely of the character of industry, as in the case of the ordinary business man of today. But the derivative fact-the vicarious leisure and consumption rendered by the wife, and the auxiliary vicarious performance of leisure by menials-remains in vogue as a conventionality which the demands of reputability will not suffer to be slighted. It is by no means an uncommon spectacle to find a man applying himself to work with the utmost assiduity, in order that his wife may in due form render for him that degree of vicarious leisure which the common sense of the time demands.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/833/833-h/833-h.htm

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#500

Post by erikpukinskis »

uncle_j wrote: post #415
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #408

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…

Which aspect of sexual dimorphism causes men to disrespect other men who care for children?
Post reply on HN