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

581–590 of 748 posts

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#581

Post by usaar333 »

detoxdetox wrote: post #384
ck425 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the amount of time parents (more so mothers) spend with each child has increased vastly, with relatively little evidence to suggest much increase in attainment. Most studies show that it's quality of time, not quantity, with parents that really matters. The evidence suggests we don't actually need to parent so much. Personally I see absolutely nothing wrong with sending kids to day care. We sho…

Good point. A bit of nuance: Young children are information sponges. Think about how easy a 2-3 year old picks up language. It is not that hard to believe that 2-3 year olds also pick up behavioral patterns from their surroundings. For life. Do we want Mothers to shape their young children's behavioral patterns, or low paid child care workers with no skin in the game? 8 year olds? Send them to school with a key aroun…

> Do we want Mothers to shape their young children's behavioral patterns, or low paid child care workers with no skin in the game

I'm willing to bet that there are plenty of childcare workers more passionate about raising children than the parents themselves.

Fwiw, in many societies retired grandparents raise the kids which has better alignment and allows parents to readily keep their jobs.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#582

Post by alexchamberlain »

tasogare wrote: post #566
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it biology that only women are expected to leave work to care for children? I don't follow. Is there some biological reason why men are not expected to do the same? Do you mean something else by the "it" in "It seems to be just plain old biology"?

You are missing purposely the fact that women have to bear the child, which is quite incapacitating especially in the last months. Then there is a recovery period. All in all that already about a year. So yes, it’s totally normal that the expectation of caring for children fall on women because it is the prolongation of their pregnancy. Actually this is not even disputed except by a minority of people in a minority o…

Until I saw it for myself, I didn’t realise the extent of the effects of pregnancy on a woman - I don’t think this is well understood.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#583

Post by billfruit »

Perhaps I am feeling more like this an exclusively American problem than a universal one. For example I suggest to study the situation in India.

Many factors are at play here:

* Most Indians tend to marry young and have kids before 30.

* most families have either one or two kids only.

* Parents support their children for life, i.e, grandparents have a major role in supporting the care and rearing of kids.

* Daycare isn't expensive.

* Government mandated maternity leave with full pay and no loss of seniority.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#584

Post by alexchamberlain »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #329
throwaway894345 wrote: post #163

> Heck, let’s spend 99% — $1.485 billion (in the states alone) on better support. That should put a dent in the support bill, and I’d sure pick up $15 million if I saw it lying around. Wouldn’t you? According to PEW ( https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/diversity-in-the-... ) there were 17M STEM employees in 2016, so this leaves less than $1000 per employee for childcare. According to Fortune ( https://fortune…

> I suspect that would be difficult under current US discrimination law What statutes do you believe would stand in the way of an organization offering excellent daycare services to its employees, as suggested in the OP?

I believe the GP was simply saying you couldn’t only offer it to women.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#585

Post by saghm »

ivalm wrote: post #159
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 at FAANG is only a minor, frankly irrelevant, portion of STEM. Most people in STEM cannot transition to being a FAANG SWE. In fact, the OP article of this thread is about progression in an academic career, which doesn't pay well unless you become a full professor at a research uni. First time you break low 6 figures in this career is when you become assistant prof in early/mid 30s.

> In fact, the OP article of this thread is about progression in an academic career, which doesn't pay well unless you become a full professor at a research uni. First time you break low 6 figures in this career is when you become assistant prof in early/mid 30s.

Is an assistant professor different from a "full professor" in your usage here? I'm not sure how you define "paying well", but low six figures is significantly above average in the US (which is where I assume you're talking about, but also most likely above average pretty much everywhere else too).

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#586

Post by oezi »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #473
DavidVoid wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is high time to recognize that 2 children is still a lot of effort and make room for Mothers to take care of their own children. It's high time that fathers start putting in some more work in that department too. Sweden has 480 days of paid parental leave, and each parent has exclusive right to 90 of those days. Have fathers spend some time raising their kids instead of just letting their wives do it and you'll s…

This is a very feminized view of child rearing. Fatherhood's traditional gender role in raising children is to provide resources and protection. If you don't recognize that as "parenting" then you are missing the plot. Hugs are great, but not nearly as great as food and shelter.

Today, just providing "resources and protection" is indeed considered parenting but inadequate. Any man can help with hugs and the household given the reduced work hours.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#587

Post by lutorm »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #503
ck425 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the amount of time parents (more so mothers) spend with each child has increased vastly, with relatively little evidence to suggest much increase in attainment. Most studies show that it's quality of time, not quantity, with parents that really matters. The evidence suggests we don't actually need to parent so much. Personally I see absolutely nothing wrong with sending kids to day care. We sho…

Conversely, day care should be exceedingly expensive to account for the cost of having high quality labor (vs minimum wage caregivers) tend to children, with the end result being day care is a last resort, not something provided universally (when taking into consideration the volume of “bullshit jobs” in the marketplace); your job should be of an exceptional nature to be preferred over childcare obligations.

Given that daycare effectively pools more than one family's children per adult caretaker, it should still only cost a fraction of an equally good job's salary.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#588

Post by lutorm »

Stupulous wrote: post #570
astura wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what they recommend https://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/ >Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended up to 6 months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary foods up to two years of age or beyond.

Sorry if I'm just missing it, but isn't that exactly what they're recommending there, if not more?

Their point presumably was that once the kids don't breastfeed exclusively, the mother doesn't need to stay home to perform that task.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#589

Post by agensaequivocum »

lordnacho wrote: post #196

One thing that she touched on that I've thought a lot about recently is the age at which we have kids. My father passed away a couple of weeks ago, and I compare him to his brother. My uncle had his first kid 10 years younger than my dad, and he ended up with the fourth one being older than me. He's got 10 grandchildren, the oldest of which is an adult now. My dad's grandchildren will never know him in any real way.…

It is possible. I myself just turned 26 and my wife and I have our third coming in July. Having kids is a sacrifice, one of the greatest sacrifices one can make.

I know many other young families. While I am a well-paid software engineer most of my young family friends are middle/high school teachers.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#590

Post by allovernow »

rixed wrote: post #560
allovernow wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start here [1]. This is delving dangerously close to flame war territory, so I probably won't respond further. But I'd like to point out that because of attitudes like this >If you are going to continue with this subtle sexist talk (implying men are better than women at STEM) You're probably unlikely to find too much on the subject - it's dangerous to academic careers to even propose research which could potentially…

Regarding 1: Sexual dymorphism in hominids is not regarded as large compared to other close primates. I don't know where you take this opinion that physical abilities between males and women are "massive", but certainly not from actual measurements. Here are some, conveniently in a single table, for those interested: https://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/00lect13dimorph.h... (Note: We are homo sapiens, pan trogl…

Ok, I know I said I probably wouldn't comment further, but the extent to which people will bend over backwards to deny reality is, frankly, infuriating.

If you narrow your definition of sexual dimorphism to body mass, as in your link, then sure, the difference isn't huge relative to other primates. But even a cursory internet search produces results which absolutely, unequivocally demonstrate that physical performance of males across all measures of strength and endurance is in a league far above that of females, both trained and untrained. By some metrics, like grip strength, the bottom 10th percentile of males outperform the upper 90th percentile of females. Female records for 100m sprints are regularly beaten by teenage boys. Men are approximately 50% stronger on average in measures of both upper and lower body strength - and the gap widens enormously among elite athletes. Lung capacity, injury resistance, training response - I could go on, but I would say that this is more than enough to fit the definition of massive - particularly considering that in practical terms even trained females compare poorly to untrained males by most metrics.

Sorry, it may be an uncomfortable truth, but there is simply no ambiguity regarding the degree of physical specialization among males and females, and I've yet to come across any compelling evidence that the same specialization doesn't apply to the brain. In a truth seeking society, this should not be a controversial topic - the facts are absolutely undeniable, not to mention they almost universally match anecdotal experience.

Post reply on HN