An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

Okay, I looked it up and apparently CS is the only stem field where there seems to be significant bias (https://blogs.helsinki.fi/edu-kumpula/2019/10/10/faculty-of-...)

Not sure if this was just a side comment or not, but I don't think anybody is arguing that it takes a toll

"alternative"? Thanks for the better and more specific data, but didn't we already know this?

Men and women also pair up with the man being older. So this isn't going away until the government forces equal-age mating.

> I think it's still a form of sexism to assume women are the ones who need to care for a child.

Well, certainly nature is sexist in that only one of the sexes is able to gestate a child. Perhaps that will change someday. However, for now, (biological) women face a unique reproductive burden that is worth recognising and compensating for.

Biology aside, there is an important difference between assuming women must bear a disproportionate responsibility for childcare, and recognising that women do bear a disproportionate responsibility for childcare. The former is sexism, the latter is pragmatism. Saying "my house is on fire" doesn't make you pro-fire.

> That's something that very few diversity-in-STEM folks are really thinking about.

I'm not sure how that can be true. What you're describing, the assumption that men work and women stay home, is the foundational stereotype that sparked second-wave feminism. Unless the argument is that "diversity-in-STEM folks" aren't familiar with basic feminist ideas like gender roles?

In any event, here is some evidence that this is, in fact, something that people are really thinking about:

> The boundaries of the gender division of labour between productive and reproductive roles are gradually being crossed as women have started to enter formerly male-dominated areas of work and men have started to accept greater responsibility for domestic tasks, including child care. However, changes in women’s roles have been greater and much more rapid than changes in men’s roles.

— Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) https://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/pdfs/Beijing_Declara...

> Take measures to increase the participation of men in caregiving both within households and in care professions, such as information and awareness campaigns, education and training, school curriculum, peer programmes and government policies to promote men’s participation and responsibilities as fathers and caregivers, and to encourage men and boys to become agents of change in promoting the human rights of women and in challenging gender stereotypes, in particular as they relate to men’s roles in parenting and infant development

— Agreed Conclusions of the 53rd Commission on the Status of Women (2009) https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sec...

> Labour market policies that offer men access to paternity and parental leave, especially when coupled with Scandinavian-style incentives which encourage men to actually take leave, are a critical signal that men have responsibility for their children. However, gender norms are strong and pervasive. [...] Through community-based organisations and educational sessions supported by social protection programmes, health clinics and schools, fathers should be actively integrated into childcare activities and helped to see themselves as central to their children’s development.

— Women's Work: Mothers, children, and the global childcare crisis – Overseas Development Institute (2016) https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/public...

> The time-use and labour force data presented in this chapter make a compelling case for inequalities in unpaid care work and inequalities in the labour force being deeply interrelated. This not only confirms the “unpaid care work–paid care work” connection discussed in Chapter 1, but demonstrates also that no substantive progress can be made in achieving all dimensions of gender equality in the labour force before inequalities in unpaid work are tackled through their effective recognition, reduction and redistribution between women and men, as well as between families and the State.

— Care Work and Care Jobs – International Labour Organization (2018) https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dco...

> Rather than focusing only on increasing women’s workforce participation, it is also important to increase men’s participation in caring responsibilities. In countries where family policies incentivise men to take caring roles, the impact is seen both in the rate of men accessing leave and in societal attitudes towards parenting.

— Women in STEM Decadal Plan – Australian Academy of Science (2019) https://www.science.org.au/files/userfiles/support/reports-a...

> that women are expected to leave their careers _permanently_ to raise their children even though they only need at most a few months or so to recover after giving birth (a year is an absolute extreme), and that men are not expected to do the same

1) This is a conversation concerning those in a relationship as to who will be raising the child (if it's not a shared effort)

2) I know a few guys that are stay at home dads, share the responsibility with their spouse of parents, or use caring services and nobody needs to be a stay at home parent.

3) If they are permanently leaving their career then it sounds like there's something completely unrelated that's affecting this other than some sexist issue.

4) How's what you're saying any different than some women expecting the man to be the bread winner and provide for the family? Or expecting them to be the one to defend the family if there's an intruder in the house? Or expecting the guy to fix things around the house or be the one to hire a contractor to do it? Or expecting the guy to take the garbage out or change a tire or talk to their son about sex, etc.