Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations • Hacker News Board

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#171

Post by leetcrew » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

ryanmarsh wrote: post #156

adolph wrote: post #149

I have a developing conjecture that in order to address the perceived problem of higher male per capita in certain occupations, attracting males into occupations with higher female ratios is as important as incentivizing female participation in high-male occupations. I'm no mathematician but I see it in terms of system numbers: Given a set of occupations with different sex ratios, to change the ratio of any specific…

I've not been able to wrap my head around this issue. What is the thinking behind the desire to even sex ratios in various profession? Why are some professions receiving more attention than others when it comes to evening sex ratios. Is a perfect world when every construction site, hospital, and dreary programming job (lets be honest most of them aren't fun) has an even mix of the sexes? What is the benefit? Can some…

it's hard to give a non-political answer because it's really about money and who gets it. on average, men make more money than women. a lot of people (especially women) consider this to be unfair. software engineer is one of the highest paid roles for someone with only a bachelor's degree. most software engineers are men. if your goal is to decrease the income gap between men and women, it probably seems easier to get more women into the lucrative subset of male-dominated professions than to increase the wages of female-dominated roles above market. no one is particularly interested in increasing "representation" in poorly compensated (or dangerous, see "oil rig") roles.

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#172

Post by zepto » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

crate_barre wrote: post #135

Loughla wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually hits on an argument that I don't understand that is actively and currently happening around me. I work in a place that is currently undergoing some diversity, equity, and inclusion education for staff. One camp sees it as an attack on themselves. "I'm not racist, I can't be racist, I would never act like that." One camp sees it as an opportunity to attack others. "My experience is that people like you a…

It’s fundamentally because we are trying to tackle a systemic issue (a macro level issue) at the micro level (day to day human interaction). Most people are not going to be (or even are) racist/prejudiced to each other in the day to day. Similar to how most Americans won’t ever have someone build our phones and make our clothes for pennies on the dollar if it was up to us, truly. However, systemically, we will still…

> that’s simply how the system is set up.

By saying this, you render everything else you have said here moot. Once you declare systemic racism as an unassailable fact, all of your reasoning is simply affirming the consequent.

It’s entirely possible that racial inequity exists, and that some of it is a consequence of past and present racism, but that this does not mean that the ‘system is racist’ is a meaningful analysis.

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#173

Post by todd8 » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

It's going on here in the USA in some male dominated occupations too.

I have a friend that is on the board of directors for a number of large companies. Not surprisingly, he says that boards are all looking for women and minorities. Publicly traded companies are naturally in competition for the best board members they can find in these categories.

In research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2015), the investigators determined that faculty comittees prefer female candidates 2 to 1 over male candidates with equally strong resumes. See [1].

[1] “National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | April 2015

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#174

Post by mpweiher » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #96

dTal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like pretty standard out-group stigmatization that you also hear applied to immigrants, people of color etc...

I don't know about stealing but is it not the case that most sex offenders are men? That seems like an actual risk wherase the accusations at play in racism are just made up.

The prevalence of sex offenders is sufficiently low that the distribution within the tiny group of sex offenders is irrelevant to the overall risk.

Last I checked, the majority of violence against children (including murder) is by women. So women should not be hired into this role. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#175

Post by dktoao » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #140

dktoao wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this hot take way too often and I take it that you didn't read any of your sources to see if they actually supported your claim. Because: [1] Yes, Wikipedia confirms that affirmative action is a thing societies across the world engage in it to try to have a representative cross section of the population engaged in critical aspects of society. And yes, in America since the practice became enshrined in law that m…

> have a representative cross section of the population engaged in critical aspects of society I didn't realize making people click on ads was a critical aspect of society (FAANG firms use DEI tactics to preference URMs). Getting an undergrad education in engineering at a top school isn't a critical aspect either. Instead of focusing on white men, why don't you take a look at the stats around Asian men? Or Asians in…

I somewhat agree with your first point about ad-clicking, but I think there is some nuance that you are missing, primarily the fact that all of engineering isn't web design. However, I am fascinated to find that you think that engineering know how isn't a critical aspect of modern societies? Please explain.

I agree that it isn't good that motivated and qualified people that really want to go to a top tier college are rejected. However, that is the basic fact of life when there are 10x more applicants that open spots. I think if we really wanted to tackle this issue as a society the way to start would be to increase the availability and affordability of high quality post-primary education. Let's assume that the lawsuit's basic premise is correct that Asian Americans would be accepted at a much much higher rate if race was eliminated from the acceptance criteria, and then Harvard started evaluating application as such. Harvard would become an Asian American mono-culture to the detriment of not just white people but Hispanic, Black and other under-represented minorities. Is that a good outcome???

I'm speaking loosely because I realize "Asian American" is a quite a broad cultural generalization, but I do personally admire the work-ethic and reverence for science and intellectual pursuit that has gotten this community to where it is today, to quote Drake "You came from the bottom now your whole team here". But as a White male American, I think when you are at the top of the food chain you have a responsibility to see to it that those who are not have an opportunity, otherwise that makes you an asshole.

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#176

Post by an9n » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #18

s7eu3b4u wrote: post #14

I interviewed at a hair salon once. The owner/manager was female as were all other employees. I'm a guy. Needless to say, I did not hear back. The owner told me during the interview that her clients are all females, mostly wealthy, with many 40-50 years old and she basically explained I would not fit in.

hmm, I have never really thought about it before but I don't think I have ever seen a single heterosexual male hairdresser in my life outside of a barbershop. Never really even registered I guess because that's how it has always been in my experience but interesting now that you mention it. I know there are a ton of male hairdressers just from going to barbershops. Wonder if they just gravitate towards barber shops o…

I had a mate that trained at Vidal Sassoon in London. There are plenty of heterosexual men in hairdressing, and they aren't exclusively in barbers, at least in the UK. As it happens you can have a pretty reasonable business with it if you have a dash of entrepreneurial skill and drive - the pay at VS as an apprentice was pitiful but this guy left school with basically no qualifications whatsoever but ended up owning several salons. There can be lots of work handling the emotional ups and downs of a group of younger hairdressers though... Lots of hormones etc flying about!

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#177

Post by mpweiher » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #119

zeku wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is the kind of comment we have to stop if we are going to actually be able to push mens rights issues. You're using divisive language with your second sentence and poison pilling the entire argument by attacking feminists. This doesn't have to be a feminist vs whatever war, it needs to be a conversation around male issues and we need everyone at the table to make things better.

Speaking as a feminist - spot on. Feminism isn't about just swapping gender roles and just giving power to women. (As much as Sheryl Sandberg seems to believe it is) Which means that yes, the incarceration rates are (or should be, it's not like there's a feminist cabal I speak for;) concerning for feminists Not in the sense that we should simply incarcerate not women, but in the sense that we should desperately look…

> systemic issues [causing higher incarceration rates]

Anti-male bias in the justice system, which has been shown to be around 6x higher than the anti-black bias in the justice system.

> reward/excuse antisocial behavior in boys

We do not. Society strongly discourages not just anti-social behavior in boys, it nowadays discourage a LOT of boy behavior that isn't actually anti-social. Boys are seen as defective girls. And of course the education system hugely discriminates against boys. Unabashedly so.

> Feminism isn't about just swapping gender roles and just giving power to women.

That used to be true. It no longer is.

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#178

Post by worker767424 » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

endymi0n wrote: post #58

lucaspm98 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One factor that may be contributing to this, especially in the art world, is survivorship bias driven by higher male risk tolerances. Men have much more boom or bust outcomes in their lives and careers due to lower risk aversion. What this could look like in the art world is a lower tendency than women towards a stable yet income-capped career like art teacher, and a higher tendency towards a risky yet unlimited pote…

Note the hypothesis about risk being a predominantly male trait is also consistent at the other end with men making up 90%+ of prison population in pretty much any form of government or society. I haven't heard many feminists argue for a female quota in prisons yet.

My theory is that nature runs experiments with males to varying degrees depending on species, mostly in mammals. The continuation of the species only needs men to provide sperm, so the species can afford for unfit males to not have offspring. Females have a more important role, so you should optimize for consistency and reliability.

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#179

Post by logicalmonster » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

ryanmarsh wrote: post #156

adolph wrote: post #149

I have a developing conjecture that in order to address the perceived problem of higher male per capita in certain occupations, attracting males into occupations with higher female ratios is as important as incentivizing female participation in high-male occupations. I'm no mathematician but I see it in terms of system numbers: Given a set of occupations with different sex ratios, to change the ratio of any specific…

I've not been able to wrap my head around this issue. What is the thinking behind the desire to even sex ratios in various profession? Why are some professions receiving more attention than others when it comes to evening sex ratios. Is a perfect world when every construction site, hospital, and dreary programming job (lets be honest most of them aren't fun) has an even mix of the sexes? What is the benefit? Can some…

> Why are some professions receiving more attention than others when it comes to evening sex ratios.

I think some people in the technology field unfortunately take everything at face value and are not really thinking about the various power plays in motion when it comes to persuasion and influence. I would point out that some people stand to make money and gain power off of promoting these views, and of course some employers stand to make a hell of a lot of money off of promoting these views.

I'd say that until there's a societal movement to even out the gender imbalance in boilermakers, roofers, deep sea fishers, oil drillers, and other difficult but very profitable careers, that distrusting the motives of those that claim to want to even out the gender imbalance in the workplace is fair game.

Re: Swedish study finds discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations

#180

Post by klyrs » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #136

bjourne wrote: post #121

I took a quick look at the comments on this article and I find it fascinating that almost every commenter accepts the study's conclusions at face value. Having been a HN reader for several years, I know how incredibly rare that is! The top voted comment is always something like "Correlation is not causation", "Yeah, but did the authors consider ?", or something about how the methods does not allow one to draw very fa…

The researchers sent out identical resumes for job applications. If the general stereotype “men have less emotional iq” is the argument, it is actually discrimination based on gender stereotypes. You didn’t offer any valid methodological rebuttal to the study.

> You didn’t offer any valid methodological rebuttal to the study.

On most studies regarding discrimination, HN readers clamor to rebut the methodology. That isn't happening here. Is the study bombproof, or is it possible that confirmation bias is at play?