Girls and Software

If someone says they are my friend, I assume they claim to be a friend according to the definition of the word "friend". If they're not my friend, then that doesn't change the definition of the word friend, it changes their classification from "being my friend" to something else.

I'm not sure what your point is: that many that claim to be feminists are not? Or that you've decided on a different use of the word, so those that claim the established definition are all wrong?

>> "An alternative is paid leave for either partner (or the single parent) for example for a year -- with freedom to choose who stays home."

> This is already case in many countries (for example Germany), but women still stay home most of the time.

I know, and I believe I've implied in one of my other comments, how the fact that stay at home pay is often reduced compared to full time pay -- and how if on average women make less -- many families cannot afford to have the man stay home as much as the women. For certain families the roles are reversed, and the woman cannot afford to stay home.

In either case, economic realities dictate who stays home and how long -- and that is an impediment to equal (parenting) rights.

As have been established in this thread, in general women make less than men, so in general such economic incentives works against men's right to stay home, or against women's right to work -- in effect the work as an incentive for "traditional" family values and gender roles.

It articulated a personal perspective (such a farce,) properly scoped it (men who can't cooperate,) referenced personal observation (team I have been on,) identified a positive attribute (tendency to communicate and collaborate,) ensured not to exclude men which have those traits and expressed amazement at the strength of the positive effects.

I'm sure I won't ever hear it, but I'd loove to hear from someone who feels this is worthy of a downvote...

Higher Education. In Sweden, women dominate every area of higher education except engineering.

Job preferences. Women tend to outperform men in the general desirability of occupations, as measured by the Cambridge Social Interaction and Stratification Scale. Unpopular jobs and thankless job (plumbers, janitors, road workers) tend to be men dominated professions. Women’s occupations are healthier, permit greater access to higher status networks, and involve working with better educated people than men’s occupations.

In both of those, we could see feminist trying to fight for equality, yet we don't.

I'm not as familiar with Sweden as I am with Norway, but AFAIK there is being work done to increase equality in higher education. As an example we try to increase recruitment of women to computer science, and men to biology.

> Job preferences. Women tend to outperform men in the general desirability of occupations, as measured by the Cambridge Social Interaction and Stratification Scale. Unpopular jobs and thankless job (plumbers, janitors, road workers) tend to be men dominated professions. Women’s occupations are healthier, permit greater access to higher status networks, and involve working with better educated people than men’s occupations.

I'm not familiar with studies supporting the idea that women in general have healthier work than men: In general women are overrepresented as nurses, cleaners and hair dressers[1] -- all of which tend to have a high degree of sick leave.

I would also like to see some citations regarding "access to higher status networks" -- most studies/statistics I'm familiar with suggests that even in rather equal societies, like Norway, women are under-represented in leading roles. Additionally even in traditionally female dominated sectors, like nursing, often men will hold the leading positions.

At any rate, feminst do work for higher female recruitment to construction and other traditionally male dominated professions. To be sure, the motivation isn't "to get women into thankless jobs", or increase their exposure to less healthy working conditions, but rather to promote equal opportunity and choice when it comes to careers.

The "humanist" side of the coin wrt working conditions, is of course to work for all workers to have better working conditions.

I'm a little surprised to see plumbing and road work grouped with cleaning -- but perhaps that can explain why road work is much more expensive in Norway than in Sweden.

[1] Hairdressers tend to stand a lot, often on hard floors, and are also exposed to chemicals that disturbingly harmful. There's recently been more awareness around the stuff used to treat and colour hair -- some of which contain substances that have long since become highly regulated when used in construction.

This is only relevant for the very small fraction of the population that are "into" those things.