An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

Enhanced emotional bonding due to emissions of oxytocin during breasfeeding? Make men sit with children several times a day while getting oxytocin shots and perhaps they would have much stronger bonds with their children.

From Wikipedia: Maternal behavior: Female rats given oxytocin antagonists after giving birth do not exhibit typical maternal behavior. By contrast, virgin female sheep show maternal behavior toward foreign lambs upon cerebrospinal fluid infusion of oxytocin, which they would not do otherwise.

Or it's a systematic sexism that has deep roots in human biology and thousands of generations of sexually dimorphic specialization, and I can't believe we've successfully convinced multiple generations of westerners now to pretend that men and women are equally suited for all roles, including child rearing.

Now we need an article which takes an honest look at the possibility that gender imbalance in STEM (and other fields) is at least partly a result of similar specialization for cognitive tasks, where researchers like the author of the article are closer to extremes of an ability distribution. But I'm relieved to see a take that questions the tired, pervasive assumption that STEM is simply not welcoming to women because old white men are sexist.

The opportunity cost was enormous but now that the kids are grown it sure seems like it was a great plan for us. My wife did get a lot grief from her family for dropping out of the workforce ($$) until they started having their own kids.

We have two daughters. The youngest is in college for CS, she has made it very clear that she does not want to have children. The older daughter is not STEM -- she is an Army officer (Westpoint Grad) who does want kids someday.

One of my in-laws is using nannies and such even though they easily could drop to one income (MD specialist dad, pharmacist mom) -- it hurts my heart to see how much time they voluntarily spend away from their kids, including weekend shifts, holiday shifts, etc. But it is their life, and their kids seem to be thriving so what do I know.

Wait what....you mean by STEM you just meant academia?

One of the nice things about being in charge of a remote company is that when I bring the baby to our weekly video call, no one says anything, and of course they all feel comfortable doing the same (although right now there are only fur babies).

If I need to take a nap because the baby kept me up all night, I can, as long as there is no meeting scheduled.

We try to do things as asynchronously as possible, mainly because being remote this is a better way to work, but the nice side effect is not a lot of scheduled meetings.

The hardest part honestly is saying no when my son asks, "Daddy, do you want to play trains with me?!"

But my point is, I think remote companies with family friendly policies will help a lot in this regard. There is still the issue of "I need to concentrate for two hours uninterrupted", but a lot of the other issues aren't so bad when people understand you have kids and they might come to a meeting and that you may not be available instantly.