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An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

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Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#691

Post by adjkant »

blub wrote: post #621
adjkant wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is 6 months of time dictating the entirety of childcare?

It's not six months, it's 9 months of pregnancy + ideally another year to recuperate, bond with the child and care for them. Children don't magically become independent when they turn 1 either, they need a lot of investment from both parents in order to develop harmoniously. Starting at this point one could wonder if fathers couldn't spend the same amount of effort as mothers. Technically they could, but by that poin…

You can work during a good deal of those nine months on pregnancy with only minor adjustments towards the second trimester.

> they need a lot of investment from both parents in order to develop harmoniously

Completely agreed, I said nothing against this except that the assumption that the mother had to be the one to stay home was odd.

> Technically they could, but by that point they probably aren't very good at some kinds of care and bonding

No citation here, this really just seems like repackaging assumptions as fact.

> It's also not something that is appreciated by others, except maybe the mother, if she can get over their clumsiness and has the patience to teach them what to do. All in all, there's no benefit for the family if the fathers instead of the mothers work part time or stay at hole.

I am positive many fathers and close family would beg to differ.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#692

Post by toomuchtodo »

lutorm wrote: post #587
toomuchtodo wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I argue current day care costs don’t reflect living wages for caregivers, and it’s already out of reach for a lot of people. When wages rise, even less will be able to afford it.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#693

Post by uncle_j »

daseiner1 wrote: post #690
uncle_j wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't justify that sort of systematic pressure. If I were a parent I would be trying to mitigate the risk to my child. As I previously stated it is unfair but not unfounded. It cannot be sexism if it is based in fact. > An African American is much more likely to be a murderer than a white American, but that doesn't make it ok to cross the road whenever you see one. * I don't live in the US, I am from the UK.…

Your bizarre line about sports gear is racism, or bigotry at least. Black people are mentioned so let’s talk about “louts” dressed poorly?

> If there was a young guy dressed in sports gear and appeared to be somewhat of a lout, no matter what the colour of his skin I would cross the road.

I didn't say anything about Black men. I said if I saw young men in General that looked like louts I would be wary.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#694

Post by n4r9 »

uncle_j wrote: post #524
n4r9 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but it equally applies to OP's assertion about men being more likely to be prosecuted for sex offenses.

It isn't my assertion. The crime statistics in both the UK and the USA back this up. It is something like 96% of all prosecutions of sexual assault are men. EDIT: In fact it is higher at least in the UK > In 2011, males accounted for the vast majority of prosecutions for sexual offences (98.2 per cent). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Sorry, wasn't questioning the statement, but by definition it is something you're asserting.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#695

Post by n4r9 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #496
n4r9 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In full agreement. It's frustrating that increasing paternity leave and encouraging new fathers to spend more time caring for their children is not highlighted as a potential solution.

Doesn’t work. See Sweden. Men who do more parental care work and up having fewer children. People still end up costing between work and family.

The goal is not necessarily to eliminate that choice, but to stop it falling disproportionately to women. By that measure, Sweden's high female labour participation suggests that it's policies are a roaring success.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#696

Post by 75dvtwin »

GCA10 wrote: post #15

Thanks, Karen Morenz, for providing a unified, panoramic view of the ways that the standard academic career progression short-changes many female scientists, even if each step along the way seems to make sense. It's worth taking a look at three other professions with long, high-intensity pathways from apprentice to master --all of which have been wrestling with the same challenges. They are management consulting, law…

I think it is relevant, that you listed professions where

    a) compensation is very high

    b) hours of work cannot be 're-arranged' due to critical life-safety or court-rules.
Clearly, STEM Academia is not one the above (even though apprenticeship hours are grueling).

I presume there are other professions that do not compensate that well, but have similar 'cannot move dates' constraints.

And it would be interesting to see women participation rates on those.

Perhaps this is a specific factor that has gone received proper attention in various analysis.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#697

Post by 75dvtwin »

maire wrote: post #683
maire wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-working mothers is a modern anomaly. It used to be a sign of wealth for a man to have a non-working wife. That is why the newly affluent men of the mid-20th century wanted it so much. They came out of the great depression, fought a great war, and wanted a wife at home. You should not judge all of history by this one era. The work of child care used to fall on the entire extended family. The nuclear family reduced…

Just a small additional comment - if a company creates an environment that encourages community then they will keep women. I was lucky to work at two companies like this - Xerox and early Apple. I don't think they set out to create a family friendly environment. They were trying to have an environment that encouraged creativity. They were part of the zeitgeist of the Bay Area. It just happened to also be family frien…

For me 'family friendly' means 4-day or less work week, 6 hours a day.

Flexibility to take time off with a short notice, office politics that does not induce constant stress and suspicion of being stabbed in the back.

And being around your young children (before 7 years old), most of the time they are awake.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#698

Post by 75dvtwin »

astura wrote: post #399
gfodor wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any citations here? I've always assumed that mothers on average spend less time with their children than in the past, especially the far past, where the men were often abroad fighting wars.

"Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago" https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-...

>"... One analysis of 11 rich countries estimates that the average mother spent 54 minutes a day caring for children in 1965 but 104 minutes in 2012. ..."

This is analysis is just hard to believe. Between reading books, preparing food, driving to activities -- a full-time parent spends probably 4-5 full hours, except when another parent takes over or there is a continuous split.

The interrupt costs are also very high (and affect negatively ability to work).

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#699

Post by uncle_j »

n4r9 wrote: post #694
uncle_j wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't my assertion. The crime statistics in both the UK and the USA back this up. It is something like 96% of all prosecutions of sexual assault are men. EDIT: In fact it is higher at least in the UK > In 2011, males accounted for the vast majority of prosecutions for sexual offences (98.2 per cent). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Sorry, wasn't questioning the statement, but by definition it is something you're asserting.

Fair enough.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#700

Post by 75dvtwin »

geebee wrote: post #351
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a full time caregiver is needed at home, dads can step up as well. After being laid off shortly after we had our first kid, I decided to give my wife a chance to get back into her career while I stayed at home until the kid was ready for daycare. There is no reason to put all this burden on moms, dads have an equal part in this either way.

They should and sometimes do. I read a study (from Rutgers I believe) about men who scale back on work to care for children. The conclusion was that while women are more likely to incur a “parent penalty”, this is partly explained by e fact that many men simply don’t scale back. The comparatively small number of men who do take time off or scale back to care for children face unusually severe career penalties for it.…

Gender norms are reflection of society expectations.

Society expectations evolve/change with economic and war conditions affecting a particular society at that time.

Those things, unfortunately, go in waves.

So we can pick different parts of history and we will likely see 'gender norms' are being adjusted for the particular environment at that time period.

On top, there are biological projections, and genetic predispositions that are projected on 'gender norms'.

Things that 'change less' are genetic traits and biological differences.

Combining economics/war conditions, with genetic traits + biological differences, creates a sort of 'superposition' that we are observing.

As a society, it makes sense to accommodate the desire of individuals, but not force people into particular choice.

Accommodating a variety of legal choices, is what we should be striving for, rather than trying to influence a particular path.

It is sort of like trying to introduce new type of species (animals or trees) into a new environment -- and expecting that we know about the ecosystem, to predict the effects of invasion.

Most of the time, with our current knowledge and prediction capabilities -- we fail.

---

Which is why, I think accommodating choices (and not predicting or promising outcomes) -- is what we should be doing.

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