An alternative argument for why women leave STEM • Hacker News Board

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#701

Post by wishinghand » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 8:57 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #60

I think the author buried the lede here. My biggest takeaway from the article is that you'd have to be an absolute sucker to work in academia given how poorly you'll be treated. Each person that puts up with this only makes the problem worse, giving at least tacit approval to the status quo. If folks were to start opting out of academia in larger numbers for jobs in private industry, schools would be forced to improv…

I've seen a similar article and they had a more provocative headline: There aren't as many women in STEM academia because they're too smart.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#702

Post by chadlavi » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

badfrog wrote: post #377

epicureanideal wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a larger percentage of society would be willing to call this "structural gender-based inequality" rather than sexism, because most people including myself use the word "sexism" to refer to a belief that one sex is less capable or somehow worse than the other. Similarly, men live fewer years than women, and so receive less retirement benefits. This is a structural gender-correlated inequality (maybe gender-cor…

Your framing seems to suggest the entities that established the unequal structure are blameless, which I do not think is the case. The leave policies and overall working environments that most of us have came from the belief that men should be dedicated to work and women should stay at home. Whether the people who established these norms had malicious intent or not, they were incorrect and harmed society.

This

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#703

Post by codingmess » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #638

codingmess wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mothers have the first pick because they invested more into the kid coming into being. They risked their life and invested 9 months into bearing the child. So they get first pick to also be the person spending time with the child.

The strange thing about arguing that its a trade is that you have to consider the trade is fair and consider nothing else.

Not sure what you mean, tbh.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#704

Post by rixed » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

allovernow wrote: post #590

rixed wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding 1: Sexual dymorphism in hominids is not regarded as large compared to other close primates. I don't know where you take this opinion that physical abilities between males and women are "massive", but certainly not from actual measurements. Here are some, conveniently in a single table, for those interested: https://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/00lect13dimorph.h... (Note: We are homo sapiens, pan trogl…

Ok, I know I said I probably wouldn't comment further, but the extent to which people will bend over backwards to deny reality is, frankly, infuriating. If you narrow your definition of sexual dimorphism to body mass, as in your link, then sure, the difference isn't huge relative to other primates. But even a cursory internet search produces results which absolutely, unequivocally demonstrate that physical performanc…

I am not denying that men have a stronger body than women (endurance is more debatable though). Part of this difference is biological (as noted by the table cited in the previous message, which, as you noted rightly, indeed underestimate the difference by focusing only on body size while it is true that men's bodies have more muscle than women's), and part of it is cultural (men do more physical works, more sports, etc).

Physical specialization is obvious to everyone and an "uncomfortable truth" to no one.

What makes me uncomfortable is how some men use these largely obsolete differences inherited from a time where childbearing was constraining our species so much more than today's world where this is a solved problem (like feeding or keeping ourselves warm) to justify that men with such stronger muscles must also have a better reasoning and therefore be better in STEM positions, or leading positions, at taking decisions, at leading people starting with heading a family, and so on. There is no evidence of this, neither factual nor anecdotal (actually, anecdotal evidence suggest a negative correlation between development of muscles and that of brain). This is just patriarchy, plain and old, aka the ideology behind which men hide their domination. A domination that is not justified by men having a better brain but merely by men trying to control women in order to control their body that they are so dependent of. And this is the real controversial topic in my opinion.

I'm not comfortable with this ideology despite being a man not only because I'm ashamed of it, but also as a father of a daughter whom I hope won't be limited in how she will experience life because the other half of the species try hard to maintain an obsolete domination, and I sincerely hope she will kick the ass of all ape-like men thinking that it is "absolutely undeniable" that more muscles means better brain.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#705

Post by codingmess » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

entee wrote: post #323

codingmess wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hurting in some ways, for example in increased prices for housing. If families with two income earners compete with families with one income earner, the outlook is bleak for one earner families. Prices simply rise to what the two earner households can afford. In fact many families can not afford the single earner model anymore. There are also changed expectation, although presumably those can be managed. But onc…

The two income trap you mention was the subject of an Elizabeth Warren book sometime in the early 2000s. It’s a real issue, I’m not sure how to solve it, but it seems like a different larger scale issue. Also at this point its a little late. That societal evolution has already created facts on the ground such that in most larger cities it’s impossible to afford a good middle class lifestyle without two incomes. Given…

The "we" who benefits, would that include the children?

Essentially, the going theory seems to be that society would be better of if it would delegate childcare to less people per child, contrary to the "traditional" one on one of mothers and their children. (Thinking about it, in the old days mothers had more children, so it was rarely one on one either).

Also, it seems to consider having children merely as a productive factor for society, rather than something people do for its own sake.

I like to compare children to Ferraris, as both are expensive (children probably even more so than Ferraris).

So in analogy, people like to buy Ferraris, but society would be better off if those Ferraris would be parked in somebody else's garage. Think about all the time people waste driving their Ferraris, which they could have otherwise put to productive use for the benefit of society.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#706

Post by codingmess » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

ck425 wrote: post #302

codingmess wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hurting in some ways, for example in increased prices for housing. If families with two income earners compete with families with one income earner, the outlook is bleak for one earner families. Prices simply rise to what the two earner households can afford. In fact many families can not afford the single earner model anymore. There are also changed expectation, although presumably those can be managed. But onc…

What you fail to mention though is the whole host of benefits to society that comes from gender equality, equality that is a direct result of woman working. Unfortunately it seems to be fundamentally difficult to make both models of the family work equally well simultaneously.

What exact benefits do you mean?

I think technological progress has freed women to do other things than, say washing clothes and other household chores.

That doing other things can of course benefit society, if they so chose. A washing machine saving 16 hours of labor per week can bring society a benefit of 16 work hours per week.

As for childcare, I am not sure I agree that organizing childcare so that fewer people can take care of the children is necessarily a benefit. It can be, but there seems to be a limit, too. For example few people would say "one person is enough to take care of 100 toddlers", which would free 99 people (mothers, mostly) to do other things than childcare.

Also, if we think in terms of "benefits to society", wouldn't there be other worthwhile targets? For example, what if instead of watching TV, people would do something useful for society? It would be a huge net benefit - so maybe we should outlaw TVs?

Meaning we neglect that people may have children because they like having them, not because they want to provide a service to society.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#707

Post by ThrustVectoring » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

aratakareigen wrote: post #687

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #49

There's a big tendency to ignore the price at which career success is sold. You have to give up more fulfilling and creative work, perhaps, or spend long hours in front of a screen on difficult yet boring tasks, or put in years and years of all-encompassing work in various qualification gauntlets. Not having paid the price for fame in academic STEM, I have no jealousy of the success these people have found - they hav…

Yeah, I'm super uninformed here, but single men's expectations of potential partners are totally the prime suspect here. Anecdote: My uncle explicitly stated on his dating profile that he was looking for women with masters degrees who were willing to stay at home. I have no idea why he wanted that or why my dad's sister agreed, but this kind of demand is oddly common.

> single men's expectations of potential partners are totally the prime suspect here.

It's both genders; women do not lack agency in the dating market. It'd be as fair to make "my partner should be willing to give up their career to start a family" as the default and blame the dynamic on women - after all, they prefer men who are unwilling to compromise in the pursuit of their career.

I try to avoid either, and just mention that this axis has a gendered component in terms of both what people do and desire.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#708

Post by Renevith » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

uncle_j wrote: post #688

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> People aren't being harmed here. Well, the author is saying that she is considering giving up her career in reearch which she very much wants to pursue to have children because she can't find a way to reconcile the two. That is clearly harmful and if it is affecting women at a large scale as the author suggests then it is definitely something that should be corrected.

> Well, the author is saying that she is considering giving up her career in reearch which she very much wants to pursue to have children because she can't find a way to reconcile the two. I disagree. Unfortunately you have to make decisions in life on what you want to prioritise. You can't have your cake and eat it. Also I don't consider having to make a choice harmful. Being harmed mean things like being assaulted,…

> You can't have your cake and eat it.

Unless you're a man.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#709

Post by chadcmulligan » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #666

chadcmulligan wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I used to say that before I experienced it - but the system is built around workers that will work long continuous hours - you have to beg for the exception, and you take a pay hit - forget any thoughts of promotion - the glass ceiling women complain about. The attitude is oh yes we're being generous by letting you leave early - it shouldn't be that way, work should be planned around life.

While the plural of anecdote is not data, my director of engineering started as an individual contributor on my team. As a single mom, she has been promoted multiple times. She works two days from home and leaves early to beat traffic so she can do kid stuff. She is also very good at each role she has had.

Thats great it may be changing - my story was about 10 - 15 years ago now. I was sharing my experience, and I still see it everywhere. I would imagine that it takes extreme time management for her to achieve this, which is great, and kudos to her but this is definitely the exception. I have known people that can do this, they usually have very impressive Filofaxes with things scheduled to the minute in my experience. While there are people who can do this, and who want to - they are the minority.

I was thinking more along the lines of shared half time jobs, or 3 or 4 day a week jobs, jobs that allow women (or men) to work, look after their kids without becoming automatons. They exist in medicine, in law, in accounting, I've known a number of doctors that do 4 hour days in the office, and a bit at home. The only other choice I've seen is cafe jobs, or minor admin jobs. I don't see any reason that a lot of IT jobs couldn't be structured this way. As has been said many times - there's an IT shortage - of young white males who'll work cheap.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#710

Post by uncle_j » Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 12:04 AM UTC

Renevith wrote: post #708

uncle_j wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, the author is saying that she is considering giving up her career in reearch which she very much wants to pursue to have children because she can't find a way to reconcile the two. I disagree. Unfortunately you have to make decisions in life on what you want to prioritise. You can't have your cake and eat it. Also I don't consider having to make a choice harmful. Being harmed mean things like being assaulted,…

> You can't have your cake and eat it. Unless you're a man.

Not at all. I should have expected such a reply though tbh.

Many men work long hours and miss out on their family time. Also men typically work more dangerous jobs and are more likely to die on the job. They are also more less likely to win custody in separation. Men are more likely to commit suicide. Nobody has it easy and your sort of glib remark that ignores all the issues men currently face isn't helpful.