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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

#741

Post by magduf »

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…

>There's been less progress in surgery, where hellish hours are considered part of the journey.

This is really a bad thing, because women are generally superior to men at tasks involving fine motor skills.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#742

Post by codingmess »

nl wrote: post #730
codingmess wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard work, but not a burden. People have kids because they like having them. Keeping with the Ferrari analogy, cleaning your Ferrari is also hard work, but nobody would pity you for the "burden" or having to clean your Ferrari. Not sure if you are aware, but if you don't like them anymore, there are ways to get rid of them. You could send them to a boarding school (or at least to a school where they have to stay…

As for feminism, the whole discussion only exists because of feminism. Therefore, yes, it is about feminism. You are presenting an caricature of feminism, and that seems to be all you are able to argue against.

In what way do you think I present a caricature of feminism? Where would "non-caricature" feminism differ from my presentation?

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#743

Post by dang »

codingmess wrote: post #742
nl wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for feminism, the whole discussion only exists because of feminism. Therefore, yes, it is about feminism. You are presenting an caricature of feminism, and that seems to be all you are able to argue against.

In what way do you think I present a caricature of feminism? Where would "non-caricature" feminism differ from my presentation?

Please don't use HN for ideological battle, regardless of which ideology you're for or against. It already looks like you're using HN primarily for that, and we ban such accounts, as the site guidelines say.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#744

Post by dang »

nl wrote: post #730
codingmess wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard work, but not a burden. People have kids because they like having them. Keeping with the Ferrari analogy, cleaning your Ferrari is also hard work, but nobody would pity you for the "burden" or having to clean your Ferrari. Not sure if you are aware, but if you don't like them anymore, there are ways to get rid of them. You could send them to a boarding school (or at least to a school where they have to stay…

As for feminism, the whole discussion only exists because of feminism. Therefore, yes, it is about feminism. You are presenting an caricature of feminism, and that seems to be all you are able to argue against.

Please don't use HN for ideological battle. It's predictable and convinces no on. We're looking for curious conversation here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#745

Post by therealdrag0 »

asdff wrote: post #607
virtuous_signal wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

32 hour workweeks might work but there will always be the issue of defection . If a company allows employees to take unlimited leave, then worker A who avails him/herself of it, will be at a disadvantage to worker B who keeps working like a dog, when it comes time for promotions. If company A mandates 32 hour workweeks, then they will eventually lose out to their competitor company B who mandates 40 hours (or more in…

That assumes that working like a dog is more efficient than having a 3 day weekend and free time to interact with your family and coming back in on monday fresh and alert. It also assumes that workers A and B both working 40 hours (or more informally) are both working like dogs, trying to earn a promotion before the other. This is definitely true in some fields like finance, but not all. The last assumption is that t…

> That assumes that working like a dog is more efficient

Naw. Efficiency is only one variable. Working like a dog is usually marginally inefficient, but the first 6 hr/day are still roughly as efficient to the 3-day-weekend-er. Working more hours absolutely increases productivity even if per-hour-productivity decreases (except in extreme cases of burn out). This is pretty obvious when you look at how any high-achiever spends their time. It's amazing how often people claim the opposite on HN.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#746

Post by RobKohr »

This is a societal problem of promoting career instead of family, and delaying parenthood. In your early 20s, your time is worth so little compared to your later career, and your parents are young enough to be more involved. Having children while being an undergraduate is better than when you have an advanced career, substantial earnings, and little support from parents.

The best time to have kids is when you are getting your undergrad degree.

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#747

Post by keiru »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #662
Barrin92 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest takeaway from the article is that you'd have to be an absolute sucker to work in academia The first thing I thought as well. When you read all these horror stories about burned out phd students, why is anyone doing this? If a woman in STEM wants to combine family and work (or a man or anyone else really) there are many jobs in the industry that are actually relatively 9-5, and pay really well. I don't un…

> I don't understand academia at all. It sounds like a combination of paperwork, flying to conferences, endless networking, publishing papers for publishing's sake. It's like a Kafka novel. As an academic, your description is rather accurate regarding the research part of academia (you left out the teaching). Some of us put up with all that because we love the science, the sense of discovery, of doing what no one has…

>the feeling of working for public good and not for some profit-driven corporation.

By advancing human knowledge you are arguably working for hundreds of profit-driven corporations at a time

Re: An alternative argument for why women leave STEM

#748

Post by sbilstein »

detoxdetox wrote: post #79
entee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this and the subtlety of the OP’s argument. There is clearly a problem, there are clearly many contributors, I have personally seen The OP situation play out with my female friends/colleagues in STEM (and other “high power” sectors). This does NOT discount that sexism still is a problem nor that there may be cultural/societal norms that influence the family planning issue. It’s a complicated issue, it ne…

Lost in the modern rush for status and money, "obscenely convenient high quality daycare" used to be called "Motherhood" and was supplied by Mothers themselves. Some would argue, the most valuable contribution to society, even if not directly monetized. To sustain a healthy population, we used to need 10 children per fertile woman, which made "stay at home Mother" an obvious necessity for the vast majority of women.…

there is this latent assumption here that men are reliable breadwinners and/or that they generally do not use their economic power in this arrangement to abuse their partners and families.

Women working is a way of evening out the power imbalance that has led to suffering for women all over the world since the beginning of time.

When you have no economic power you are dependent on your husband which is why unpaid labor is so dangerous. The husband calls the shots. Not all husbands are good guys. It's only reasonable for women to want to reduce their exposure to this problem via things advocated for by feminists over time: birth control to avoid unwanted and forced pregnancies (far more common in the days of having 5+ children) and of course death during childbirth, literally their own income stream so they can pay for things a husband might not value equally: healthcare, tuition, clothes, and more, an income stream to enable a divorce should the husband be an abuser, problematic addict or worse...

in less shitty scenarios, the sudden death of a male partner can result in financial ruin for a family with a 'non-working' mother. Again, its economically reasonable for a woman to want to hedge against being stuck at 40 years old with no advanced skills in a career.

It's all about female empowerment.

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