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> I think wherever you look in the world, you see a field or an endeavor that’s not got women in it. You can ask yourself why aren’t there women there? And the

by Zikes 11y ago

> I think wherever you look in the world, you see a field or an endeavor that’s not got women in it. You can ask yourself why aren’t there women there? And the answer is always the same: It’s because women aren’t welcome. Does that include coal mining, construction, fishing, farming, forestry/logging, waste disposal, protective services, dishwashing, landscaping/groundskeeping, pest control, stonemasonry, flooring, plumbing, highway maintenance, auto mechanics, HVAC, machining, welding, cabinetry, wastewater treatment, and truck driving? Or is it more likely that jobs that are extremely dangerous, highly stressful, physically demanding, low pay, or any or all of the above just aren't very attractive to women? I mean, they're not all that attractive to a lot of men, either, so that's perfectly fine. I don't really like the thought of spending weeks at a time on a small fishing trawler with a dozen other guys, myself, especially if there's a 1 in 1,000 chance I'd die from it. My aunt used to be a truck driver. She enjoyed it, the pay was decent and got along great with a lot of the drivers she ran into. She also got mugged a few times, often at gunpoint.

sneak 11y ago
> Or is it more likely that jobs that are extremely dangerous, highly stressful, physically demanding, low pay, or any or all of the above just aren't very attractive to women? I mean, they're not all that attractive to a lot of men, either, so that's perfectly fine. And you've hit on the point - jobs that aren't attractive to women aren't attractive to men, either. The result is that women aren't there because they're unwelcome, not because women shy away from "heavy" work.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Or fewer men have a choice. With some jobs they're not just unattractive but one is simply incapable of meeting the physical demands. If you need to be stronger than 80% of men to be able to do a job then there's going to be a vanishingly small percentage of women able to do it. Then you need those women to have no better option, or a strong desire to do that particular job, with a lot of jobs. It's like jobs with lots of manual dexterity needed, if you have bigger hands you can't do it well - this means women (and in some places children) have these jobs.
  - jhanschoo 11y ago
    But to what extent are physical factors a rationalization? We can mix-and-match the genders and degree of manual labor involved and see exceptions; men working in construction; men working as engineers; men working sedentary office jobs; women in nursing; women in education; men and women in animal husbandry. To me it's not obvious what the dimensions are that are relevant to professions that humans have a gender disposition toward, and what percentage of out current distribution of professions should be explained by cultural ideas rather than such dispositions, and it may never be obvious. Regardless, (and this is a tangent to the current comment thread) I understand the current push for gender diversity in professions to have several purposes that is not contingent on there being no gender disposition in professions. 1) Maximizing individual capabilities. The idea being that proponents of profession diversity wants to increase the number of fulfilling career paths an individual is able to make by removing obstacles, real and perceived, by the individual and by the industry. Obstacles include, for example, pay differences, glass ceilings, stigmata, workplace hours. 2) Increasing manpower, which is related to the previous goal, but from the perspective of government. When people able to perform well at a job but instead work at a job where they provide suboptimal utility due to gender discrimination, that is value lost for a society. When professions and gender are rigid, that is resilience and flexibility compromised. A competitive society thus has an incentive to decouple professions from gender. Thus, whereas a gender disposition may explain present distributions, it nevertheless does not invalidate the reasons behind
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > It's like jobs with lots of manual dexterity needed, if you have bigger hands you can't do it well - this means women (and in some places children) have these jobs. This kind of thing was said in the 60s when factory owners employed women. "Nimble fingers!" The reason they said it was because unions were much weaker at protecting women's rights, and so bosses could pay women considerably less for work of equivalent skill. That's what the Dagenham strikes were about. That was in 1968 so it's really weird to hear it still being said today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_...
    - 11y ago
- Zikes 11y ago
  They're not unwelcome, they just have better options. There are quite a few fields dominated by women as well, especially education.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
re: truck driving, it's even less friendly to women than software: http://jezebel.com/unhappy-trails-female-truckers-say-they-faced-rape-and-1725590857 http://jezebel.com/unhappy-trails-female-truckers-say-they-f... http://truckerdesiree.com http://truckerdesiree.com
DanBC 11y ago
You might be interested to search for each of those industries and the measures they're taking to correct gender-imbalance. For example, mining has "Women in Mining": http://www.womeninmining.org/ http://www.womeninmining.org/ Fishing has traditionally been actively anti women because of superstitions about women on boats. Here's one woman trying to make a difference to that: http://www.lattianderson.com/chix-who-fish-commercial-fishermen http://www.lattianderson.com/chix-who-fish-commercial-fisher... Welding: http://www.witc.edu/pgmpages/welding/women.htm http://www.witc.edu/pgmpages/welding/women.htm http://www.womeninwelding.com/ http://www.womeninwelding.com/ http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/hey-women-want-hot-career-become-welder-n26426 http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/hey-women-want-hot-c... Forestry: http://fica.org.nz/women-in-forestry/ http://fica.org.nz/women-in-forestry/ Plumbing: http://www.theplumbette.com.au/plumbing/women-in-plumbing-breakfast-at-parliament-house/ http://www.theplumbette.com.au/plumbing/women-in-plumbing-br... Automotive maintenance: Women in the industry in the US are 10% of the service workers; 10% of the technicians; 23% of the operatives; 28% of the laborors. http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-automotive-industry http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-automotive-industry ETC ETC. Note these are not "women who do the cleaning in the offices of oil companies", or "accountants in the coal mining industry", but "women who do the mining". Note also that this works for men too. There are programmes to increase the numbers of men working in education (especially for young children); nursing; etc. > Or is it more likely that jobs that are extremely dangerous, highly stressful, physically demanding, low pay, or any or all of the above just aren't very attractive to women? I mean, they're not all that attractive to a lot of men, either So you're saying these jobs are universally unattractive, and that the fact they're dominated by men has nothing at all to do with underlying sexism? Not the "we don't employ women" style sexism, but the more insidious "we employ anyone. But, why would you want to do this dangerous heavy job?" style sexism. I mean, there are plenty of physically fit but poor women who need work.

by Zikes 11y ago

sneak 11y ago

> Or is it more likely that jobs that are extremely dangerous, highly stressful, physically demanding, low pay, or any or all of the above just aren't very attractive to women? I mean, they're not all that attractive to a lot of men, either, so that's perfectly fine. And you've hit on the point - jobs that aren't attractive to women aren't attractive to men, either. The result is that women aren't there because they're unwelcome, not because women shy away from "heavy" work.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Or fewer men have a choice. With some jobs they're not just unattractive but one is simply incapable of meeting the physical demands. If you need to be stronger than 80% of men to be able to do a job then there's going to be a vanishingly small percentage of women able to do it. Then you need those women to have no better option, or a strong desire to do that particular job, with a lot of jobs. It's like jobs with lots of manual dexterity needed, if you have bigger hands you can't do it well - this means women (and in some places children) have these jobs.
- jhanschoo 11y ago
  But to what extent are physical factors a rationalization? We can mix-and-match the genders and degree of manual labor involved and see exceptions; men working in construction; men working as engineers; men working sedentary office jobs; women in nursing; women in education; men and women in animal husbandry. To me it's not obvious what the dimensions are that are relevant to professions that humans have a gender disposition toward, and what percentage of out current distribution of professions should be explained by cultural ideas rather than such dispositions, and it may never be obvious. Regardless, (and this is a tangent to the current comment thread) I understand the current push for gender diversity in professions to have several purposes that is not contingent on there being no gender disposition in professions. 1) Maximizing individual capabilities. The idea being that proponents of profession diversity wants to increase the number of fulfilling career paths an individual is able to make by removing obstacles, real and perceived, by the individual and by the industry. Obstacles include, for example, pay differences, glass ceilings, stigmata, workplace hours. 2) Increasing manpower, which is related to the previous goal, but from the perspective of government. When people able to perform well at a job but instead work at a job where they provide suboptimal utility due to gender discrimination, that is value lost for a society. When professions and gender are rigid, that is resilience and flexibility compromised. A competitive society thus has an incentive to decouple professions from gender. Thus, whereas a gender disposition may explain present distributions, it nevertheless does not invalidate the reasons behind
- DanBC 11y ago
  > It's like jobs with lots of manual dexterity needed, if you have bigger hands you can't do it well - this means women (and in some places children) have these jobs. This kind of thing was said in the 60s when factory owners employed women. "Nimble fingers!" The reason they said it was because unions were much weaker at protecting women's rights, and so bosses could pay women considerably less for work of equivalent skill. That's what the Dagenham strikes were about. That was in 1968 so it's really weird to hear it still being said today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_...
  - 11y ago
Zikes 11y ago
They're not unwelcome, they just have better options. There are quite a few fields dominated by women as well, especially education.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago

re: truck driving, it's even less friendly to women than software: http://jezebel.com/unhappy-trails-female-truckers-say-they-faced-rape-and-1725590857 http://jezebel.com/unhappy-trails-female-truckers-say-they-f... http://truckerdesiree.com http://truckerdesiree.com

DanBC 11y ago

You might be interested to search for each of those industries and the measures they're taking to correct gender-imbalance. For example, mining has "Women in Mining": http://www.womeninmining.org/ http://www.womeninmining.org/ Fishing has traditionally been actively anti women because of superstitions about women on boats. Here's one woman trying to make a difference to that: http://www.lattianderson.com/chix-who-fish-commercial-fishermen http://www.lattianderson.com/chix-who-fish-commercial-fisher... Welding: http://www.witc.edu/pgmpages/welding/women.htm http://www.witc.edu/pgmpages/welding/women.htm http://www.womeninwelding.com/ http://www.womeninwelding.com/ http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/hey-women-want-hot-career-become-welder-n26426 http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/hey-women-want-hot-c... Forestry: http://fica.org.nz/women-in-forestry/ http://fica.org.nz/women-in-forestry/ Plumbing: http://www.theplumbette.com.au/plumbing/women-in-plumbing-breakfast-at-parliament-house/ http://www.theplumbette.com.au/plumbing/women-in-plumbing-br... Automotive maintenance: Women in the industry in the US are 10% of the service workers; 10% of the technicians; 23% of the operatives; 28% of the laborors. http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-automotive-industry http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-automotive-industry ETC ETC. Note these are not "women who do the cleaning in the offices of oil companies", or "accountants in the coal mining industry", but "women who do the mining". Note also that this works for men too. There are programmes to increase the numbers of men working in education (especially for young children); nursing; etc. > Or is it more likely that jobs that are extremely dangerous, highly stressful, physically demanding, low pay, or any or all of the above just aren't very attractive to women? I mean, they're not all that attractive to a lot of men, either So you're saying these jobs are universally unattractive, and that the fact they're dominated by men has nothing at all to do with underlying sexism? Not the "we don't employ women" style sexism, but the more insidious "we employ anyone. But, why would you want to do this dangerous heavy job?" style sexism. I mean, there are plenty of physically fit but poor women who need work.