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To be clear: both factors may well be related to sexism. "The findings support earlier research that suggests that parental and household responsibilities ofte

by abalone 10y ago

To be clear: both factors may well be related to sexism. "The findings support earlier research that suggests that parental and household responsibilities often affect women disproportionately, particularly in environments without adequate work–life and family policies" I would also question why women "choose" less lucrative fields of study. Perhaps various forms of sexism make the higher paying male dominated fields a harder choice.

cperciva 10y ago
I would also question why women "choose" less lucrative fields of study. Perhaps various forms of sexism makes the higher paying male dominated fields a harder choice. It could also be the other way around: Social expectations concerning men as primary income-earners makes it a hard choice for men to pursue less lucrative fields of study.
- abalone 10y ago
  Putting aside the sheer absurdity of that argument -- women pursue biology PhDs because they expect to be supported by a man? -- it still wouldn't explain why women are under represented in higher paying fields.
  - bluecalm 10y ago
    Maybe they are more competitive and significant percentage of women might not want enter competitive field because they plan to have families and know they will not be able to devote as much time to the rat race as men would.
  - RyanZAG 10y ago
    How is there any absurdity? If a person is expected to only choose a high paying field, but has two options open: 1. High paying field they don't really like. 2. Low paying field they'd love to do. Then if there are social expectations that someone must make a lot of money, they will generally be forced to choose option 1. The argument that men are forced by social expectations to choose option 1, and women are more freely able to choose option 2 is not 'absurd'. It may be correct or incorrect and would need some evidence to back it up, but please don't go around labeling positions you don't like as 'absurd'.
    - abalone 10y ago
      You ignored my explicit spelling out of the absurdity: that it assumes women pursuing certain advanced STEM degrees do so expecting to be financially supported by a man.
      - RyanZAG 10y ago
        They're not going to need support for themselves with either STEM degree - but they're not going to be able to support a husband and children on a low paying STEM. And nobody would expect them to support a husband. Meanwhile a man would be expected to support a wife and children off his salary. This is the expectations difference you are calling absurd.
        abalone 10y ago
        It is not the "expectations difference" that is absurd. It is the notion that highly educated women freely choose to opt out of high paying engineering/CS fields and pursue lower-paying PhDs because they plan on men supporting them. Is there a single shred of evidence to support this? Interviews with female grad students where they spell out this plan of theirs, etc.? Of course not. Meanwhile, tons of evidence around sexist cultures in engineering and CS. [1] [1] see for example Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (MIT Press) http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Press/dp/0262632691 http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Pr...
        Chris2048 10y ago
        > because they plan on men supporting them You added the idea of conscious planning. Replace "plan on supporting them" with "higher probability of getting support". > tons of evidence around sexist cultures in engineering and CS This has no bearing on the above claim though, does it? That men have a higher risk of being able to find a partner capable and willing on supporting them financially.
      - gozur88 10y ago
        That's not necessarily true. It could just be that a woman's expectations are a potential husband earns above a certain amount of money, while men don't place the same value on a woman's earnings.
  - reitzensteinm 10y ago
    Even if Colin's argument is wrong, it's not "absurd", and it's this kind of toxic rhetoric that invariably makes these discussions fall off a cliff into a cesspool. Could we once do without it?
    - mafribe 10y ago
      invariably makes these discussions fall off a cliff That is of course the political purpose of such remarks. Demonise the other side, brand them as beyond the pale, as not even worthy a reply. This is a well-known rhetorical device to protect one's own position from criticism. Alas it's difficult to defend against.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    women pursue biology PhDs because they expect to be supported by a man? Not at all what I said. Rather, women have the freedom to pursue their interests because they know that their ability to have children will not be determined by whether they can support a spouse.
- mafribe 10y ago
  You are phrasing this rather politely. The "Social expectations" are enshrined into law. Just a quick look at the legal rights involving paternity vs maternity leave make that pretty clear [1]. So do the regulations regarding divorce and alimony in most legislations, see eg. [2] for the case of the US. The best way of thinking about this issue from the social power angle: Work is unpleasant in most cases (hence mostly only done when incentivised by pay or force) and best to be avoided. Those most able to avoid work are those with most social power. Parental leave is a social mechanism to avoid work, since most people prefer spending time with their children to working. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_international_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_in... [2] http://www.realworlddivorce.com/ http://www.realworlddivorce.com/
  - abalone 10y ago
    > Parental leave is a social mechanism to avoid work And there's the sexism: the idea that raising children is not "work". Anyone who believes caring for a newborn is not hard work is welcome to try it and report back.
    - mafribe 10y ago
      Most parents have a deep emotional bond with the children, especially when they they are vulnerable babies. It's probably the strongest emotional bond humans can form. Due to this bond, the relationship between children and their parents is completely different than the relationship between a corporation and its employees. There are no performance goals, there are no annual reviews, there is no stack ranking. Most parents would die for their children, who would die for their boss? If the relationship between you and your children is like that between you and your employer, you are probably not doing it right ... You can also look at this from a power angle: what do feminist typically campaign for? Do they typically campaign for mandatory patertal leave to match or exceed maternal leave? This would be the case if looking after one's children was such a drag. Nope, they are typically quite happy with women getting the biggest chunk of parental leave, but they want society to view maternal leave as work on par with working in a company.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
  How is that the other way around? I think it's more like the other side of the coin.
  - tomp 10y ago
    It's subtly different, IMO. One possibility is that men are influencing women (via patriarchy) to choose less profitable fields & careers. The other is that women are influencing men (via their sexual preferences) to choose more profitable careers. An analogy would be beauty. It's quite obvious that it's the women who care more about their appearance (due to male sexual preferences) rather than men caring less.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    Most of what I was trying to convey was explained by tomp, but to take a concrete example: Is the gender imbalance in computing because women who are interested in computing are being forced out of the field, or because men who aren't interested in computing are being forced into the field?
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
The direction of causality is "women enter a field --> that field starts paying less."
- Tiksi 10y ago
  That's to be expected though. More people of any gender enter a field -> that field starts paying less. Also fields change what work they include while keeping the same name, so it's a very sloppy metric at best.

by abalone 10y ago

cperciva 10y ago

I would also question why women "choose" less lucrative fields of study. Perhaps various forms of sexism makes the higher paying male dominated fields a harder choice. It could also be the other way around: Social expectations concerning men as primary income-earners makes it a hard choice for men to pursue less lucrative fields of study.

abalone 10y ago
Putting aside the sheer absurdity of that argument -- women pursue biology PhDs because they expect to be supported by a man? -- it still wouldn't explain why women are under represented in higher paying fields.
- bluecalm 10y ago
  Maybe they are more competitive and significant percentage of women might not want enter competitive field because they plan to have families and know they will not be able to devote as much time to the rat race as men would.
- RyanZAG 10y ago
  How is there any absurdity? If a person is expected to only choose a high paying field, but has two options open: 1. High paying field they don't really like. 2. Low paying field they'd love to do. Then if there are social expectations that someone must make a lot of money, they will generally be forced to choose option 1. The argument that men are forced by social expectations to choose option 1, and women are more freely able to choose option 2 is not 'absurd'. It may be correct or incorrect and would need some evidence to back it up, but please don't go around labeling positions you don't like as 'absurd'.
  - abalone 10y ago
    You ignored my explicit spelling out of the absurdity: that it assumes women pursuing certain advanced STEM degrees do so expecting to be financially supported by a man.
    - RyanZAG 10y ago
      They're not going to need support for themselves with either STEM degree - but they're not going to be able to support a husband and children on a low paying STEM. And nobody would expect them to support a husband. Meanwhile a man would be expected to support a wife and children off his salary. This is the expectations difference you are calling absurd.
      - abalone 10y ago
        It is not the "expectations difference" that is absurd. It is the notion that highly educated women freely choose to opt out of high paying engineering/CS fields and pursue lower-paying PhDs because they plan on men supporting them. Is there a single shred of evidence to support this? Interviews with female grad students where they spell out this plan of theirs, etc.? Of course not. Meanwhile, tons of evidence around sexist cultures in engineering and CS. [1] [1] see for example Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (MIT Press) http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Press/dp/0262632691 http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Pr...
        Chris2048 10y ago
        > because they plan on men supporting them You added the idea of conscious planning. Replace "plan on supporting them" with "higher probability of getting support". > tons of evidence around sexist cultures in engineering and CS This has no bearing on the above claim though, does it? That men have a higher risk of being able to find a partner capable and willing on supporting them financially.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      That's not necessarily true. It could just be that a woman's expectations are a potential husband earns above a certain amount of money, while men don't place the same value on a woman's earnings.
- reitzensteinm 10y ago
  Even if Colin's argument is wrong, it's not "absurd", and it's this kind of toxic rhetoric that invariably makes these discussions fall off a cliff into a cesspool. Could we once do without it?
  - mafribe 10y ago
    invariably makes these discussions fall off a cliff That is of course the political purpose of such remarks. Demonise the other side, brand them as beyond the pale, as not even worthy a reply. This is a well-known rhetorical device to protect one's own position from criticism. Alas it's difficult to defend against.
- cperciva 10y ago
  women pursue biology PhDs because they expect to be supported by a man? Not at all what I said. Rather, women have the freedom to pursue their interests because they know that their ability to have children will not be determined by whether they can support a spouse.
mafribe 10y ago
You are phrasing this rather politely. The "Social expectations" are enshrined into law. Just a quick look at the legal rights involving paternity vs maternity leave make that pretty clear [1]. So do the regulations regarding divorce and alimony in most legislations, see eg. [2] for the case of the US. The best way of thinking about this issue from the social power angle: Work is unpleasant in most cases (hence mostly only done when incentivised by pay or force) and best to be avoided. Those most able to avoid work are those with most social power. Parental leave is a social mechanism to avoid work, since most people prefer spending time with their children to working. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_international_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_in... [2] http://www.realworlddivorce.com/ http://www.realworlddivorce.com/
- abalone 10y ago
  > Parental leave is a social mechanism to avoid work And there's the sexism: the idea that raising children is not "work". Anyone who believes caring for a newborn is not hard work is welcome to try it and report back.
  - mafribe 10y ago
    Most parents have a deep emotional bond with the children, especially when they they are vulnerable babies. It's probably the strongest emotional bond humans can form. Due to this bond, the relationship between children and their parents is completely different than the relationship between a corporation and its employees. There are no performance goals, there are no annual reviews, there is no stack ranking. Most parents would die for their children, who would die for their boss? If the relationship between you and your children is like that between you and your employer, you are probably not doing it right ... You can also look at this from a power angle: what do feminist typically campaign for? Do they typically campaign for mandatory patertal leave to match or exceed maternal leave? This would be the case if looking after one's children was such a drag. Nope, they are typically quite happy with women getting the biggest chunk of parental leave, but they want society to view maternal leave as work on par with working in a company.
0xcde4c3db 10y ago
How is that the other way around? I think it's more like the other side of the coin.
- tomp 10y ago
  It's subtly different, IMO. One possibility is that men are influencing women (via patriarchy) to choose less profitable fields & careers. The other is that women are influencing men (via their sexual preferences) to choose more profitable careers. An analogy would be beauty. It's quite obvious that it's the women who care more about their appearance (due to male sexual preferences) rather than men caring less.
- cperciva 10y ago
  Most of what I was trying to convey was explained by tomp, but to take a concrete example: Is the gender imbalance in computing because women who are interested in computing are being forced out of the field, or because men who aren't interested in computing are being forced into the field?

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

The direction of causality is "women enter a field --> that field starts paying less."

Tiksi 10y ago
That's to be expected though. More people of any gender enter a field -> that field starts paying less. Also fields change what work they include while keeping the same name, so it's a very sloppy metric at best.