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I am not sure if that is the right mind set: "So around the time a lot of people have kids? ...you need to make a LOT of money to pay for daycare ... you might

I am not sure if that is the right mind set: "So around the time a lot of people have kids? ...you need to make a LOT of money to pay for daycare ... you might as well just stay home." The "you" can be the other partner. Ensuring fair pay and opportunities for all qualified workers would encourage only a brief departure from a woman's career for maternity leave, allowing either partner to be the home support (as needed), instead of making the choice based on poor future earning opportunities vs their male peers.

busterarm 10y ago
Do we know that that's the reason that more women are deciding to stay home? This looks like a big conclusion to draw when the data only _may_ correlate. Where's the survey of double-income family moms working in tech where they specified the reason why they chose to stay at home? There are a lot of reports coming out that look at numbers and say what may be the reason, but I've yet to see anyone go ask women the reasons why they left jobs in tech.
- nostrebored 10y ago
  Oh, I've done this, let me tell you why: 1) People in tech are assholes to women. I don't think most of them realize they're doing it. Sending images of swimsuit models over slack or otherwise sexualizing your work environment is an awful idea, and you shouldn't do it even if you don't have women on your team. My partner gets asked out by coworkers regularly, even while pregnant. 2) No really, people in tech are assholes to women. I've heard women give presentations where people talk over them the whole time, and then critique them for not being prepared afterwords. Nah pal, you literally stopped her from presenting information. People do not take suggestions of women as seriously wrt technical problems. 3) Kids. State of paternity leave in the U.S... 4) Being pushed into management. Women are pushed into management at a disproportional rate -- while some see this as a success metric, it can also be seen as an extension of point 2. 5) HR problems. Using HR sucks when you're the only woman on the team. Having someone else call HR sucks when you're the only woman on the team because everyone assumes it was you. 6) Culture, combination of all of the above, lack of a critical mass of women to make actual change, etc.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    I'm not at all saying that I don't believe you, but we're at the point where we need to leave anecdotes out of this and start gathering good data. As much as I've seen your examples, I've also seen all of the counter examples (except to point 3 because that's just how it is in the States). I spent the first few years of my working-life in female-dominated industries/workplaces and almost the entirety of my tech career in female-dominated or equal workplaces. I've yet to work somewhere without pay-parity (actually the hedge fund I worked for paid women more). From my anecdotal perspective, the world out there is wonderful. But I know that's not true. I have a strong filter against toxic work environments - I simply would never end up at a company like that. I'm just asking for good data that can speak for itself. This is what our industry does. Aside: frequent surveys/studies show that more than 50% of participants have engaged in an office romance, equally across genders. I've never done this, but it's a big stretch to say that asking out a coworker is asshole behavior at this point. It's much more about the how.
    - nostrebored 10y ago
      I didn't mention pay parity anywhere. The majority of pay disparity between men and women in the U.S. is due to job/field selection imo. The questions we have to ask are ones that determine why people choose certain fields, what social pressures are there, etc. Which is why I agree that we need good data, but the best I can do is actually talking to women and seeing their problems, and they're remarkably similar. That office romance bit might be different in a situation in which you have an equal number of male and female coworkers. But when you bring in a disparity of 5:1, asking out your coworkers, you're literally just having people being pestered all day. And honestly, you're referring to a study that disseminates itself via an ad carousel with no methodology I can find. A survey of 2000 people with no published methodology is hardly reliable. There's a reason you've never done it, and most women I talk to cringe at the idea.
  - slackstation 10y ago
    These are startup problems. Larger mature tech companies (there are many of them) shouldn't be that hostile. I work at one with 1000+ employees and while it's not 50/50, I can't imagine it being that bad. Also, I'm a black person. All of the horror stories they say about POC in tech, I have never experienced one. I've had individual jerks but, I haven't had things like the company passing me up or ever felt that I wasn't getting a promotion, ever. So, mapping that to what they say about women, I would say it's unlikely to be as bad as they say. Now, that's completely and utterly subjective but, attitudes concerning your perceptions of how others treat you is subjective.
- jacalata 10y ago
  You may have literally never looked because it's really easy to find those studies on google.
whatshisface 10y ago
>"The 'you' can be the other partner." Our culture's acceptance of stay-at-home dads has not neutralized in step with its acceptance of working women. As relationships link people into social units, social costs imposed on men can counter-intuitively harm women.
ps4fanboy 10y ago
Now to find women who want their husbands to stay at home looking after the kids while she works, good luck with that. And to be clear unless 50% of the coupled women out there commit to this you wont see any meaningful change in how society perceives stay at home dads, which currently is "lazy"
HarshTruth 10y ago
Ensuring fair pair wouldn't allow either partner to be the home support. Why? Because woman desire their partner to make more money than them. Even if she makes the same salary as her peers she will statistically be married to a man who makes more money and so the economic pressure will be on her to be the stay at home partner.

busterarm 10y ago

Do we know that that's the reason that more women are deciding to stay home? This looks like a big conclusion to draw when the data only _may_ correlate. Where's the survey of double-income family moms working in tech where they specified the reason why they chose to stay at home? There are a lot of reports coming out that look at numbers and say what may be the reason, but I've yet to see anyone go ask women the reasons why they left jobs in tech.

nostrebored 10y ago
Oh, I've done this, let me tell you why: 1) People in tech are assholes to women. I don't think most of them realize they're doing it. Sending images of swimsuit models over slack or otherwise sexualizing your work environment is an awful idea, and you shouldn't do it even if you don't have women on your team. My partner gets asked out by coworkers regularly, even while pregnant. 2) No really, people in tech are assholes to women. I've heard women give presentations where people talk over them the whole time, and then critique them for not being prepared afterwords. Nah pal, you literally stopped her from presenting information. People do not take suggestions of women as seriously wrt technical problems. 3) Kids. State of paternity leave in the U.S... 4) Being pushed into management. Women are pushed into management at a disproportional rate -- while some see this as a success metric, it can also be seen as an extension of point 2. 5) HR problems. Using HR sucks when you're the only woman on the team. Having someone else call HR sucks when you're the only woman on the team because everyone assumes it was you. 6) Culture, combination of all of the above, lack of a critical mass of women to make actual change, etc.
- busterarm 10y ago
  I'm not at all saying that I don't believe you, but we're at the point where we need to leave anecdotes out of this and start gathering good data. As much as I've seen your examples, I've also seen all of the counter examples (except to point 3 because that's just how it is in the States). I spent the first few years of my working-life in female-dominated industries/workplaces and almost the entirety of my tech career in female-dominated or equal workplaces. I've yet to work somewhere without pay-parity (actually the hedge fund I worked for paid women more). From my anecdotal perspective, the world out there is wonderful. But I know that's not true. I have a strong filter against toxic work environments - I simply would never end up at a company like that. I'm just asking for good data that can speak for itself. This is what our industry does. Aside: frequent surveys/studies show that more than 50% of participants have engaged in an office romance, equally across genders. I've never done this, but it's a big stretch to say that asking out a coworker is asshole behavior at this point. It's much more about the how.
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    I didn't mention pay parity anywhere. The majority of pay disparity between men and women in the U.S. is due to job/field selection imo. The questions we have to ask are ones that determine why people choose certain fields, what social pressures are there, etc. Which is why I agree that we need good data, but the best I can do is actually talking to women and seeing their problems, and they're remarkably similar. That office romance bit might be different in a situation in which you have an equal number of male and female coworkers. But when you bring in a disparity of 5:1, asking out your coworkers, you're literally just having people being pestered all day. And honestly, you're referring to a study that disseminates itself via an ad carousel with no methodology I can find. A survey of 2000 people with no published methodology is hardly reliable. There's a reason you've never done it, and most women I talk to cringe at the idea.
- slackstation 10y ago
  These are startup problems. Larger mature tech companies (there are many of them) shouldn't be that hostile. I work at one with 1000+ employees and while it's not 50/50, I can't imagine it being that bad. Also, I'm a black person. All of the horror stories they say about POC in tech, I have never experienced one. I've had individual jerks but, I haven't had things like the company passing me up or ever felt that I wasn't getting a promotion, ever. So, mapping that to what they say about women, I would say it's unlikely to be as bad as they say. Now, that's completely and utterly subjective but, attitudes concerning your perceptions of how others treat you is subjective.
jacalata 10y ago
You may have literally never looked because it's really easy to find those studies on google.

whatshisface 10y ago

>"The 'you' can be the other partner." Our culture's acceptance of stay-at-home dads has not neutralized in step with its acceptance of working women. As relationships link people into social units, social costs imposed on men can counter-intuitively harm women.

ps4fanboy 10y ago

Now to find women who want their husbands to stay at home looking after the kids while she works, good luck with that. And to be clear unless 50% of the coupled women out there commit to this you wont see any meaningful change in how society perceives stay at home dads, which currently is "lazy"

HarshTruth 10y ago

Ensuring fair pair wouldn't allow either partner to be the home support. Why? Because woman desire their partner to make more money than them. Even if she makes the same salary as her peers she will statistically be married to a man who makes more money and so the economic pressure will be on her to be the stay at home partner.