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The point the author seems to make by peppering the article with these mentions of gender seems to be that burnouts in education are gender related. These stru

The point the author seems to make by peppering the article with these mentions of gender seems to be that burnouts in education are gender related. These struggles are universal for all teachers, not just women. Saying 'xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. Saying no to people is hard for many people of both genders and regardless of gender it is hard for couples to have children and both have a demanding career, whatever the underlying cause. Taking care of children and the house are not the only things that can cause stress outside of work and all of those reasons are not gender bound. This sexist approach is unfair to the men in education who can't say no, have to take care of a family on their own, etc. Furthermore it signals to me that all of the other information in the article should be taken with a grain of salt just as an article on space exploration by a flat earther should be taken with a grain of salt. This subjective approach should not be rewarded here on HN or anywhere else.

annabellish 9y ago
>xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. It isn't a competition. Everyone's experiences are valid and correct. That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession). This doesn't mean that men don't have problems, that their problems are somehow invalidated, or that they should "man up" and take it - the idea that men should do so is actually a problem of _men_ in (profession), because men also have their own set of problems. That women generally, on average, face more and more significant issues does not invalidate anybody and should not cause a competition to find who is most disadvantaged. It should be one component of a rallying point by which everyone's lives can be improved, men and women and everyone else.
- apatters 9y ago
  You come across in this comment like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. In the first paragraph you say that everyone's issues are "valid," but in the second you say women's issues are more "significant." What does it even mean to say that men's issues are valid but not significant? It sounds like you're still writing off men's issues as unimportant. The whole premise that women's issues are more significant or important deserves some skepticism. We can cherry pick certain groups of privileged people, such as computer engineers or CEOs, where I'd agree that women have it harder. (In education, I'm less convinced.) But in the general US population (which is majority female): - The unemployment rate is majority male - The homeless population is majority male - The incarceration rate is massively majority male - Women do better in school - Women live longer
  - annabellish 9y ago
    > In the first paragraph you say that everyone's issues are "valid," but in the second you say women's issues are more "significant." What does it even mean to say that men's issues are valid but not significant? It sounds like you're still writing off men's issues as unimportant. Please do not put words into my mouth. Somebody with a broken leg has a significant and important injury. Somebody who has had their leg torn off has a _more_ significant injury. This does not mean anybody is suggesting a broken leg is not awful, nor that we as a society should not do something about broken legs.
    - apatters 9y ago
      In triage a medic would address the dismemberment first, and only address the broken leg when time and resources permitted. So it still seems to me like you're saying men's issues are less important -- in your analogy they're comparable to a minor injury, and women's issues are comparable to one that's life-threatening. I think that as a society we should prioritize dealing with issues that cause the greatest harm to the most vulnerable people. I don't think the gender of the victims should be the first order concern. My message to corporate America is that I'm unimpressed by diversity hiring quotas. I'd be much more impressed if they ran programs that put ex-cons of any race or gender to work in good jobs. I would favor using a company's product if they did that.
- mosselman 9y ago
  "It isn't a competition." and "...women generally, on average, face more and more significant issues"? Double standards aside, that is exactly my point. It isn't a competition and it isn't fruitful to talk about gender when describing the struggles of people in a profession unless those struggles are directly related to gender. Which in this case they clearly aren't. I think reducing every problem, in this case getting overworked, to gender devalues the real discussion about gender inequality. One real problem with people getting overworked is budget. More money for more workers will make everybody's job easier. Another aspect is people's personal lives in which they can face challenges that cause them stress and make it hard to balance work and life. Solving things like this will make everybody's lives better regardless of their age, race, gender, sexual preference, etc. You also say: "women generally, on average, face more and more significant issues" "men also have their own set of problems." "Everyone's experiences are valid and correct." Again this is the 'men have problems but women have the real problems' argument. "Everyone's experiences are valid and correct." some are just more valid and correct.
  - annabellish 9y ago
    It _isn't_ a competition. There is no "more valid and correct", and I did not suggest that there was - in fact, I directly stated the opposite multiple times. Just because a worse thing exists does not make something not bad. The world is allowed to be made out of shades of grey.
    - mosselman 9y ago
      "The world is allowed to be made out of shades of grey." I never said it isn't. I just don't see how voicing an opinion on who has it worse or not in a discussion about a different subject can lead to anything else than the polarisation of the discussion. You can do whatever you want of course. I was just pointing out that I feel that there is some underlying sexism in the article and that it should probably be taken into account when determining its value.
- monkeynotes 9y ago
  If it's not a competition (a comparison so to say) why distinguish between men and women at all? The problems she identifies are not at all gender specific, not in my generation at least. That said, to be fair, I don't think she made the article particularly slanted or gender focussed. I think she was just talking about her experience, and identifying her gender is probably a by-product of our time, a time when women are maturing into, and pushing for, equality.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Huh? 75% of teachers are female. 80% of elementary teachers are female. 95% of kindergarten teachers are female. If you are talking about investment banking or civil engineering, sure systematic discrimination is a thing. Teaching is not one of these. If you want to see discrimination, talk to to male K-2 teacher.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  > That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession). I face a professional problem - I am just a normal straight hetero healthy white male, no kids yet. I can't join in all honesty any disprivileged group to prevent me being fired in next corporate firing round. I can guarantee you that no manager (meaning already politics-playing individual) these days wants to be firing a minority/homosexual/disabled person from their team. They rather fire a guy like me just to avoid any diversity radar, long-term impact on the team or objective performance be damned. You think I am joking? I see people 'hedging' against being fired by being involved as much as they can (I don't care about this corporate job that much, but I don't expect elsewhere to be much different. And startup world has its own issues.) I've experienced this over my whole career, but till now it had been only women - cherished in dev teams and hired over +-same or slightly better guys, given extra time to adjust/train, extra help with debugging etc. No problems with it, we're gentlemen after all. I never saw a female dev being fired, and I've been through maybe 15 firing rounds over my career, seeing women as equal performers with slightly different perspective on the tasks.
k__ 9y ago
Education is mostly filled with women. Otherwise women aren't inclined to throw away their life for their job. -- EDIT -- Sorry, was on mobile. What I wanted to say is. Normally, women aren't as fond as men to invest a big bunch of their life into their job. They have the skills, but realize they don't want to work 100h a week to get to the top, when 30h are more than enough to make enough money AND have freetime. They control their work life ballance much better than most men. If you now see that >90% of people working in the education sector are women, it isn't surprising that they have more women with burnout. The more women a sector has, the more of women with burnout they have.
- monkeynotes 9y ago
  I was surprised by these stats: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-percentage-women-and-men-each-profession/GBX22YsWl0XaeHghwXfE4H/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce... I don't really follow your conclusion though. Why is it education is so attractive to women? Why do you presume that other professions are considered by women to be 'throwing their lives away'?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    I think women are disproportionately attracted to jobs where the mission is people focused and caring focused. Many women are doubly attracted to jobs where there is schedule flexibility. Teaching is a sweet gig if you intend to have children or want to travel. It’s also an income enhancer in blue states, as teacher benefits are usually good and makes it easier for a spouse to take career risks. Nursing is a similar deal. My sister in law is a nurse practitioner. She has unlimited job options to bounce around and can ask for and get whatever schedule meets her needs.
    - watwut 9y ago
      > Many women are doubly attracted to jobs where there is schedule flexibility. Female dominated jobs have less flexibility on average then male dominated jobs. It is mostly that primary caregivers after they have children need more flexibility, but original choice of occupation does not reflect this later need. > Teaching is a sweet gig if you intend to have children or want to travel. No it is not. It does not allow remote work nor flexible hours. You have to be there at time for teaching students who came. I am programmer and have waaay more flexibility then teachers. > Nursing is a similar deal. My sister in law is a nurse practitioner. She has unlimited job options to bounce around and can ask for and get whatever schedule meets her needs. That would be unusal, nurses I know have to be on the job on time and at schedule.
shaki-dora 9y ago
The only mentions of gender in the article are the very arguments why it might be harder: "tenure-track horror stories we hear (particularly from women)" This is a reference to, among other things, sexual harassment. This is not exclusive to women, but they are the vast majority of victims. There was, for example, some upheaval in the astrophysics community, with dozens of stories of younger female researchers finding out at the conference hotel that their professors "had accidentally just reserved one room for the two of them, oops" and so on. "women are reluctant to say no on the job" is a reference to the fact that women often feel more of a need to prove that they are worthy for the job. This doesn't imply any wrongdoing by men, especially not by specific men. But you can easily find data showing that women tend to have far more doubts about their abilities and accomplishments, and therefore feel under more pressure to perform. "Another gendered reality is that women work a double shift" This is pretty self-explanatory... Most importantly, I don't understand how such an article provokes the defensive reflexes it apparently does: I'm a white able-bodies heterosexual man, and I have absolutely no doubt that if I were an overworked grad student at the author's faculty, my complaints would get a fair hearing. In fact, 90% of her complaints are indeed independent of gender, and her speaking out will help all troubled by them. For the rest: if women do feel under extra pressure to appear smart and diligent, which I find at least plausible, I think it can almost completely be solved by just listening and acknowledging their complaint. We do sometimes have gendered expectations: I've personally witnessed a professor who complained abut women's handwriting in lab reports ("I can't read this") while shrugging it off for men ("You've a doctor's handwriting chuckle"). The problem of childcare can also be solved without anyone losing much, and society has actually come a long way. Institutions can open day-care etc. And teams and their leaders can almost always accommodate the flexibility required, and in the process usually creates a more flexible work experience for anyone. Just don't make a big fuss out of it if someone comes late and stays long once in a while because they had to take their infant to the doctor.
- ataturk 9y ago
  The issue I have with what you said is that while they are victims, everyone is a victim of one sort or another and there are serious crimes and there are stupid "crimes" like being patted on the butt by some old lecher. We can't right every wrong. As far as overwork goes, I can tell you firsthand that while higher education is bad, the corporate workplace is nightmarish in scope. They work you to death then when your health fails, they throw you away and get a new one. That's the reality. One job I had pushed me to my absolute limits. I quit it after my manager succumbed to either a heart attack or nervous breakdown of some kind. I'm not even sure what happened to him because HR just came by and said he was taking "medical leave." I never saw him again after that since about a month later I gave my notice and got out of there after my wife put her foot down about all the panic attacks I was experiencing and didn't know what they were. Those pressure cooker jobs are't worth the money. What's worse is that I've realize that all development jobs are shades of what I went through at that one place and that worse, while my health has recovered, any amount of stress pushes my buttons now. I'm about ready to shuffle off voluntarily now and maybe just go make $15/hr. in some bullshit job someplace. It's better than being carried out, which I have witnessed so many times I can't even count: At one large company I worked for, I know of at least three people that died at their desks and many others who suffered breakdowns requiring EMTs to show up. The sad truth is that there is a never ending supply of ambitious people willing to try to push it all a little further. On a long enough timescale, they're all dead people walking.
Angostura 9y ago
Speaking as a man in the education sector, that's absolutely not the implication I took from this piece at all. She was telling the reader that that, though a woman, the problems she had were not particularly aggravated by the issues that can face women.
scott_s 9y ago
I am baffled by your comment because she spent most of the piece talking about the gender-neutral demands on academics in research universities.
- mcguire 9y ago
  Indeed, immediately followed by reassurances that any gender-specific issues did not apply to her.
grasshopperpurp 9y ago
Out of 1,332 words, 92 (7%) were spent on issues particular to women, and some of those 92 words were spent praising the egalitarian nature of her marriage/how much her husband helps. I think you're projecting a lot.

annabellish 9y ago

>xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. It isn't a competition. Everyone's experiences are valid and correct. That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession). This doesn't mean that men don't have problems, that their problems are somehow invalidated, or that they should "man up" and take it - the idea that men should do so is actually a problem of _men_ in (profession), because men also have their own set of problems. That women generally, on average, face more and more significant issues does not invalidate anybody and should not cause a competition to find who is most disadvantaged. It should be one component of a rallying point by which everyone's lives can be improved, men and women and everyone else.

apatters 9y ago
You come across in this comment like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. In the first paragraph you say that everyone's issues are "valid," but in the second you say women's issues are more "significant." What does it even mean to say that men's issues are valid but not significant? It sounds like you're still writing off men's issues as unimportant. The whole premise that women's issues are more significant or important deserves some skepticism. We can cherry pick certain groups of privileged people, such as computer engineers or CEOs, where I'd agree that women have it harder. (In education, I'm less convinced.) But in the general US population (which is majority female): - The unemployment rate is majority male - The homeless population is majority male - The incarceration rate is massively majority male - Women do better in school - Women live longer
- annabellish 9y ago
  > In the first paragraph you say that everyone's issues are "valid," but in the second you say women's issues are more "significant." What does it even mean to say that men's issues are valid but not significant? It sounds like you're still writing off men's issues as unimportant. Please do not put words into my mouth. Somebody with a broken leg has a significant and important injury. Somebody who has had their leg torn off has a _more_ significant injury. This does not mean anybody is suggesting a broken leg is not awful, nor that we as a society should not do something about broken legs.
  - apatters 9y ago
    In triage a medic would address the dismemberment first, and only address the broken leg when time and resources permitted. So it still seems to me like you're saying men's issues are less important -- in your analogy they're comparable to a minor injury, and women's issues are comparable to one that's life-threatening. I think that as a society we should prioritize dealing with issues that cause the greatest harm to the most vulnerable people. I don't think the gender of the victims should be the first order concern. My message to corporate America is that I'm unimpressed by diversity hiring quotas. I'd be much more impressed if they ran programs that put ex-cons of any race or gender to work in good jobs. I would favor using a company's product if they did that.
mosselman 9y ago
"It isn't a competition." and "...women generally, on average, face more and more significant issues"? Double standards aside, that is exactly my point. It isn't a competition and it isn't fruitful to talk about gender when describing the struggles of people in a profession unless those struggles are directly related to gender. Which in this case they clearly aren't. I think reducing every problem, in this case getting overworked, to gender devalues the real discussion about gender inequality. One real problem with people getting overworked is budget. More money for more workers will make everybody's job easier. Another aspect is people's personal lives in which they can face challenges that cause them stress and make it hard to balance work and life. Solving things like this will make everybody's lives better regardless of their age, race, gender, sexual preference, etc. You also say: "women generally, on average, face more and more significant issues" "men also have their own set of problems." "Everyone's experiences are valid and correct." Again this is the 'men have problems but women have the real problems' argument. "Everyone's experiences are valid and correct." some are just more valid and correct.
- annabellish 9y ago
  It _isn't_ a competition. There is no "more valid and correct", and I did not suggest that there was - in fact, I directly stated the opposite multiple times. Just because a worse thing exists does not make something not bad. The world is allowed to be made out of shades of grey.
  - mosselman 9y ago
    "The world is allowed to be made out of shades of grey." I never said it isn't. I just don't see how voicing an opinion on who has it worse or not in a discussion about a different subject can lead to anything else than the polarisation of the discussion. You can do whatever you want of course. I was just pointing out that I feel that there is some underlying sexism in the article and that it should probably be taken into account when determining its value.
monkeynotes 9y ago
If it's not a competition (a comparison so to say) why distinguish between men and women at all? The problems she identifies are not at all gender specific, not in my generation at least. That said, to be fair, I don't think she made the article particularly slanted or gender focussed. I think she was just talking about her experience, and identifying her gender is probably a by-product of our time, a time when women are maturing into, and pushing for, equality.
Spooky23 9y ago
Huh? 75% of teachers are female. 80% of elementary teachers are female. 95% of kindergarten teachers are female. If you are talking about investment banking or civil engineering, sure systematic discrimination is a thing. Teaching is not one of these. If you want to see discrimination, talk to to male K-2 teacher.
saiya-jin 9y ago
> That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession). I face a professional problem - I am just a normal straight hetero healthy white male, no kids yet. I can't join in all honesty any disprivileged group to prevent me being fired in next corporate firing round. I can guarantee you that no manager (meaning already politics-playing individual) these days wants to be firing a minority/homosexual/disabled person from their team. They rather fire a guy like me just to avoid any diversity radar, long-term impact on the team or objective performance be damned. You think I am joking? I see people 'hedging' against being fired by being involved as much as they can (I don't care about this corporate job that much, but I don't expect elsewhere to be much different. And startup world has its own issues.) I've experienced this over my whole career, but till now it had been only women - cherished in dev teams and hired over +-same or slightly better guys, given extra time to adjust/train, extra help with debugging etc. No problems with it, we're gentlemen after all. I never saw a female dev being fired, and I've been through maybe 15 firing rounds over my career, seeing women as equal performers with slightly different perspective on the tasks.

k__ 9y ago

Education is mostly filled with women. Otherwise women aren't inclined to throw away their life for their job. -- EDIT -- Sorry, was on mobile. What I wanted to say is. Normally, women aren't as fond as men to invest a big bunch of their life into their job. They have the skills, but realize they don't want to work 100h a week to get to the top, when 30h are more than enough to make enough money AND have freetime. They control their work life ballance much better than most men. If you now see that >90% of people working in the education sector are women, it isn't surprising that they have more women with burnout. The more women a sector has, the more of women with burnout they have.

monkeynotes 9y ago
I was surprised by these stats: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-percentage-women-and-men-each-profession/GBX22YsWl0XaeHghwXfE4H/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce... I don't really follow your conclusion though. Why is it education is so attractive to women? Why do you presume that other professions are considered by women to be 'throwing their lives away'?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  I think women are disproportionately attracted to jobs where the mission is people focused and caring focused. Many women are doubly attracted to jobs where there is schedule flexibility. Teaching is a sweet gig if you intend to have children or want to travel. It’s also an income enhancer in blue states, as teacher benefits are usually good and makes it easier for a spouse to take career risks. Nursing is a similar deal. My sister in law is a nurse practitioner. She has unlimited job options to bounce around and can ask for and get whatever schedule meets her needs.
  - watwut 9y ago
    > Many women are doubly attracted to jobs where there is schedule flexibility. Female dominated jobs have less flexibility on average then male dominated jobs. It is mostly that primary caregivers after they have children need more flexibility, but original choice of occupation does not reflect this later need. > Teaching is a sweet gig if you intend to have children or want to travel. No it is not. It does not allow remote work nor flexible hours. You have to be there at time for teaching students who came. I am programmer and have waaay more flexibility then teachers. > Nursing is a similar deal. My sister in law is a nurse practitioner. She has unlimited job options to bounce around and can ask for and get whatever schedule meets her needs. That would be unusal, nurses I know have to be on the job on time and at schedule.

shaki-dora 9y ago

The only mentions of gender in the article are the very arguments why it might be harder: "tenure-track horror stories we hear (particularly from women)" This is a reference to, among other things, sexual harassment. This is not exclusive to women, but they are the vast majority of victims. There was, for example, some upheaval in the astrophysics community, with dozens of stories of younger female researchers finding out at the conference hotel that their professors "had accidentally just reserved one room for the two of them, oops" and so on. "women are reluctant to say no on the job" is a reference to the fact that women often feel more of a need to prove that they are worthy for the job. This doesn't imply any wrongdoing by men, especially not by specific men. But you can easily find data showing that women tend to have far more doubts about their abilities and accomplishments, and therefore feel under more pressure to perform. "Another gendered reality is that women work a double shift" This is pretty self-explanatory... Most importantly, I don't understand how such an article provokes the defensive reflexes it apparently does: I'm a white able-bodies heterosexual man, and I have absolutely no doubt that if I were an overworked grad student at the author's faculty, my complaints would get a fair hearing. In fact, 90% of her complaints are indeed independent of gender, and her speaking out will help all troubled by them. For the rest: if women do feel under extra pressure to appear smart and diligent, which I find at least plausible, I think it can almost completely be solved by just listening and acknowledging their complaint. We do sometimes have gendered expectations: I've personally witnessed a professor who complained abut women's handwriting in lab reports ("I can't read this") while shrugging it off for men ("You've a doctor's handwriting chuckle"). The problem of childcare can also be solved without anyone losing much, and society has actually come a long way. Institutions can open day-care etc. And teams and their leaders can almost always accommodate the flexibility required, and in the process usually creates a more flexible work experience for anyone. Just don't make a big fuss out of it if someone comes late and stays long once in a while because they had to take their infant to the doctor.

ataturk 9y ago
The issue I have with what you said is that while they are victims, everyone is a victim of one sort or another and there are serious crimes and there are stupid "crimes" like being patted on the butt by some old lecher. We can't right every wrong. As far as overwork goes, I can tell you firsthand that while higher education is bad, the corporate workplace is nightmarish in scope. They work you to death then when your health fails, they throw you away and get a new one. That's the reality. One job I had pushed me to my absolute limits. I quit it after my manager succumbed to either a heart attack or nervous breakdown of some kind. I'm not even sure what happened to him because HR just came by and said he was taking "medical leave." I never saw him again after that since about a month later I gave my notice and got out of there after my wife put her foot down about all the panic attacks I was experiencing and didn't know what they were. Those pressure cooker jobs are't worth the money. What's worse is that I've realize that all development jobs are shades of what I went through at that one place and that worse, while my health has recovered, any amount of stress pushes my buttons now. I'm about ready to shuffle off voluntarily now and maybe just go make $15/hr. in some bullshit job someplace. It's better than being carried out, which I have witnessed so many times I can't even count: At one large company I worked for, I know of at least three people that died at their desks and many others who suffered breakdowns requiring EMTs to show up. The sad truth is that there is a never ending supply of ambitious people willing to try to push it all a little further. On a long enough timescale, they're all dead people walking.

Angostura 9y ago

Speaking as a man in the education sector, that's absolutely not the implication I took from this piece at all. She was telling the reader that that, though a woman, the problems she had were not particularly aggravated by the issues that can face women.

scott_s 9y ago

I am baffled by your comment because she spent most of the piece talking about the gender-neutral demands on academics in research universities.

mcguire 9y ago
Indeed, immediately followed by reassurances that any gender-specific issues did not apply to her.

grasshopperpurp 9y ago

Out of 1,332 words, 92 (7%) were spent on issues particular to women, and some of those 92 words were spent praising the egalitarian nature of her marriage/how much her husband helps. I think you're projecting a lot.