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+15K responses of women in tech show burnout is forcing people to quit early to preserve health, I'm feeling furious because systematic workplace problems are g

+15K responses of women in tech show burnout is forcing people to quit early to preserve health, I'm feeling furious because systematic workplace problems are getting in the way of us advancing careers and potentially getting into positions of power. How do you handle this? Do you think can change, if so, how? I think this represents the deep psychological costs of continuing to fight for seats at tables that were never meant to serve us and banging our heads against glass ceilings only to find more of the same on the other side.

telesilla 5y ago
Best move I ever made was becoming the boss. Still not as easy as it should be but with the increasing number of women bosses around we're giving each other a ton of support.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Women statistically choose to preserve their health more readily than men. Whether it is going to the doctor more frequently, using tobacco and alcohol less frequently, performing extreme sports/stunts far less frequently, driving safer, even choosing less successful means of suicide. This is at least part of the reason women live longer than men. Even in a completely non-sexist society, high stress jobs may just remain in the domain of men for this reason. Granted, not all men - men who value their health closer to the level the average woman does isn't going to do well in the field. And women who value their health closer to how the average man does will do better than other women. But I'm not really sure how this could be restructured. How can you prevent someone from destroying their long term health in order to get ahead at work? You like to spend some time with your family, or to sleep for 8 hours? Well, my family just sees me as a dollar sign, and I can get by on 4 hours of sleep, so I'm just going to put all those hours into my work. How can someone with a healthy schedule possibly keep up? Even instituting rules about only checking email/logging in during work hours won't help that much, because I can just put more thinking hours into the problem at hand and show up on Monday with a stack of ideas, whereas the person who spent time with their family over the weekend will be starting fresh.

telesilla 5y ago

Best move I ever made was becoming the boss. Still not as easy as it should be but with the increasing number of women bosses around we're giving each other a ton of support.

oh_sigh 5y ago

Women statistically choose to preserve their health more readily than men. Whether it is going to the doctor more frequently, using tobacco and alcohol less frequently, performing extreme sports/stunts far less frequently, driving safer, even choosing less successful means of suicide. This is at least part of the reason women live longer than men. Even in a completely non-sexist society, high stress jobs may just remain in the domain of men for this reason. Granted, not all men - men who value their health closer to the level the average woman does isn't going to do well in the field. And women who value their health closer to how the average man does will do better than other women. But I'm not really sure how this could be restructured. How can you prevent someone from destroying their long term health in order to get ahead at work? You like to spend some time with your family, or to sleep for 8 hours? Well, my family just sees me as a dollar sign, and I can get by on 4 hours of sleep, so I'm just going to put all those hours into my work. How can someone with a healthy schedule possibly keep up? Even instituting rules about only checking email/logging in during work hours won't help that much, because I can just put more thinking hours into the problem at hand and show up on Monday with a stack of ideas, whereas the person who spent time with their family over the weekend will be starting fresh.