5 ms·

Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family and it would be less of a problem. Many white collar workplaces are pretty hostile to

by nkrisc 5y ago

Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family and it would be less of a problem. Many white collar workplaces are pretty hostile to working mothers in some ways overt, and other ways more subtly. It’s entirely possible to have a culture where women can have families and careers at the same time. It’s entirely a cultural problem and is completely solvable if there is a collective will to solve it.

bradleyjg 5y ago
Where are these countries that within the population a woman’s fertility isn’t negatively correlated to her education and career attainments? Scandinavian countries do everything you are advocating for and have the same fertility trends as everyone else. Advocate for those policies anyway, if you want to, but don’t claim they are going to move the needle when we have evidence they won’t.
- mgbmtl 5y ago
  Which evidence? In Quebec/Canada, when state-spondored affordable daycare was introduced, it made a notable difference both for the number of women in the workforce, and also an increase in childbirth. https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/daycare-difference-quebec-fertility-rate-outpacing-ontario-s-1.4018340 https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/daycare-difference-queb... Far from perfect, it was defunded in recent years, and it again made the birthrate and workforce go down. As a parent, I can anecdotally say that this system, when it worked, made a huge difference for our family.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    As someone who grew up thanks to this system, it did tremendous good to our family.
  - Zpalmtree 5y ago
    why is throwing kids in daycare so parents can go slave for more money a good thing
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    I didn’t read the underlying study but based on the summary it looks like there was a statistically significant difference in overall fertility. It still never came close to replacement rate and tells us nothing about the sign on the correlation between a woman’s educational and career achievements and her fertility. There’s arguments on all sides about whether sub replacement fertility among woman with successful white collar careers is or isn’t a problem. But what I haven’t seen is any country that’s managed to reverse it. So we don’t in fact know if it is possible.
sokoloff 5y ago
How much is society making them choose versus the biology of pregnancy and delivery versus there being 24 hours in everyone’s day and anyone can only do so many different things well in those 24?
sprash 5y ago
No, "society" should encourage smart women to reproduce. It's as simple as that.
- ducttapecrown 5y ago
  That is what they said.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  So now you are just arguing in favor of eugenics?
- postsantum 5y ago
  There is a heavily stigmatized word associated with this idea
  - sprash 5y ago
    You mean "evolution"? That's true, creationists hate it.
    - greenonions 5y ago
      Not the above poster, but I would guess the word they were referring to was "eugenics".
  - tomp 5y ago
    Not really. Clearly the current socio-economic model discourages smart women to procreate. So encouraging smart women to procreate would in reality simply unbias our society and make things fair again. No need to invoke "eugenics" or something
- postsantum 5y ago
  Smart women have absolutly no problem reproducing because most of them optimize not for the amount of money earned in lifetime but for the quality of life. And one of the metrics is having children. I believe sociologists of the future will find a way to quantify the quality of life with such an ease as they do it with salaries. Let's talk about "happiness gap" then and see who is smart
datavirtue 5y ago
tonguez 5y ago
"Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family" Perhaps society shouldn't make men choose between a career and jerking off all day
david-gpu 5y ago
> Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family Is this a pressure applied to women, or to people in general? Is it easier for men or for women to return to work after spending a few years taking care of their kids? Perhaps discrimination goes the other way.
umvi 5y ago
Outsourcing childrearing to daycare farms is prioritizing work over family. Sometimes it's necessary. But often it's not. Both parents can't work full time and effectively rear young children IMO. Under such a scenario kids are spending 9 hours a day with paid strangers and 3 hours a day with the actual parents (or less, if you count naps).
ransom1538 5y ago
"Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family and it would be less of a problem." Society does not. You do.
mhh__ 5y ago
It is culturally possible but given how busy (say) I am now, I can't even imagine being a woman and choosing to have a baby concurrently. Maybe if I had truly vast amounts of money to spend on "automation" (of sorts), but I think it's somewhat fantastical to think it's easily done.
tsol 5y ago
I don't know why it's taken for granted that this is so easy to solve. The truth is, there's a biological inequality between the genders that results in these discrepancies. It's not so simple to eliminate the consequences of giving birth to another human-- it's a long and difficult process, and society can't change that. Capitalism destroys the ecology of poor people around the world and we just about accept it can't be stopped, so I don't really think capitalism can be stopped from trying to extract maximal resources from the workforce(and therefore have bad policies for pregnant women).
qiskit 5y ago
> It’s entirely possible to have a culture where women can have families and careers at the same time. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Can't be a good mother and a good worker. You can't be at home taking care of your baby and at work being productive for your company/boss/etc. Not rocket science. > It’s entirely a cultural problem and is completely solvable if there is a collective will to solve it. The most egalitarian societies with the most women-friendly workplaces have some of the lowest birth rates. Your assertion, which has been around for decades, has been well tested and well debunked. For decades, wealthy western societies have increased benefits for working mothers. Birth rates continued to decline. If you want higher birth rates, you want women to spend less time in school/work and have children in their prime birthing years ( 18-29 ). That's simple biological fact. The question for society is whether we want women at home with their babies for the benefit of their families or we want women at work for the benefit of corporations/shareholders. The elites have spoken and it's the latter. It's why the elites want more immigration. We need to maintain the population somehow. The issue isn't complex unless you want it to be complex because you don't like the simple truth.
- nkrisc 5y ago
  > You can't have your cake and eat it too. Can't be a good mother and a good worker. You can't be at home taking care of your baby and at work being productive for your company/boss/etc. Of course you can. Wait, are you expecting the mother to be doing all the child-rearing?

by nkrisc 5y ago

bradleyjg 5y ago

Where are these countries that within the population a woman’s fertility isn’t negatively correlated to her education and career attainments? Scandinavian countries do everything you are advocating for and have the same fertility trends as everyone else. Advocate for those policies anyway, if you want to, but don’t claim they are going to move the needle when we have evidence they won’t.

mgbmtl 5y ago
Which evidence? In Quebec/Canada, when state-spondored affordable daycare was introduced, it made a notable difference both for the number of women in the workforce, and also an increase in childbirth. https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/daycare-difference-quebec-fertility-rate-outpacing-ontario-s-1.4018340 https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/daycare-difference-queb... Far from perfect, it was defunded in recent years, and it again made the birthrate and workforce go down. As a parent, I can anecdotally say that this system, when it worked, made a huge difference for our family.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  As someone who grew up thanks to this system, it did tremendous good to our family.
- Zpalmtree 5y ago
  why is throwing kids in daycare so parents can go slave for more money a good thing
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  I didn’t read the underlying study but based on the summary it looks like there was a statistically significant difference in overall fertility. It still never came close to replacement rate and tells us nothing about the sign on the correlation between a woman’s educational and career achievements and her fertility. There’s arguments on all sides about whether sub replacement fertility among woman with successful white collar careers is or isn’t a problem. But what I haven’t seen is any country that’s managed to reverse it. So we don’t in fact know if it is possible.

sokoloff 5y ago

How much is society making them choose versus the biology of pregnancy and delivery versus there being 24 hours in everyone’s day and anyone can only do so many different things well in those 24?

sprash 5y ago

No, "society" should encourage smart women to reproduce. It's as simple as that.

ducttapecrown 5y ago
That is what they said.
sidewndr46 5y ago
So now you are just arguing in favor of eugenics?
postsantum 5y ago
There is a heavily stigmatized word associated with this idea
- sprash 5y ago
  You mean "evolution"? That's true, creationists hate it.
  - greenonions 5y ago
    Not the above poster, but I would guess the word they were referring to was "eugenics".
- tomp 5y ago
  Not really. Clearly the current socio-economic model discourages smart women to procreate. So encouraging smart women to procreate would in reality simply unbias our society and make things fair again. No need to invoke "eugenics" or something
postsantum 5y ago
Smart women have absolutly no problem reproducing because most of them optimize not for the amount of money earned in lifetime but for the quality of life. And one of the metrics is having children. I believe sociologists of the future will find a way to quantify the quality of life with such an ease as they do it with salaries. Let's talk about "happiness gap" then and see who is smart

datavirtue 5y ago

tonguez 5y ago

"Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family" Perhaps society shouldn't make men choose between a career and jerking off all day

david-gpu 5y ago

> Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family Is this a pressure applied to women, or to people in general? Is it easier for men or for women to return to work after spending a few years taking care of their kids? Perhaps discrimination goes the other way.

umvi 5y ago

Outsourcing childrearing to daycare farms is prioritizing work over family. Sometimes it's necessary. But often it's not. Both parents can't work full time and effectively rear young children IMO. Under such a scenario kids are spending 9 hours a day with paid strangers and 3 hours a day with the actual parents (or less, if you count naps).

ransom1538 5y ago

"Perhaps society shouldn’t make women choose between a career and a family and it would be less of a problem." Society does not. You do.

mhh__ 5y ago

It is culturally possible but given how busy (say) I am now, I can't even imagine being a woman and choosing to have a baby concurrently. Maybe if I had truly vast amounts of money to spend on "automation" (of sorts), but I think it's somewhat fantastical to think it's easily done.

tsol 5y ago

I don't know why it's taken for granted that this is so easy to solve. The truth is, there's a biological inequality between the genders that results in these discrepancies. It's not so simple to eliminate the consequences of giving birth to another human-- it's a long and difficult process, and society can't change that. Capitalism destroys the ecology of poor people around the world and we just about accept it can't be stopped, so I don't really think capitalism can be stopped from trying to extract maximal resources from the workforce(and therefore have bad policies for pregnant women).

qiskit 5y ago

> It’s entirely possible to have a culture where women can have families and careers at the same time. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Can't be a good mother and a good worker. You can't be at home taking care of your baby and at work being productive for your company/boss/etc. Not rocket science. > It’s entirely a cultural problem and is completely solvable if there is a collective will to solve it. The most egalitarian societies with the most women-friendly workplaces have some of the lowest birth rates. Your assertion, which has been around for decades, has been well tested and well debunked. For decades, wealthy western societies have increased benefits for working mothers. Birth rates continued to decline. If you want higher birth rates, you want women to spend less time in school/work and have children in their prime birthing years ( 18-29 ). That's simple biological fact. The question for society is whether we want women at home with their babies for the benefit of their families or we want women at work for the benefit of corporations/shareholders. The elites have spoken and it's the latter. It's why the elites want more immigration. We need to maintain the population somehow. The issue isn't complex unless you want it to be complex because you don't like the simple truth.

nkrisc 5y ago
> You can't have your cake and eat it too. Can't be a good mother and a good worker. You can't be at home taking care of your baby and at work being productive for your company/boss/etc. Of course you can. Wait, are you expecting the mother to be doing all the child-rearing?