3 ms·

> In todays world women welders are encouraged and hired with little difficulty. This is where you go off the rails. I know two women that are journeyman elect

> In todays world women welders are encouraged and hired with little difficulty. This is where you go off the rails. I know two women that are journeyman electricians. The amount of bullshit they have to continuously turn the other cheek on is incredible. They're put in a lose lose situation where sticking up for themselves will backfire, but not being confrontational means they continue to get thrown all sorts of harassment, abuse, and a lot of nonsense about who works what task on big jobs. When we see disparities this huge, in jobs that are definitely desirable, it's smoke. Then you actually go talk to women in these industries, and they will indeed confirm that there's a huge fire. This is not some great philosophical question about equality of outcomes and the sad unknowable complexity of how it relates to equality of opportunity. That's just an excuse to tell people trying to put out an obvious fire that they should just stop. In particular I'd suggest you read the history of what happened to women that learned industrial fabrication skills during WW2 and wanted to keep working with them.

djur 4y ago
Agreed. I know more than one woman who endured very gender-specific abuse in physical trades, and this was in the past 10 years. The flip side of this is that men are frequently demeaned and harassed for entering traditional "female" jobs: teaching younger children, nursing, and so on. The cultural pressures causing this sorting are still very strong. That said, I don't think this is something that can be entirely addressed by government action. Government can take action against overt harassment, but you can't pass a law against your grandma thinking your job means you're gay (true story, in the case of a friend of mine).
- themacguffinman 4y ago
  Harassment is not okay but who cares if grandma think your job means you're gay. Grandma thinking you're gay (or thinking a job is girly or boyish) is not a real obstacle to opportunity and lumping it in with harassment just confuses the problem. People will always have various pressures and cultural biases that inform what occupations are picked. Humans are not the same, not every difference of opinion needs to be stamped out however misguided you believe them to be.
  - native_samples 4y ago
    He isn't talking about grandmas. At least in the UK the primary reason for the steep decline in male primary school teachers is the perception that men are much more likely to be targeted by false claims of child abuse, and will be treated much less fairly if so. I remember reading a story about such a case some years ago. The male teacher in it had eventually proven his innocence and that the child was a malicious liar, but the process had wrecked his family and made him unemployed. He wasn't going back into teaching and stated to the press, very clearly, that no man should ever work with children because the female-dominated profession would always find a man guilty until proven innocent, regardless of the merits of any case. I remember it clearly because his view was so stark, so bleak and yet so well articulated and justified. I decided right there and then that I'd take his advice and stay well away from teaching. Not that things change much as adults, of course. Every time there's a run of men proving their innocence in false rape cases (in the UK), feminists go nuts and insist the law is changed to prevent men using that tactic to prove their innocence in future. The "females must always win" mentality is pervasive and makes working in female dominated professions risky.
  - mcv 4y ago
    Whether it's a problem that your grandma, or anyone else, thinks you're gay for having a certain job, depends entirely to how much discrimination gay people get from society. I think that the less discrimination gay people get, the less likely people are to think you're gay for having a certain job. All of this is connected somehow.

djur 4y ago

Agreed. I know more than one woman who endured very gender-specific abuse in physical trades, and this was in the past 10 years. The flip side of this is that men are frequently demeaned and harassed for entering traditional "female" jobs: teaching younger children, nursing, and so on. The cultural pressures causing this sorting are still very strong. That said, I don't think this is something that can be entirely addressed by government action. Government can take action against overt harassment, but you can't pass a law against your grandma thinking your job means you're gay (true story, in the case of a friend of mine).

themacguffinman 4y ago
Harassment is not okay but who cares if grandma think your job means you're gay. Grandma thinking you're gay (or thinking a job is girly or boyish) is not a real obstacle to opportunity and lumping it in with harassment just confuses the problem. People will always have various pressures and cultural biases that inform what occupations are picked. Humans are not the same, not every difference of opinion needs to be stamped out however misguided you believe them to be.
- native_samples 4y ago
  He isn't talking about grandmas. At least in the UK the primary reason for the steep decline in male primary school teachers is the perception that men are much more likely to be targeted by false claims of child abuse, and will be treated much less fairly if so. I remember reading a story about such a case some years ago. The male teacher in it had eventually proven his innocence and that the child was a malicious liar, but the process had wrecked his family and made him unemployed. He wasn't going back into teaching and stated to the press, very clearly, that no man should ever work with children because the female-dominated profession would always find a man guilty until proven innocent, regardless of the merits of any case. I remember it clearly because his view was so stark, so bleak and yet so well articulated and justified. I decided right there and then that I'd take his advice and stay well away from teaching. Not that things change much as adults, of course. Every time there's a run of men proving their innocence in false rape cases (in the UK), feminists go nuts and insist the law is changed to prevent men using that tactic to prove their innocence in future. The "females must always win" mentality is pervasive and makes working in female dominated professions risky.
- mcv 4y ago
  Whether it's a problem that your grandma, or anyone else, thinks you're gay for having a certain job, depends entirely to how much discrimination gay people get from society. I think that the less discrimination gay people get, the less likely people are to think you're gay for having a certain job. All of this is connected somehow.