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Women Skip Math/Science Careers To Have Families
hessian notes a Cornell survey, published in the Psychological Bulletin, of 35 years of sociological studies that concludes that women tend to choose non-math-intensive fields for their careers not because they lack mathematical ability, but because they want flexibility to raise children or prefer less math-intensive fields of science. "'A major reason explaining why women are underrepresented not only in math-intensive fields but also in senior leadership positions in most fields is that many women choose to have children, and the timing of child rearing coincides with the most demanding periods of their career, such as trying to get tenure or working exorbitant hours to get promoted,' said lead author Stephen J. Ceci... The authors concluded that hormonal, brain, and other biological sex differences were not primary factors in explaining why women were underrepresented in science careers, and that studies on social and cultural effects were inconsistent and inconclusive. They also reported that although 'institutional barriers and discrimination exist, these influences still cannot explain why women are not entering or staying in STEM careers,' said Ceci."
... for on average a lot less pay, I think that's the biggest problem. Why pay a north american a decent middle class wage when you can farm science, technology and engineering careers to lower wage countries?
My theory is that they do it because it's less stressfull to stay at home than it is to provide.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
News film at 11.
Well, at least it's becoming okay again to point out what is incredibly obvious to everyone, except feminists with an axe to grind.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
It is used to make you solve other site's capchas.
Do the words seem like they come from a book? Obivously not. The interested capcha breakers make a deal with RECAPCHA.com and when they want to break a capcha, they send it to recapcha, it passes it along with a real capcha and then it send the result back to them.
Who's behind this? Google of course. First they tried really hard with "OCR" and after that failed they pushed the RECAPCHA trick.
why? figure it out. it's easy.
thank you.
The USA still has serious problems due to the undue influence of Christianity in the field of Science. Basically, an educated woman is a threat to the Christian Male power structure. So culturally, the US is threatened by educated women.
Well, gee, that's good news . . . I thought women avoided such careers because of all the geeky males that tend to gravitate towards math/science careers.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
yes, and business knows it. One twist of fate includes a manager who was popping out her 3rd one.
Management was so afraid that she'd quit and become a stay at home mom that they promoted her while
she was 2months into a 6month leave of absence.
Women want to have cake and eat it too.
Wow... they could just Ask Slashdot.
Stupid bitches can't fight the need to go spread their legs everywhere and get pregnant.
Women are the weak link.
Y'all never read the darn articles.
What they've found is that the difference in representation isn't justified by biological differences OR barriers and that the child rearing social role plays a big factor.
The real reason is that women are quicker to realize that math and science skills are HIGHLY undervalued in the US, so they don't bother to waste their time on them.
From the "I thought feminism meant female equality with males" file and the interesting part was the bottom 'recommendation':
"The authors recommended that universities and companies create options for women with math talents who want to pursue math-intensive careers. These could include deferred start-up of tenure-track positions and part-time work that segues to full-time tenure-track work for women who are raising children, and courtesy appointments for women unable to work full time but who would benefit from use of university resources (e-mail, library resources, grant support) to continue their research from home."
Ah, so when feminists talk about 'equality' what they really mean is, "we want special treatment so that we get equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity based on the same starting point". Silly me, and to think that I thought feminism was all about equality with males in regards to the same starting point and a meritocratic system where skills and knowledge are the basis of advancement forward rather than the old boys network.
People wonder why I given feminists as much credibility has hearing Saudi Arabia preach about human rights, tolerance and respect.
This is possibility. In my limited observation, I have seen that Women seem more pragmatic than Men. If a woman loves math more than anything, she's still going to do the math and choose a career that pays better or allows other options.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
How are women more flexible in biology - where women are clearly overrepresented- to raise children opposed to mathematics?
Where this trend really starts getting scary is in the field of medicine. While medical schools are trying desperately to accept increasing numbers of women (often more than 50% to compensate for those that don't continue on to practice) many of the women that do finish choose to raise a family during their time of residency (or soon after). This leaves women with less actual medical experience, and generally lowers the overall quality of care.
Being obsessive about a single concept for years is a male phenomenon, and is pretty essential to leanring/practicing science. Men see this type of focus/obsession as a desirable attribute, women see it as perverted.
As my mother said "Women are not just men with grapefruit up their jumpers". However, this, like reality in general, is not politically correct, so reality is ignored.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Re:Men and Woman are different..... News film at 11. Well, at least it's becoming okay again to point out what is incredibly obvious to everyone, except feminists with an axe to grind.
I don't really see how that follows. The article and summary say:
The authors concluded that hormonal, brain, and other biological sex differences were not primary factors in explaining why women were underrepresented in science careers,
But women have to stay home with kids, right? Well, this gets us to a more balanced conclusion: increase paternity leave and/or make it compulsory, and the effects of one sex happening to be the one manufacturing kids will be greatly mitigated. In other words, the mostly arbitary decision that women have to stay home with the kids is the greatest problem (women don't have to be at home 24/7 to provide breast milk, either.) If both parents take the hit, the system will have to choose between adapting and just throwing away talent.
For an example of how much a society can do for both parents, check Sweden's stats here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternity_leave#Europe . Spoiler: 480 days paid paternity leave. (disclaimer: I'm not Swedish)
For all this talk of having changed things those things really haven't changed that much. We've just slapped a new interface on the same old backend.
It should not be a surprise, really. That 'female power' sort of feminism that has been in ascendancy for ~25 years now is about getting others to do things for you instead of doing them yourself.
It really shouldn't require a lengthly study to get that this mentality is not going to foster success in any field where image and popularity are less important than skill.
..yes I posted anonymously. I'm a gay woman. I cannot win in this mess so I hide like a spineless thing. Bleh.
...glass ceiling!!!
But creationists say the purpose of their visits to what some describe as "temples to evolution" is to train themselves to think critically, not to pick rhetorical fights with curators or other visitors.
Oh God! Mental note: Don't hire anyone from Liberty University, VA.
Where's the "Duh" tag on this one? Really, are we just figuring this out?
Yet another case of blaming others (like educators and CEOs for this one) for discrimination when the responsibility falls on the choices we make.
Who's forcing them to have a family? it is a lifestyle choice - like buying a washing machine or allocating 14 weeks off each year to immerse oneself into Super 14 Rugby.
Have they also thought that maybe females are actually making the choice to have families over having a career? why is it every time there is a feminist jackass who comes out of the wood works that there is this claim that some how if females aren't career oriented and pumping out kids (they choose one or the other instead of doing both) - apparently it is the man's fault?
Good lord, let people do their own thing and stop trying to think that you need to socially engineer a given field in one direction or another? what next - insufficient gay's and lesbian's in quantum physics?*
* Disclaimer, I am gay myself, I need to put this disclaimer because some jackass will go, "ooh, he's homophobic, I'll mark down his post" *Teeheehee*
The real reason women don't go into math and science fields is because they are always horny and all they want are massive orgies 24x7 with guys who are uglier than you and want it in all three holes at the same time.
Look this up on the Internet there is evidence all over the place..
"because they want flexibility to raise children or prefer less math-intensive fields of science"
Many tech jobs are great for people who want to work from home and/or have flexible hours, and many women who want to raise kids at home (like my wife) would kill to have those options. So the former sounds like a load of BS, while the latter sounds very accurate. I try just as hard to get my daughter interested in mechanics/electronics/computers as I try with my son, but she won't take an interest in it. She does well at math, but she doesn't seem to have any curiosity about math-related subjects or how to design/create things, so I don't imagine she'll go for a math-heavy career.
Outsourcing: "Why pay a north american a decent middle class wage when you can farm science, technology and engineering careers to lower wage countries?"
My understanding is that outsourcing is not working well. If the less successful, and therefore cheaper, societies were able to do science work well, they wouldn't be less successful, would they?
Outsourcing seems to work in the near term only. It was "useful" when a CEO wanted to show a short-term profit so that he or she could get a big bonus and retire or go somewhere else.
I sent a message to my bank. I got a nonsensical reply from a person with an Indian name. The reply was entirely a waste of time. Maybe the underlying purpose is anti-customer, to discourage people from questioning anything a bank does. That works only when the banks are in control of the government, which they seem to be.
Why do women have babies? Often women have babies even though they have little ability to take care of them. So the theorizing at Cornell is very limited. The first step would be to understand why women have babies.
Sociology research is rarely scientific. It's mostly wild guessing.
In my own research, I was able to find many examples of women having babies when it was definitely not good for the man, for the society, or even for the woman.
Women have different interests for their own reasons. Oddly, "researchers" haven't chosen to simple ASK women about their choices. The very notion that there is discrimination holding women back is nonsense and has been nonsense for a very long time. We've spend decades walking on eggshells trying to man women in the workplace more comfortable as a form of "affirmative action" to what end? A whole lot of hassle and needless tax benefits for "woman/minority owned businesses" and stuff like that? While we are compensating for the choices that people make, let's offer benefits to those who choose a particular religion to follow and whichever is the minority in a region, let's give them special privileges and tax exemptions. Also, let's put all "angry black men" who dress exclusively in "thug wear" into a special social category as well.
I am sure I am offending lots of people and a flamebait is the destiny for this comment, but when it comes to choices that people make, it's time we stop compensating for these people. Religion is a choice. Family or career paths are a choice. How people adapt themselves into society is a choice. Let's stop protecting people from and compensating people for the consequences of their choices. No more tax breaks for churches and religious institutions. No more affirmative actions for women and black people. Let's give TRUE equality a chance and take these societal crutches away. There may have been a need for them in the past, but that need has very likely expired.
The "wage gap" is largely non-existent in Western countries these days. The trouble is, many feminists will point out the statistics, such as the fact that women earn 30% less than men in the UK, and claim that this is evidence of discrimination. In fact, it is almost entirely accounted for by the different choices women make regarding their careers. On average they choose less dangerous jobs, jobs that require less traveling, they take more extended breaks from their career, and so on. When you control for these factors, women's pay is almost identical to men's.
Or, to put it another way - if women really did cost 30% less to employ than men for doing the same work, why would any business ever employ a man?
It took a study to figure out that some people are more interested in having a family than they are in making sure the TPS reports are filed correctly?
Good work. (Add sarcastic comment about another obvious fact here)
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
While I understand that there's good political hay to be made out of showing why women are treated unfairly, the whole glass-ceiling (at least insofar as salaries are concerned) thing was debunked years ago when studies on wage gaps corrected for overtime and willingness to travel.
The simple fact is that in most nuclear families, the man is the primary wage earner, the woman the primary caregiver to the children. This is probably based on relatively obvious biological differences (the woman lactates, the man doesn't; females generally excel in a number of cognitive abilities that are extremely useful in child-raising; females are generally more resistant to garden-variety infections and sicknesses; etc etc etc) This isn't prescriptive, merely descriptive, and valid for (AFAIK) the bulk of human history.
While I understand the desire for some men to stay home and raise children, and the desire for some women to have a life not based around family, both of them must understand that they are simply outside of the norm and no amount of whinging is going to make them 'the norm'.
-Styopa
A major reason explaining why women are underrepresented not only in math-intensive fields but also in senior leadership positions in most fields is that many women choose to have children, and the timing of child rearing coincides with the most demanding periods of their career, such as trying to get tenure or working exorbitant hours to get promoted,' said lead author Stephen J. Ceci... The authors concluded that hormonal, brain, and other biological sex differences were not primary factors[...]
(emphasis mine)
Q: Now, dear Watson, what do you think makes women want have children?
A: Hormonal, brain, and other biological sex differences......
It's not just women... whichever parent 'takes the hit' to raise the kids runs into this. It's the "kid track" (formerly 'mommy track'). Kids into schoolbus means I'm off to work, rush back before they get home, so less face time and less 'being seen'. It's never about the work.
I've been advised (wisely) to never mention the kids... the other scientists with kids, it's like a secret club where you only talk to other parents least word get out you're soft. In fact, I've been asked by a boss when will my kids be old enough that I can 'get serious about my career' (meaning put them into aftercare so I can work 60+ hours). I have no regrets-- we make a choice, you can't have it all, etc. But it is real-- if you're kid-track, you're not career-track.
Given the salaries in academia/science (medium-low) and that more women (statistically) achieving in the business workplace, more science guys (I predict) will be 'going domestic', so more guys will run into this too.
And while I'm at it, what's with the lame acronomy for Stay At Home Dads, it makes us all sound sahd. Besides, if you work 3/4 time or a rushed 8 hours, you're not staying, you're just at home when K12 is not in session.
Signed,
an At-Home Dad (AHD, similarily to ADHD probably intentional)
A.
Biology supersedes Maths?
Yes, that's why women go into nursing, teaching, social work. They're pragmatic, and not doing what they feel passionate about.
So when I choose to work in a dangerous mine, and lose an arm in accident I don't deserve unemployment insurance or to be judged on the same basis as everyone else when I try to get another job because I should face the choices I made. Society doesn't exist so that we can be assholes to one another.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
I think all these discussions skip over the fundamental fact that women are the only ones biologically capable of bringing a child into the world and the 9 month investment that requires rather than the 9 minute (assuming 8 minutes of foreplay) investment from a man.
Yes there will be women quite entitled to skip the whole process entirely. There will be others who will happily give birth and immediately go back to work leaving someone else at home to look after the child be it a stay at home dad or paid nanny. Many many more will enjoy motherhood and accept the hard work raising a child can be.
Evolution has made it so that women are naturally more bonded to their children and want to look after them and for good reason so the species can propagate.
How many times does this need to be said??
Women are the gender that have children. There are fewer women in X and Y fields/occupations than men. Let's start with the assumption that this is because women have children and find some reasons that fit our already-determined conclusion.
If the expectations are said to be so freakin' unrealistic then why not address the root cause - make the expectations realistic? If someone can only succeed in a certain field/occupation if they put in 80 hour weeks for 6 years then something is certainly broken.
What about the people who do take the 'necessary time' to succeed? The rest of their lives must suffer horribly because of it. Working that much, that intensely means there's nothing left for a life outside of work and there's little opportunity to build a foundation to subsequently build one after the milestone has been reached. The habits are in place. If you've been working that much, for that long, you're not going to suddenly flip a switch and do the 40 hour weeks.
I know this is off-track for the generic "Math is hard, girls can't do math" conclusion but what about the families of those people who do decide to go into these fields/occupations? What kind of spouse and/or parent can that person be if their entire focus is on their work? And what kind of damage does that do to the social fabric?
Sorry. I'll get off my soapbox now but this sort of nonsense is a waste of everyone's time and money. Not only has it been done to death but every single stinkin' time it seems like the researchers have a conclusion they build a case to support and the easiest way to do that is to decide that womens' biological makeup is the determining factor.
> Oddly, "researchers" haven't chosen to simple ASK women about their choices
If they had, there would be a post just like yours except that it would be complaining that the women might have given socially acceptable answers instead of what they really thought. People tend to lie about their thoughts and motivations to be accepted by others.
My girlfriend is in Social Work because she couldn't afford Nursing School. I believe that she thought Nursing was high-paying, she's worked in Hospitals enough not to see there's no openings for a Saint. What she's passionate about is Crystal Energy or some New-Age Hoodoo, I try not to talk about it.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Sure, raising a family is a quite plausible explanation for the top positions, but does not explain why so few women begin the careers at all.
A girl is hardly planning to have a family when she enters undergraduate course. And, even so, less than 20% of the freshmen are women.
The reason is obvious: women don't like math. They don't have ability with math. I'm not saying "stupid bitches", they often do well in other fields, is just that their brain it's not suited to do math. Even amongst the few who enter, very few get it to the end. And don't tell me that people leave undergrad school to have children.
It is possible to have female brains that can do math? Of course! I have had two female teachers that were truly genius. But it isn't statistically likely.
It's that hard to acknowledge that there are biological differences between men and women? Next time feminists will be hunting down whoever who says that women have XX chromosomes instead of XY.
I was going to post as AC but fuck it. I'm too tired of this political correctness fashion.
entropy happens
It is unfortunate that more unions don't exist to assist these sorts of workers and conditions. Negotiating for these kinds of benefits and for better workplace safety are two reasons why unions are important. And jobs that high amounts if risk should be compensated properly but unfortunately, union power has been eroded and people are left to fend for themselves which generally results in lesser compensation, benefits and safety with increased risk.
When a large operations are allowed into towns and cities in such a way [read: critical mass] that a significant change in employment level can have devastating affect on the general welfare, then regulation of some sort is warranted. Whether this regulation comes in the form of union negotiation or government regulation is another question, but the masses need to maintain a balance of influence against the larger, more historically abusive, business interests. The tragedies that happen then business power goes unchecked are obvious and demonstrable.
Ok, from the summary, filtered a bit to focus on the part I'm taking issue with:
[...] women tend to choose non-math-intensive fields [...] because they [...] prefer less math-intensive fields [...].
Mind you, I am not changing the meaning here by quoting out of context. I'm merely decluttering by removing the parts that make sense already so that the stupid part stands out. What kind of "conclusion" is this?
The above opinion was deemed sexist enough for the person holding it to resign as Harvard's President in 2005.
But this one:
is just fine?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Women Skip Math/Science Careers (...) because (...) prefer less math-intensive fields of science.
Now that is a brilliant conclusion....who would have thought about that?
US women are going into medicine, and law, and those fields also impact family life.
But, in STEM career fields, US workers are likely to not find a job when the graduate, or if they do find a job, US workers may be training their H-1B replacement two years later.
As STEM are aggressively offshored, and guest workers continue to flood into the STEM fields, the future for US STEM workers does not look bright.
Here, at least, nursing pays a lot better than social work, and there are quite a lot of loan forgiveness programs out there. Nursing school is an ASN or BSN -- should cost as much as social work, except of course the bit of money you have to pay for uniforms and stethoscopes and the like...
The problem might be that we have developed a work-life that is inherently incompatible with a decent home life. Maybe women just make a rational choice on different priorities. Not far from the article's suggestion but I'd go further and recommend changing the workplace for everyone.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
You answered his first question OK, but your reply to his second argument totally misses his point. You rebut with lots of examples of how devoutly religious people can be great scientists. He made no statement which would contradict that, he was instead proposing something along the lines of Steven J. Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria, that science deals with statements which need to be testable and refutable, and religion doesn't, and therefore they are "perpendicular" to each other and in this sense the term "Christian science" is nonsense. Like, e.g., "chartreuse idea".
NOMA being true does not prevent a devoutly religious person from being a good scientist. He just has to be careful to make the same separation of "playing rules" as Gould proposes.
How, then, did U.S. society get the money? At one time it was only a poor farming colony.
This is a big issue: Why are some societies very well-developed, and others not? It's not the natural resources of the U.S., because the Japanese culture is well-developed, and Japan has very few natural resources such as metals or oil.
Some universities do offer assistance to primary care givers. For example, Columbia University has "parental workload relief" programs (http://worklife.columbia.edu/parental-leave-policies-resources) that provide faculty with a semester of no-teaching and a delayed tenure clock. Still does not make it easy to combine kids and faculty careers. The policy is gender-neutral and there's a small fraction of new fathers who have used the program.
Which is a consequence of an economic system where the profit motive has been officially eliminated. Steal $1000 and you got that much for yourself, the whole country lost $1000 and your own share of that loss is $1000 divided by the country population.
The same works for capitalist systems too, of course. In a big corporation where no one has a majority share, decisions are often made by directors who have a bigger interest in getting a fat bonus than in improving the company's situation.
The solution, IMHO, would be a system where the controllers are directly affected by the results, a system where the directors are the owners. In current capitalist countries, companies are often owned by other companies or pension funds. The ultimate decisions are made too far removed from the people who actually own the capital involved.
No, you don't. If you chose to work in a dangerous mine without an insurance - this is a stupid choice and no compensation should be given for the stupidity.
Normally, the owner of the dangerous mine MUST provide an insurance to his employees.
Maybe I'm the only one who detected a bit of negativity in the summary, but seriously, how is this bad? It's very noble of women to give up the privilege of a chance at education to start families.
One could say the greatest and most fulfilling job in the world is parenthood.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I really don't understand our fascination with "statistical equality". This weird striving toward normal distributions and matching societal demographics to racial/gender/religious/sexual population ratios is nuts. It's fine to use these measures as a tool to detect progress or impact of our policies but equality of numbers shouldn't be the goal.
What we need to strive for is equality of choice. It isn't a problem if people simply choose to not follow a path. What is a problem is when people aren't able to follow a path due to an artificial barrier to entry. Equality isn't about balancing an equation and until we learn that we won't be able to address the real inequalities in our society.
Back in July '08 the New York Times ran an article on the possibilities of science being "Titled Nined" because congress and women's groups seemed to like the idea (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15tier.html).
What studies have found though is that even among mathematically inclined girls at younger ages, they still tend to prefer the "softer" sciences or other fields. I think that this study shows the natural extension of that.
In the end, the NYTimes article states that, in the end, the mathematically inclined girls they followed and surveyed as career-adults were just as content with their careers and did not have a pay difference from men.
Douglas Whitaker
I couldn't tell from the article whether they looked at differences between countries, for example those with universal daycare and those without? It might also be possible to examine admissions bias, particularly in medicine. You could maybe look at the GPA of candidates over the past 25 years vs. admission after the entrance interviews. I think it's important to be careful with the "she's just going to leave and have babies" argument, as it's been used as a rationale for sexist hiring practices in the past. The study should be examined carefully to determine the validity of its findings.
women grow children in their bodies, then are biologically attached to children via breasts and natural and social proclivities for an extended time period afterwards
in other words, they ARE special, and they DO need some consideration for that contribution
but you wish to tell us that any consideration women ask for is unfair. so: they contribute more to child rearing biologically... but hey don't deserve any consideration for that?
biology is unfair. society is trying to correct that imbalance. doesn't that seem noble to you?
of course, you could respond to me by saying women should just choose children over careers, that society has no obligation to make special considerations for women, and that's that, end of story
ok, fine. but then it is you who are like the saudis: that any mental gifts a women possesses, any contributions she can make to the advancement of math or science should be forfeit, given up. this is what your position is telling us. just because she's the one with the womb
so i say it to you: why not give women, who bear children, special consideration for that? why not? really: what is the big deal with giving women special consideration for contributing more biologically to the growth of children? why are you so antagonistic to this idea? to allow them to have children AND pursue their mental gifts, and thereby potentially enrich the society you live in? what exactly is wrong with that goal?
why do you have this axe to grind that says women deserve no special treatment, when in fact, due to their much larger biological and social contribution to child rearing, they DO deserve special consideration for that?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Then go back to work and claim that they should receive the same pay no matter how many years they have taken off.
Can't blame em for trying. There's enough people falling for the scam.
So does math make women infertile or something? Why are math-intensive jobs less appropriate for women who want families?
I am a women in the 'Hard sciences' and I totally agree with this statement. Now, back to getting a PhD and organizing symposium for students in my field.
Attempting to buck the trend.
-Shanadeen
Why do women have babies?
Because hormones triumph over brains. Some of the smartest women I have known have become completely irrational when it comes to dropping sprog. From my own molecular biology background, I have a highly technical term for this: "stupidity hormones".
Note: I'm not being totally sexist here; after all, I am prepared to admit that an erect penis has little conscience...
Hello,
This is always such a fucking stupid conversation.
The women who want and like to go into an area generally do so. As do the guys.
Women are perfectly capable of being math/science whizzes, but by and large they don't want to.
Why?
Who fucking cares?
It's their lives. Get over it.
Maybe it's too nerdy for them. Face it. Most math science people are freakishly geeky and I am one.
I just went to a college night for an engineering school. Guys outnumbered girls at least 3 to 1. It's just not always an interest.
Some would rather have families. Some would just not like to continue on in school and marry someone who makes the money. Guys do it too, just not as many.
Whatever. Give it a rest.
The above opinion was deemed sexist enough for the person holding it to resign as Harvard's President in 2005.
Who, coincidentally, is now on Obama's economic team. But if the president was Lauren Sommers and made a similar observation on men also having the lowest IQ's and largest number of mental disabilities, if she would have been driven from office as well.
Well... there is not one factor to explain everything. Just read up on history of politics and economics. It's a long, complicated, series of interrelated factors all over the place.
I would like to preface this comment by disclosing that I am a 'n00b'.
I love /., mainly because I enjoy the open and insightful discussion of topics and ideas that I have only recently begun privately educating myself about, being a longtime casual Windows user who is about fed up with the associated bullshit. I came here initially while trying to demystify Linux (which I am still working on). I was surprised and intrigued by finding this interesting aggregation of so-called 'geek news' articles, about a third of which are totally incomprehensible to me, but most of which I would never find out about from any major news outlet, including many about topics of great importance and influence on this world and the future. It was a real eye-opener, and remains an invaluable resource as I educate myself about things I'd never learned or thought about before, such as net neutrality, intellectual property law, &c.
But most of all I enjoy reading the comments. The 'mod' system was a little challenging to get used to, but I love the open discussion, the outrageous as well as well-reasoned arguments laid out intelligently and democratically. Much of the information and ideas I've come across here I never would have otherwise found, and it has dramatically influenced by own critical thinking. The information brought me in the door, and the insight, open-mindedness, and general spirit of free thought and intelligent public discourse hooked me.
But whenever I read an article on the front page having to do with women, I read the comments on it and my blood runs cold.
The males on /., in general, seem to me to be a very forward-thinking bunch most of the time. It's hard to wrap my brain around the response I keep seeing here when it comes to women's issues.
I work at MIT, and have had the pleasure to meet Mrs. Liskov a number of times.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7937010.stm
At last check, she not only did both, she excelled at both. It's a pity so few women realize that not only can they do this, but they can do just as well as men (not to mention make some very tasty salaries). There are not nearly enough females in the industry, and damn it we need more "Geek chicks" calendars.
Mrs. Liskov is, of course, exempt from having to pose.
Mothers can take the same amount of parental leave as fathers when the baby is born. After that, they can both go back to work if they want to get that promotion, earn that raise, etc.
That's the glass ceiling right there. Put your career on hold for 6 years+ and watch it evaporate.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
if people don't have children, society dies
you do understand don't you?
if someone chooses not to have children, then they're genes and their values die. therefore, you want to make a place in society for people to have children, and you want to reward them for having kids, you want to give special consideration for that, and you want to recognize their contribution as intrinsically valuable and important. which it is, because through children is the only way your values and genes survive
seems like a simple nobrainer, but i've run into a lot these strange "crotchfruit" thinkers like yourself, and i want to understand why the blindingly obvious escapes you
simple logical consequences: if you don't have children, your value system will simply die off
you do understand that right?
please, go right ahead and considering child rearing an unimportant aspect of life. its odd to choose your own extinction, but there you are, posting away
because your entire point of view boils down to nothing but choosing the extinction of your own values, whether you realize this or not, you do understand however why i will consider your opinion just odd and strange and impossible to take seriously?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The problem with your criticism here is that feminists want to make these options available for men too. The description you cite is very misleading, I'll grant: it's described as "options for women" because the proposals would have a bigger effect on women than on men. Feminists in fact would be quite delighted if men took the option described in larger numbers, instead of treating child rearing as their women's responsibility...
Are you adequate?
For an example of how much a society can do for both parents, check Sweden's stats here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternity_leave#Europe [wikipedia.org] . Spoiler: 480 days paid paternity leave. (disclaimer: I'm not Swedish)
Sweden's throwing every benefit on the table that it can to boost its birth rate. Making babies is a good way to keep your old age benefits solvent. By 2050 I think nearly half of Sweden's population will be retired and a huge amount will be over 80.
Unfortunately for the Western World, Darwin favors dumb male dominated societies over smart equal societies.
This is my sig.
One of my best friends from college fits the profile. She was a top ranked student in microbiology, went on for masters and phd in something related to DNA profilig. Got married, had kids, and decided to stay at home
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
So when I choose to work in a dangerous mine, and lose an arm in accident I don't deserve unemployment insurance or to be judged on the same basis as everyone else when I try to get another job because I should face the choices I made
Uh, then don't work in the mine?
This is my sig.
i have an argument to answer that, and it has nothing to do with morality or religion: a society which hobbles half of its people just because they are women is a society that cannot compete with one that does not hobble its women
is that a good answer in your mind?
ok then, in answer to your position:
"If the woman is not capable of advancing math or science because she cannot make time for it, I don't see what you want people to do about it."
well, lets make believe we have a society that DID do something about it. if society A DID do something about it (you know, daycare, what a radical, horrible imposition pffft) then it would simply outcompete society B, that did not do something about it
so i wish to be part of society A, that is more fit, and frees its peoples up to contribute more advancement and progress
you, meanwhile, wish to hobble a person who might advance your society with her mind, simply because she has to stay home and breastfeed
which is like the saudis: without making any bullshit religious or moral or ideological arguments, your vision of society is weaker than my vision, simply because my vision is able to produce more intellectual advancement by freeing up those people with a womb to contribute to society in ways that are not hampered, just because she has a womb
simply put: my society outcompetes your society, is stronger than your society, and renders your ideology obsolete and extinct, simply because i outproduce you
(which is exactly what would happen to the saudis, if they weren't sitting on billions of barrels of oil)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How, then, did U.S. society get the money? At one time it was only a poor farming colony.
Money is an abstraction. What's important is natural resources, with the most important being food and water (Japan had that). If the land of a country is not fertile enough, if it requires a lot of work to get anything, then your potential scientists and engineers will become farmers instead.
In the case of the US, the poor farming colony was mostly left alone (instead of being abused like all good colony) because the empire was weakened and that empire preferred to allocate its own military resources for potentially more profitable colonies. It allowed the US to keep his natural resources for itself. Then slavery was a big boost for the economy. After that, the reason was mostly WW1 and WW2. Some countries, because of a lack of resources and historical hatred, decided to use war against their neighbors, they destroy each other, and then the US comes in and profit from the weakened position of everyone with only a minimal investment.
That would be the woman who things her own free time and material wealth is more important than that of children and the world's future.
Note that the economy will REALLY collapse without intelligent sane humans.
Right now, the women with the ability to produce intelligent sane children rarely do so. That's selfish. A few generations from now, the children produced by idiots will fully overwealm the children produced by bright people. We're doomed.
Women have babies because it is a maternal instinct. It is a part of their nature, but not for all women. Some women use birth control and abortion to avoid having babies so they can have a career. Most women want children, so they can look after her after she grows old and have a legacy (or legashe based on the Simpsons) to pass on her genetics to the next generation.
Having babies will be part of their nature for all women, because the others fail to pass their genetics to the next generation.
Birth control and abortion are MASSIVE sources of evolution-causing selection pressure. The change to our environment has been tremendous. If you don't want kids, your DNA is going out of style really fast.
In prior centuries, sexual desire was a good proxy for a desire to reproduce. We've broken that link, so now we evolve mental differences that will get us back on track regarding the population explosion.
Since liberals are generally being selected against, you can make a reasonable bet that abortion will be illegal within a few generations. Maybe even birth control will eventually be illegal, perhaps after a dozen generations. Of course, a tendency to understand evolution is NOT being selected for, so God will get the credit.
the drivers for men in the field are the same as the drivers for women
No way.
Men, especially from about age 15 to 25, are genetically programmed to do things that may impress women. It is this drive that produces Nobel prizes, dictators, fire eaters, and football players.
Look, we can even measure brain structure differences. Think that affects nothing?
To imply that the STEM inequality is a bad thing is to judge women by male standards. Life isn't all about getting published, famous, or powerful. Other things are valuable in life, especially if you are not male. There is nothing wrong with having different priorities in life. To judge women by male standards is to devalue female standards, and thus women.
Perhaps what we need overall is a more flexible balance between work and other aspects of life for everyone. For an example, absentee parenting should not be a precondition to having enough money to raise children at all. People who choose not to have kids should have just as much opportunity to pursue non-work activities as parents.
My mom was a nurse before she retired. She generally hated it (which is why she didn't bother doing any part-time nursing work after she retired). While she liked working with patients, dealing with hospital management killed it for her. She got injured lifting a grossly obese patient and that was the beginning of the end of her career. Why did she lift a patient she had no business lifting? Because the nurse supervisor ordered it, because the hospital had no orderlies to lift and turn patients like that. (Orderlies are big men who just go around the hospital doing brute-force jobs like lifting people.) Why were there no orderlies? Because the hospital laid them off to save money.
While at work, the breasts get full. This discourages milk production. For many women, the end result is that they have to switch to fake milk.
Depending on the breast of course, a pump doesn't even work very well. It hurts too.
Then there is the hassle, the loss of close natural mother-baby interaction, the cost, the spoilage risk, etc.
both statements accept that women have a difference from men. but the first statement simply accepts the difference as a inalterable fate, while the second statement proposes changes in society's structure to allow women to overcome the real difference with men. in other words, the first statement is contradictory to social progress, while the latter embraces the notion of social progress
by the way, the difference between men and women is nothing strange or mysterious: they have breasts and wombs, and therefore contribute more biologically to child rearing, and therefore to realize the level of unencumbrence that men experience, need really simple social changes, like child care support, in order to fully exercise their mental gifts
women raise your children. as a man, you recognize this contribution, and make accomodations for that. as a mysogynistic boy with mommy issues, you fail to recognize the value of women's biological contribution to your genetic future, and the future of your society and its values
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
My wife is barefoot, pregnant, and... well she's making chocolate cookies with a slow traditional recipie, but close enough!
She likes it. She knows how to hack code in C, but that doesn't make her feel good. She can even beat me in math much of the time, but she'd rather pop out kids. We're going for double-digit family size here. She even thinks giving birth is fun.
Good thing too; somebody has to make the next generation of engineers or there won't be any.
A really good article, best I've ever seen on what makes women tick, is this one: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/men-as-beasts-burden_id1228
There is a shameful disparity here. We must address this.
Also: elementary school teachers, nurses, home health care aides, rape councilers, nannies, maids, interior decorators, etc.
We could start early, with after-school and summer programs for boys only. We could offer special college scholarships for men. We could have college admissions quotas to ensure that classes won't be mostly women.
Really, why the hell not?
although 'institutional barriers and discrimination exist
Discrimination toward women exists in the workplace for this very reason. Companies don't want to become too dependent on a female employee only to have her leave to have a child. I'm not saying it's right, just true.
My rights don't end where your feelings begin.
I think you're in for a surprise.
Personality often changes a bit because of pregnancy. You may find that you actually enjoy the things that seem yucky to you now, and that your current interests become boring.
You'll still be happy, as long as you don't try to resist your changing desires.
http://xkcd.com/385/
Why does water flow downhill?
Why do women have babies? Often women have babies even though they have little ability to take care of them. So the theorizing at Cornell is very limited. The first step would be to understand why women have babies.
Why does someone even ask such a question when they wouldn't dream of asking the male version of the same question?
Why do men impregnate women? Often men make babies even though they have little ability to take care of them.....The first step would be to understand why men impregnate women.
The real question is "why do humans have babies?".
These are fundamental laws of nature. We must eat, we must sleep, we must reproduce. It's very hard to resist these basic instincts. Even if the brain knows it's a bad time to get hungry/hard/pregnant, the body doesn't always listen to the brain. Most birth control is merely attempts to trick the body into doing what the brain wants, but seriously, does anyone really enjoy using birth control or abortion? Sexual urges are very hard to fight. Anyone who is physically capable of making babies (male or female) will probably make them unless they are unusually good at self control (or can't find a partner).
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
... maybe it's time you sat down and had a talk with mom and dad about where babies come from.
How is babby formed?
How girl get pregnant?
Your society keeps the intelligent women from passing their genetic material on to the next generation.
Your society may outcompete mine today, but not N generations later. Your short-term thinking wins today's battle but loses the war.
society A: no support for women. therefore an intelligent woman chooses between children or career
society B: support for women (daycare). therefore a woman can have children and a career
in society A, half the intelligent choose career over family, and don't pass on their genes
in soceity B, all the intelligent women can have a career and a family, meaning MORE genes are passed on, AS WELL AS her intellectual contribution
"Your society keeps the intelligent women from passing their genetic material on to the next generation."
no, yours does, clearly
"Your society may outcompete mine today, but not N generations later. Your short-term thinking wins today's battle but loses the war."
no, my society outcompetes yours on the short term and the long term, outright
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you are saying "stupid bitches", complete with your condescending 'but I'm sure they "often do well in other fields".'
It only looks like "stupid bitches" to you because you are judging math as being the superior mental activity. That's a male-oriented way to view things.
If you instead consider social capability to be the superior mental activity, then women tend to look way smarter than men.
If you insist on judging women by male standards, then of course they will look bad. The same goes for judging men by female standards.
would it KILL you to have someone go away for a few months to have a baby?
they let people off to join the military all the time, but oh, have a baby ? NO... not 'career oriented' enough. lol
american industry will suffer.
The primary cost is having one parent, normally the mother, give up the opportunity to earn an income. I certainly am assuming a married couple that doesn't burn money on unimportant junk and isn't on minimum wage.
Once you do that, kids are really cheap. I have a half dozen of them. :-) You don't need most of the junk people try to sell you: crib, high chair, changing table, breast pump, fake breast milk, walker, popular toys, special baby food, stroller, restauraunt meals, individual rooms, TV, sugary breakfast cereal, etc. It's mostly useless or worse.
Do buy car seats, new shoes, and wholesome food. Carry the baby in a sling, possibly homemade or even just a knotted sheet. Homeschool if you want your kids to learn more than the watered-down public school curriculum. Let the kids make their own toys from sticks and stones. If you have any friends at all, you'll get more kid clothing than you know what to do with.
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/bul1352218.pdf
you are asserting that if a woman is given aid to have children, less will choose to have children?
and if forced to choose between career and children, more will have children?
can i have what you are smoking?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
according to your logic, a family that has 5 children has less invested in any given child than one who chooses to have 2 children
right?
less time to spend per child if you have more children, right?
you see why this is nonsensical?
furthermore, lets compare a homeschooled child to a child in public school: the home schooled child has less social abilities, because they spent TOO MUCH time with their parents
you actually believe that quality of child rearing is directly proportional to time spent with child, and its very easy to see how wrong you are
no: quality child rearing is quality time spent with a child, a couple of hours per day, the rest spent elsewhere while someone else holds the milk bottle or brings out the legos
you don't have to spend the whole damn day with the child. really. you can work, and come home to the kid, and raise children just fine
really
your perspective on what's important in child rearing is simply outright wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This sounds like a lame excuse.
I pursued my career as a software developer and I did it from home. I looked after two kids and their dying mother. After she died things became easier. My kids were 6 & 10 when she died and I looked after things for 10 years before she died.
There are many solutions for child care including a part or full time nanny. As I recall Scarlett Johanson was available a few years ago and I figure she would be a pretty good Nanny, especially for a single guy like me! If only I'd known. :-(
Stats like this are inflammatory and a distortion of reality at the best of times. The truth is that many of us work too hard and we work too dumb. Many tasks simply don't need to be done. My grandfather was a pioneer and he farmed with horses. He cut his own lumber and built his own house and all the other buildings on the farm. I grew up in the house he built. If my grandfather could handle that sort of work load then with our modern technology I fail to see why we need to work so hard to enjoy a decent standard of living... unless I consider the amount to paper that gets pushed around which serves little purpose other than filling a recycling bin.
My point is not to roll back the clock to the time of my grandfather. My point is to ask why it is that so much work needs to be done and why people figure they need to spend 60 hours per week doing it. Job sharing, rotating child supervision, hubby at home actually making dinner and doing the dishes... part time nanny, baby sitting while mom and dad are home - so mom and dad can focus on a project if need be. There are MANY MANY solutions.
I didn't get help when I did it. But I still was able to do it and I will point out that since my office was at home I managed to skip out on a commute to down town in the morning, a commute from down town in the afternoon, and basically a wasted lunch hour. That gave me about 2 1/2 to 3 hours that most single parents didn't have.
Next I was there when the kids left for school and there when they arrived home from school. If one of the kids was sick I was there. I had no baby sitting fees, no child care fees, and I was able to write off the cost of my office in my house and all the equipment I needed to buy for that office... which I might add was considerable. For instance I bought my first computer the day the space shuttle exploded and I reckon the cost was something in the order of about 1/6th the value of my house at the time. Included in that cost was a 300 LPM line printer and a 36" plotter. My modem at the time cost over $600. Those were 1986 dollars too.
In my opinion its about drive and commitment. If someone wants to make it happen then they can.
There are places that work your way, and they have less than 2 births per woman. I just recently saw a figure of 1.5 for one of those places. (such places are mainly to be found in Europe, but not exclusively)
I didn't make any claim regarding a reason, so I can't be logically incoherent or logically coherent. I just pointed out the facts.
Of course I think I can guess the reasons, but I left that out of my post because it would be a distraction from the simple facts.
... because the education researchers have a different idea. Namely, that females don't go into Maths or the Sciences because there is a mentality of aggression against the problem(s) that females don't naturally have. Which makes *far* more sense than this one. Well, perhaps not in the small town. But, that is becoming more and more of a special case that need not be considered. Well, that and living in the US. You guys really have an odd culture there.
in which case, we have a grand tragedy: the society with less social justice outbreeds the society with more social justice
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's the opinion of both my husband and myself that having (hopefully!) smart kids and raising them well is probably a larger contribution to civilisation than the research that all but the most remarkable scientists will produce in the same time period. Justifications aside, it's just something that I want to do, far more than I want to publish a few extra papers or make full professor ten years earlier.
just give birth?
or daily care?.......
c'mon.........dun give such shxt paper as report or even research pls.......
use ur brain.........
men doesn't play gals game
then why would gals do?
such a guy writing this crap doesn't come with a brain built-in........sorry.......
a random scattering of half-truths and wannabe issues
none of which have much to do with each other, or anything i said, or anything internally coherent
try again. make a point please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you can find exceptions to probably every single point in this thread, the story summary, and the article its attached to
but yes, overall, if your society has less children than another society, the other society inherits the earth
so it behooves any society to have children
its not exactly a complicated point for you to understand
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you seem to forget western population rates declining is only a recent occurence
project to the future
well, actually, the population will still be around in the west. in europea, your average european might have 1 kid or less, but his muslim immigrant neighbor is having seven kids
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
First, you disagree with GP's statement that it's less pervasive in the US. Then you say it's more pervasive outside the US. What's going on here?
All of the major articles I have read purporting to disprove the hypothesis that biological differences in men and women are to blame for the preponderance
of men in elite positions in math and science fields provide data supporting the opposite conclusion.
Studies consistently find a noticeable difference in standard deviation in their measures of ``mathematical ability'' --- in particular, they find that the distribution of mathematical ability among men can be more-or-less accurately modelled as a Gaussian distribution with a certain mean and standard deviance and that the distribution of mathematical ability among women can be accurately modelled as a Gaussian distribution with a similar (sometimes slightly lower) mean with a (consistently) smaller standard deviation.
Elementary statistics then predicts that the ratio of men with mathematical ability above a high threshold to the number of women with mathematical ability above the same threshold will be large.
The typical approach to obfuscate this simple fact is to harp on the fast that the means of the distributions are very similar --- which is quite besides the point.
A ratio of standard deviations of 1.1 to 1.0 yields large differences at the tails of the distributions. I invite you to do the experiments yourself --- there quite easy and very instructive.
But.. it has really come to irritate me over the last few years that females can wear a vneck open down to the below their breasts yet MEN get in trouble for looking at their cleavage.
If I wore my shirt open to below my chest, I better expect people to look at all that bare flesh.
Yet another place where it is distinctly uneven.
It's supposed to be playing the sex appeal angle but these days all it does is piss me off at them.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I've read slashdot for a quite a while, and witnessed all the blatant idiocy and biases present in this group of self-important, pompous fools.
But really, it just beats all when one of you says a male can raise a child just as effectively as a female.
This is why no one listens to idiots like yourselves. You're so distanced from reality, stuck in your own tiny world of what's right and wrong, you couldn't see the truth if it was stuck right in front of your face.
That metaphor is broken simply because females choose to have children where as those humans have to breath oxygen and cannot exist without it. Will a female die if she doesn't have a off spring? no. End of story.
Both male and female make lifestyle choices; you can choose to have a family, take up an interest in monster truck rallies, going to the local swingers club each Tuesday and partake in partner swapping. All of these are lifestyle choices in which your life as a single entity does not rely on for its continued existence.
"I am not a feminist; at least, I don't believe I am. But I think you're taking a slightly male-centric tack when you say 'in regards to the same starting point'."
Excuse me, but I'm finding that society is far too heterosexual, I want special treatment - I want all the straight men to take special pills to make them bisexual to it improves my chances of getting a boyfriend.
Society exists as it is; it is you who demands that society accommodate you choice of wanting to have children. If you want to have children then all power to you but don't expect society to give you special treatment in the same way of me demanding all straight males start taking pills so that it improves my chances of getting a boyfriend.
"Ok. Do you disagree with the idea that women are as capable as men? Or do you disagree that women face a natural handicap in merit-based careers because they are forced to lose a year of their working life for every child they have?"
Tell me, when was the last time a baby just spontaneously popped out of a female?
Having a baby is a lifestyle choice and is not comparable to a person in a wheel chair; NOW if the person in the wheel chair chose to buy a flasher wheel chair to the point that it didn't fit through a standard door way then it would be a matter of a lifestyle choice.
"The problem with your criticism here is that feminists want to make these options available for men too. The description you cite is very misleading, I'll grant: it's described as "options for women" because the proposals would have a bigger effect on women than on men. Feminists in fact would be quite delighted if men took the option described in larger numbers, instead of treating child rearing as their women's responsibility..."
Why should we accommodate peoples lifestyle choices? Christ! lets take the slippery slope to the point that we grant males 14 weeks per year to pursue masculine past times as part of their right to express their manliness?!
"People should be allowed to get help when trying to achieve their personal and professional goals. That's all this is about, and in the end, we'll all benefit."
Ah yes the old bullshit of 'it takes a village to raise a child'. Please, leave your emotionally dripping Marxism at the door and stick to facts instead of dredging up emotional sob stories.
So women would kick our ass at math, except those jobs are for losers a.k.a. men.
There is a saying that most gender studies are done by feminists and I'm starting to believe so too, I mean, is there anything we are better at? And can they answer in anything besides veiled and not so veiled insults?
But... the future refused to change.
Wow! My original comment: First step: Understand why women have babies, has 131 comments at present, and is marked "(Score: -1, Troll)". That's got to be some sort of record.
I didn't intend to cause a controversy. My understanding is that outsourcing is not working well. There is a huge sociological question: Why are some societies more successful financially than others?
Also, to do truly successful research about why women have babies, it is necessary to do research about fundamental issues, such as why do they so often have babies when the outcome is self-destructive for them?
Apparently one reason why sociology research is usually done so poorly is that many people can't consider the questions without becoming upset.
In fact, women often have babies with no consideration of the man. One of the first stories in Jewish literature, which is now also the Christian bible, is of two women, isolated from other people, who got their father drunk so they could have sex with him and get pregnant.
Most people don't handle issues involving conflict well.
MOD PARENT UP. It's interesting what you said about the Indian culture. That is my understanding, also.
Parts of China are doing very, very well. That's partly because of a successful partnership with the U.S., in which products are built to U.S. specifications by Chinese who can hire other Chinese who are willing to turn themselves into manufacturing machines for very little money. It's improvement, but a long ways from a sensible, sustainable way of living.
"I've become convinced that the reason America has been on top is our peculiar form of laziness. We're always looking for a better, smarter, and most of all easier way to do things, and that is precisely where innovation comes from."
Very interesting.
Not as true as it used to be, but on average men earn about 50% more than women ($39k median versus $26k median), so are doing considerably more of the monetary providing in aggregate.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Perhaps I'm being unreasonable, but I don't want someone doing a life-threatening job who's worked more than about 14-18 hours straight at most. Truck drivers have a maximum shift of 14 hours, of which no more than 11 may be driving. Is the stuff residents do really less error-prone for fatigued people than driving a truck is?
You seem to have basically responded to "residents work ridiculous 36-hour shifts" with "no no it's all better now, nobody works more than a perfectly reasonable 30-hour shift".
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Although academia was never really the ivory tower of caricature, where people sat around and smoked pipes and "just thought", it does feel from what I've read that it's less that than ever. Doing things other than The Project With A Deadline is really, I think, necessary for significant progress other than churning out incremental results. Everyone's big on "interdisciplinary" work these days, for example, but that seems to usually mean frantically cribbing something from another field that you can shallowly map to your problem at hand. I think a deeper interdisciplinarity really requires academics to have free time to pursue other interests, where they can run into possible areas of cross-pollination that would never happen in the shallow "I need something from biology to support this grant proposal" style of interdisciplinarity.
But that really ties into the "tons of publications is necessary" culture being bad for all sorts of reasons. It's bad for people raising kids, which is bad for retaining a whole class of people. It's bad for interdisciplinary work and fostering long-term research. It's bad for readers, who have to wade through papers that would never have been published if the author didn't feel compelled to churn them out (sometimes somewhat guiltily).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I work to live, not live to work. I did choose a technical field, I'm a web developer. It appealed to me because of the problem solving aspect. (If I would have chosen a non-technical field, I would have gone into psychology or veterinary medicine. Both of those fields would fit the stereotypical "woman choices".)
When I do have children, I desire to be a stay-at-home mom until my kids are in school. I feel those first few years are very important in a child's development, I want to be the one raising my children, not some day-care worker.
I wish I had some mod points for this. It's already bad in the US for a balance between work & home life (Europe does better, but it's spotty). The way to fix the biggest 'differences' in career for women is to shove the divide between work & home back more toward home!
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Absolutely agreed. This problem affects women more than men for the simple reason that it's somewhat easier to be an absentee father living in the same home than to be an absentee mother. Neither is particularly desirable sociologically.
Many other societal ills are a result as well. People are apathetic towards the political process, their neighbors, and their communities because they have no time to be anything else. Perhaps crime would go down if there was a more significant chance of someone being home. Since the early '60s we've roughly doubled the person-hours a family must devote to work each week without the reasonably expected doubling of real income to match.
"Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States. This article explores [a] possible explanation for the dearth of women in science: They found better jobs."
— Philip Greenspun Women in Science
Tweet, tweet.
i have an argument to answer that, and it has nothing to do with morality or religion: a society which hobbles half of its people just because they are women is a society that cannot compete with one that does not hobble its women
Compete in what sense? Have you seen a breakdown of birth rate by country recently? And that goes for subcultures within a given country too.
you, meanwhile, wish to hobble a person who might advance your society with her mind, simply because she has to stay home and breastfeed
which is like the saudis: without making any bullshit religious or moral or ideological arguments, your vision of society is weaker than my vision, simply because my vision is able to produce more intellectual advancement by freeing up those people with a womb to contribute to society in ways that are not hampered, just because she has a womb
Well you have to make bullshit religious or moral arguments eventually. Why is your ideal society of equality superior to an ideal society of Nazis that had an unbiased approach to eugenics? Or even just the exact same society as yours except that children with grave mental problems are just killed immediately so as not to be a burden?
Other than that I mostly agree with you.
"Summers was deservedly castigated, but not for the right reasons. He claimed to be giving a comprehensive list of reasons why there weren't more women reaching the top jobs in the sciences. Yet Summers, an economist, left one out: Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States.
Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog:
Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation for men going into science is the following:
1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group
2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask the question "is this peer group worth impressing?"
Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan.
It is the guys with the poorest social skills who are least likely to talk to adults and find out what the salary and working conditions are like in different occupations. It is mostly guys with rather poor social skills whom one meets in the university science halls.
What about women? Don't they want to impress their peers? Yes, but they are more discriminating about choosing those peers. I've taught a fair number of women students in electrical engineering and computer science classes over the years. I can give you a list of the ones who had the best heads on their shoulders and were the most thoughtful about planning out the rest of their lives. Their names are on files in my 'medical school recommendations' directory."
— Phil Greenspun, Women in Science
Tweet, tweet.
My wife jusy finished her PhD in Math. It was about 3 years but it was worth it! We have 2 kids, 11 and 13. She took night courses which meant that I took more care of the family. She teaches higher level math and is a great role model for my two girls who happen like school and math!
I hope more spouses are supportive and we see MORE math/science ladies!
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
I am a female studying Computer Information Systems at a public university. When I graduated high school, I cannot recall thinking "I should not enter this field because I may one day one to have children." It never even crossed my mind; further, I highly doubt that kind of thinking crosses the minds of many females first entering college. Sure, they may know they want kids, but in my opinion, it won't sway them from what they want to do in life.
Instead, my thought is that girls are intimidated by some of these fields that are male dominated. I am the only girl in majority of my classes and it took some getting used to. Before I felt like I was sticking out "like a sore thumb" as they say.
Or maybe it just goes back to what is "right" within society. You just don't see a lot of women in these fields. So possibly young women see and emulate that. We all want to be "normal" right? Doing anything outside of that norm can open us up to be teased, prodded, or mocked.
Just some of my opinions. Don't be too harsh on me, this is my first time commenting =P. I typically only come on here to see what my boyfriend is commenting on.
And frankly what you are saying is bollocks.
Some of the most creative people I have had the pleasure to work with have been Chinese and Indian.
All these supposedly Western (or do you really mean USian?) traits are just propaganda (and here I use the word after really thinking what I am saying).
The power elite in the US has willed the general populace to believe that the US is special and that the gifts of creativity and invention are somehow inherent to the US.
Of course what is not explained is that the US is built by immigrants, which is to say that the US actually innovates squat but relies on innovators going to the US in order to take advantage of an environment where certainly creativity is promoted, but not exclusive to any place in particular.
Keep believing this nonsense and stereotyping such big swathes of people. They have strength in numbers, even if you were correct (you aren't) thousands of people would escape the strictures of their educational system in order to develop their ideas.
Put another way, while the US was busy innovating the Chinese were busy working hard and saving for a rainy day, as a result China has the US by the proverbial short curly ones in the economic field.
If people are as short-sighted as you are believing Chinese and Indians are not creative, then you are ignoring thousands of years of history and actual knowledge of the global job market at your peril.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I wasn't born in Europe and I am European now.
So what kind of bullshit are you trying to promote there?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So apologize please.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Ethnicity does not exist. Get over it.
Large swathes of Europeans are descendants of people that have come from elsewhere. Check an history book, honestly. Huns, Mongols (who reached as far as Austria), you name it.
Spain and the Balkans in particular had Muslim (Arab, Turkish) rulers and populations for centuries.
Even in England people have black ancestors dating back to the Roman Empire, or do you think the Roman Legionaries that came from Africa didn't have a chance to intermingle with the fair ladies of the far away Roman province of Brittania?
Talking of ethnicity is misguided, talk about culture and you may have a point.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And we would reach them if growth continued to be exponential.
It is very lucky for us that as soon as people are more educated an affluent the prefer to have fewer children, if this wasn't the case there is no amount of technology that would save us from an exponential rate of growth . It is physically impossible.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The lobbying industry in the US has perpetuated a legalized system of bribery that would be impossible in countries like Mexico, Malaysia or Singapore.
And the corruption of the financial elite in rich countries is pretty much equivalent to the one of politicians in third world countries.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I spent a few years out in the real world before heading back to school, and I can't completely disagree with what you say. You should read what I actually said, though. I never said they don't have the same natural abilities we do, just that their educational systems actively discourage creative thinking. Obviously some are able to overcome that, Einstein being an excellent example from the western world.
I've worked with great engineers who were Chinese, Indian, and a variety of other nationalities. I now have professors from around the world who are brilliant as well. However, that doesn't change what I'm seeing in my classmates, or what many of them have to say about the educational system in their native countries.
I'm the first to agree that if either of those countries get their social issues worked out, they're absolutely going to eat our lunch. That's one of the reasons why, in addition to taking some extra math classes (I was considering a double major), I'm also learning Chinese.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
of possible tangential interest http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090325.wmothers25/BNStory/lifeMain/home "Highly educated women face a much more severe loss of earning power when they have children compared to mothers with less education, says a report published yesterday by Statistics Canada."