I was encouraged to go into STEM by men and women alike because I was good at math. Hearing stories of women in those careers and looking at what their lives were like did not make it appeal to me at all -- not because of sexism or anything like that, but because I didn't want to work insane hours and be alone with a computer crunching numbers etc. (In retrospect, had a limited vision of what a STEM career could entail). When I found out I was pregnant one of the first things I said to my husband was that I wanted to be a STAH mother.
I've heard some *very* negative things about workplaces and education departments that are female dominated, from both men and women. Wasn't there a now-retracted study that found that women do better when they have male bosses / mentors? I worked in a female-dominated industry prior to motherhood and honestly, I think I disproportionately was given opportunities by men and often found it easier to work with them because I prefer blunt, straight-forward communication and can't stand long meetings and bureaucracy.
My worst ever academic boss was the dean who was obviously a DEI hire. She was a half black, half Pakistani, single mother, in her early 30s. When I ended up with the uni's staff counsellor after a nervous breakdown, the therapist rolled her eyes and said "You're not the first person from that department who has been through my office. And I can assure you that you won't be the last as long as SHE is running the place."
I've read many people say this about the Boy Scouts vs Girl Scouts, but the only difference is that the girl scouts didn't make a huge announcement, change their organizational name, and do it as publicly as the Boy Scouts did. Boys (who are the victims of the kind of shitty parents that produce boys who think they're girls) have been welcome in girl scouts since 2015. I wonder what that means, when the girl organization just quietly complies while the boy organization makes the big public show. I dunno.
I searched online and this is what I found: “Gender is not binary, and neither are Girl Scouts! We provide leadership opportunities for all youth who are not cisgender boys (assigned male at birth and identify as male).”
It may have even been previous to 2015, from this article. 2015 stuck in my mind because I remember it being roughly that time that some fundamentalist Christian groups started an alternative to girl scouts, and the resulting publicity about girl scouts letting boys in being credited among the people I knew in Mississippi as partly behind Trump’s rise.
I think I understand now -- they allow boys who identify as girls to join girls scouts, but not boys who identify as boys. There does still seem to be a difference between Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts in that girls who identify as girls can join Boy Scouts but boys who identify as boys cannot join Girl Scouts. This stuff still mystifies me.
It's pretty obvious that boys aren't clamoring to join the Girl Scouts because it's a step down to be identified with females - UNLESS, that is, if you're determined to impersonate a female. In that case, you need affirmation for a convincing impersonation. Using the Girl Scouts is one choice for perpetrating the scam, and apparently the Girl Scouts are compliant if not flattered by the thought that these boys in drag would want to be part of their organization.
You're correct on the policy. As a parent with kids in both organizations for some years, when BSA opened up to girls, we got a small number of them who joined right away in my son's troop, tomboy types. And they are crushing it, well on their way to Eagle. As a girl scout troop leader, I've come across zero boys wanting to join G.S, and we live in a major city where I've dealt with the regional organization and other troops. Another observation: G.S. parents/troop leaders are not afraid to use their veto power on who joins the troop. They tend to more protective and even exclusionary to girls they think won't "fit." Boy scout troop leaders tend to be more welcoming--the boys themselves sorta just shrug at newcomers, regardless of their sex. Also, the Girl Scout Awards program (e.g. the Gold Award) is just as hard to obtain as the coveted Eagle Scout in terms of executing a major community project. But the latter carries more prestige and is more well known in the sense everyone knows what an Eagle Scout is. That's not true of the Gold Award when you become an Ambassador. Which goes back to the observation that male-dominated activities seem to be more highly valued in society than female activities for some reason.
“male-dominated activities seem to be more highly valued in society than female activities for some reason.” We all know why: that's where the power lies, which also explains why boys don't want to join the Girl's Scouts, but girls feel that they're taking a step up by joining the Boy Scouts. This also explains why most of us have never heard of the Gold Award. What is associated with females is considered inferior to what's associated with males. Sad but true. This bias permeates most cultures, and has for millenia. Congrats on being a scout leader and hopefully an excellent role model for girls because it doesn't matter which sex you are as long as you're a decent human being.
What is the New Orleans Boy Scout scandal? In the mid-1970s, news broke that a Boy Scout troop in New Orleans was formed for the express purpose of giving its adult leaders access to children whom they sexually abused, causing a PR nightmare for the BSA. And indeed, the BSA would come to face many sex abuse lawsuits in the 1980s.Jun 4, 2024
The Boy Scouts' $2.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization plan took effect last year, allowing the organization to keep operating while compensating the more than 80,000 men who say they were sexually abused as children while scouting.May 9, 2024.
Fwiw nowadays in boy scouts the only training you need to be a volunteer is learn about all the rules related to keeping kids safe. No one on one adult and child being the main thing taught.
Another factor contributing to the decline in prestige of higher education is also that the culture among colleges has heavily feminized to the point that their cultural preferences get outsize importance. Though I’ve not really seen stats, women in my experience are driving the illogic that has taken over society, and it’s obvious now that women are the ones most heavily pushing gender ideology (about which Katherine Brodsky said it’s not surprising that women are in service of the patriarchy). This reduces my own opinion of higher ed bc it’s been captured by the preferences of upper middle class women.
Interesting and depressing. Prizing male-dominated jobs mirrors prizing stereotypical male behavior… in the dating world for example. Not always to good effect. I can see how looking for equity (good!) can often mean looking to be the same (er…) Its not that simple in many areas. Still bums me out that being a parent isn’t valued more. But if you do it well, your kids will receive -and hopefully feel- the value. And recognized or not -that’s really the important thing.
Here's some insight from watching my kids and their friends grow up: The boys all compete with each other - in academics and athletics. They want to be the best at all the things. The girls all jockey to be noticed and admired. It has less to do with accomplishment and more to do with possessions, social skills and physical beauty for the girls. The boys might allow one or two girls to enter into one of their status games but those games lose their luster when more than a few girls tries to compete in either. They don't want to compete with the girls, they want to compete with other boys, even in academics, when the girls obviously are just as capable. It's just an interesting component of human nature. (Coming from a mom who used to compete with the boys and is in a male dominated profession)
(another note: girls sports are an EXCELLENT place for girls to compete with each other in the same way as boys do: clean, merit-based, apolitical. You're either good or you're not.)
“For women, there is no attractiveness penalty for whatever job they obtain.”
That, at least, is progress. In the 1960s, Harvard men tended to seek dates and fiancées at nearby Lesley College, which trained women for “feminine” professions such as nursing, teaching, and executive secretary. (I don’t remember if Lesley was all women or coed.) Their more intellectually inclined peers at sister college Radcliffe (who actually attended Harvard classes by then, and received Harvard diplomas, but lived and graduated separately) were regarded as aggressive and unattractive. There were quite a few exceptions to this trend, I don’t want to exaggerate, but it was nonetheless a definite trend.
Also, this characterization of “masculine/prestigious” vs “feminine/low-status” occupations is very culture-bound and Western-provincial. I’ve encountered a fair number of Caribbean men who were nurses or physician assistants, good ones, and unembarrassed about it.
The problem with this trend is that assortative mating and the tendency for high-achieving women to seek even higher-achieving male partners while simultaneously displacing men from high-achieving careers is a significant driver of growing inequality and classism. Women are less likely to change their desires here, so it would be healthier for the culture and society if successful and high-earning men from the upper classes pursued and married women in less prestigious careers and from lower SES backgrounds.
It's all behind me, I'm old. I was for 39 years with a man 18 years older than me who was impressive but traumatized and broke. I've been told he "ruined my career." I was his caregiver for the last 10 years as he became disabled and demented. He died and left me in debt but with riches of experience beyond what I could have dreamed of if I had stayed "on track." In evolutionary psychology terms I collect my Darwin Award for that choice, I didn't pass my genes on, but have plenty of siblings who did.
While women don't get penalized for having a low-paying job, men in low-wage occupations can't get a date. In this way, men are valued based on their success, which sucks for the 50% of men who are less than average.
There was a series of really gross ads in the New York subway some months ago for a dating service that stressed matching high achievers and came down heavily on the word "goals." One of the posters said something like, "Find someone whose goals make you ovulate."
Men in womanface invade women's sports because they'd rather come in first ahead of women - win the medals, scholarships and prize money rather than be trailing as number 52 in the men's competitions. But how many women impersonating men have signed up for any major league sport?? Although that's where all the money and prestige are! Then, of course, there are the thousands of voyuers, pedophiles, peeping Tom's in womanface who will seize the opportunity to indulge their fetishes at the expense of women's safety, dignity and comfort.
The declining prestige of universities is resulting from having shot themselves in the foot in numerous public faux pas (plagiarism, censorship/cancel culture, riots). Also dragging universities down in prestige, as well as corrupting their mission indirectly via insidious ways: myriad useless grievance degrees, burgeoning bureaucracy, cost vs value, etc.
I noticed this with the Oscars years ago. They stopped using the female noun “actress” in favor of the male noun “actor.” Almost as if they considered “actress” inferior somehow. What’s wrong with “actress”?
I would love to know the breakdown of the college population in terms of # of females and males, not just % (any time politicians or activists use %, worry, alot). Has the # of males in college gone down over the past 50 years?
I am frankly puzzled that people are surprised that males have fallen behind females in academic achievement. In the 1960s in my elementary school it was openly acknowledged that school was for girls. Matter of fact boys that were good at school kept that fact to themselves. I still have my high school yearbooks for grades 11-13. (late 70s). The girls dominated the boys in terms of scholastic accomplishments every year.
To be honest, given the choice between being athletically gifted and academically gifted, I would have chosen athletics when I was younger. I love sports, I am competitive and I found school for the most part boring. School was a means to an end. I think many guys can relate to this (video games have taken the place of sports for many young males).
I am not very optimistic about the future for young men in our society. It seems that every technological advance is geared to enticing young men into time wasting unproductive activity. Online porn, video games, sports gaming apps, and soon virtual reality headsets! Woohoo!
“Homemaking and childrearing are very valuable activities. Yet, among upper-middle-class people, no one (male or female) is actively encouraged to do it. It's tacitly considered a "waste of talent.” Or something along those lines. Even enlightened and progressive couples who split housework and childrearing 50/50 think of it as splitting an undesirable and less valuable duty, accepting a "compromise" to their more “valuable” careers outside the home.”
*********
Truly? How absurd! Family unity continues in jeopardy.
I will never understand the prioritization of career over family.
That’s precisely what I’m doing — my wife stayed at home to raise our kids since the beginning in 2004 when we first started having children. It’s a struggle, but it’s well worth it. Youngest is 13 now so we are in the homestretch.
One area that you would expect to be balanced is IT. Way back in 1967 there were only 13 computer science majors in a student body of 45,000, and only 2 of them were women. Efforts have been made to get more women in IT. Given that it does not rely on physicality, there's no reason that it should not be open to both sexes. Ironically the first programmers at NASA were women, chosen because they were much better at math than the male engineers. More women are in IT now than were in my day, but they are still not paid or valued as highly as men, and they have to put up with a lot of nonsense from testosterone-addled male co-workers.
It’s a lot better now than it was 25 years ago when I got started, though. Back then, the overt sexism wasn’t even thinly veiled. (“Oh yeah? Let me see that. Because you’re too pretty to write good code.” “Hey, I’m here to talk to the IT guy. Could you let him know?”) That level of nonsense today would make a man look foolish even to his male colleagues. Where I work, there is no gender pay gap now, and I hate hearing that’s still happening.
It's different from what you had to deal with, but there are still efforts being made to make IT more friendly to women. Ironically a conference for women in IT attracted a large number of men identifying as women. (https://www.npr.org/2023/10/05/1203845886/women-tech-conference-men-grace-hopper) I suppose that's a consequence of the layoffs in Silicon Valley. Back in the mid-70s, when I was in software support for a computer manufacturer, all of the software analysts were men, save one. She eventually transferred, just to have a shot at advancement. At least 50% of the men had "years of experience" that were really one or two years experience multiple times. I lasted 4 years before going self-employed.
Goodness, what a chaotic failure of an event! I’m sure the organizers are making plans on how to prevent the madness next time. But how do you verify gender and prevent people from lying about it, especially when they’re desperate for jobs? I don’t know, but it should be interesting to see what they come up with.
Heres another anecdotal observation to support your theory- when a women does well in an occupation that is dominated by men, the knee jerk assumption is that she couldn’t have actually merited that success, she must have slept with someone to get there!
Still? That would be the flip side of the male scientist-professors (in astronomy and biology, in the news recently) who pressure female grad students to sleep with them as a condition of advancement.
Thank you for this Rob. It's nice to read a thinker who isn't blinkered by male biases or group think. This (Women's "unpaid labor") has been written about for centuries from the French revolutionary Louise Michel, to Virginia Wolfe to Betsy Warrior; Housework: Slavery or a Labor of Love, Ann Oakley; Sociology of Housework, Marilyn Waring; If Women Counted, Silvia Federici; Wages For Housework, etc. These people, and others (men), posited that at the very least those whose child care and homemaking make possible the survival of subsequent generations should be at least given social credits like social security, health benefits, and educational stipends and credits for their work. Unpaid labor is an most all other cases called SLAVERY. Yet, women are compelled by the often overwhelming human, biological desire to mate, have a loving partner they can procreate with. They can usually only achieve this within the strictures and confines of the society they inhabit. A universal guaranteed income would not be a solution to this income disparity as there would be no recognition of women's sex-based labor (reproduction) and it would further increase the disparity between men and women's income.
As someone who is interested in the world of computers, media and entertainment, there's this observation I , and a bunch of other observers found online. Take note no one was able to find this exact study so take this with a grain of salt, but Lego did a study where they found that plays with the toy of a character, he tries to become the character, while for girls, she tries to make the character become her.
I wonder if this dynamic is playing out in real world occupations, considering you can argue that toys and games can act as shadow careers for kids. Once again, take this with a grain of salt, but I would love to see more research done in this area.
I was encouraged to go into STEM by men and women alike because I was good at math. Hearing stories of women in those careers and looking at what their lives were like did not make it appeal to me at all -- not because of sexism or anything like that, but because I didn't want to work insane hours and be alone with a computer crunching numbers etc. (In retrospect, had a limited vision of what a STEM career could entail). When I found out I was pregnant one of the first things I said to my husband was that I wanted to be a STAH mother.
I've heard some *very* negative things about workplaces and education departments that are female dominated, from both men and women. Wasn't there a now-retracted study that found that women do better when they have male bosses / mentors? I worked in a female-dominated industry prior to motherhood and honestly, I think I disproportionately was given opportunities by men and often found it easier to work with them because I prefer blunt, straight-forward communication and can't stand long meetings and bureaucracy.
Im a woman and agree on many of these points.
My worst ever academic boss was the dean who was obviously a DEI hire. She was a half black, half Pakistani, single mother, in her early 30s. When I ended up with the uni's staff counsellor after a nervous breakdown, the therapist rolled her eyes and said "You're not the first person from that department who has been through my office. And I can assure you that you won't be the last as long as SHE is running the place."
I've read many people say this about the Boy Scouts vs Girl Scouts, but the only difference is that the girl scouts didn't make a huge announcement, change their organizational name, and do it as publicly as the Boy Scouts did. Boys (who are the victims of the kind of shitty parents that produce boys who think they're girls) have been welcome in girl scouts since 2015. I wonder what that means, when the girl organization just quietly complies while the boy organization makes the big public show. I dunno.
I searched online and this is what I found: “Gender is not binary, and neither are Girl Scouts! We provide leadership opportunities for all youth who are not cisgender boys (assigned male at birth and identify as male).”
https://www.girlscoutsww.org/en/discover/about-girl-scouts.html
Is there any other info on this?
https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/20/living/girl-scouts-welcomes-transgender-girls-feat/index.html
It may have even been previous to 2015, from this article. 2015 stuck in my mind because I remember it being roughly that time that some fundamentalist Christian groups started an alternative to girl scouts, and the resulting publicity about girl scouts letting boys in being credited among the people I knew in Mississippi as partly behind Trump’s rise.
I think I understand now -- they allow boys who identify as girls to join girls scouts, but not boys who identify as boys. There does still seem to be a difference between Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts in that girls who identify as girls can join Boy Scouts but boys who identify as boys cannot join Girl Scouts. This stuff still mystifies me.
Me too. I wonder if the Boy Scouts didn't take the more sensible approach. Now they don't have to try to define anything.
It's pretty obvious that boys aren't clamoring to join the Girl Scouts because it's a step down to be identified with females - UNLESS, that is, if you're determined to impersonate a female. In that case, you need affirmation for a convincing impersonation. Using the Girl Scouts is one choice for perpetrating the scam, and apparently the Girl Scouts are compliant if not flattered by the thought that these boys in drag would want to be part of their organization.
You're correct on the policy. As a parent with kids in both organizations for some years, when BSA opened up to girls, we got a small number of them who joined right away in my son's troop, tomboy types. And they are crushing it, well on their way to Eagle. As a girl scout troop leader, I've come across zero boys wanting to join G.S, and we live in a major city where I've dealt with the regional organization and other troops. Another observation: G.S. parents/troop leaders are not afraid to use their veto power on who joins the troop. They tend to more protective and even exclusionary to girls they think won't "fit." Boy scout troop leaders tend to be more welcoming--the boys themselves sorta just shrug at newcomers, regardless of their sex. Also, the Girl Scout Awards program (e.g. the Gold Award) is just as hard to obtain as the coveted Eagle Scout in terms of executing a major community project. But the latter carries more prestige and is more well known in the sense everyone knows what an Eagle Scout is. That's not true of the Gold Award when you become an Ambassador. Which goes back to the observation that male-dominated activities seem to be more highly valued in society than female activities for some reason.
See Boy Scouts Troop 137
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4SjBHjuRafCBwbzkYa4TpJ
“male-dominated activities seem to be more highly valued in society than female activities for some reason.” We all know why: that's where the power lies, which also explains why boys don't want to join the Girl's Scouts, but girls feel that they're taking a step up by joining the Boy Scouts. This also explains why most of us have never heard of the Gold Award. What is associated with females is considered inferior to what's associated with males. Sad but true. This bias permeates most cultures, and has for millenia. Congrats on being a scout leader and hopefully an excellent role model for girls because it doesn't matter which sex you are as long as you're a decent human being.
lol, how long before "trans-age" adult men start trying to join?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/girl-scouts-accuse-boy-scouts-membership-recruiting/
What is the New Orleans Boy Scout scandal? In the mid-1970s, news broke that a Boy Scout troop in New Orleans was formed for the express purpose of giving its adult leaders access to children whom they sexually abused, causing a PR nightmare for the BSA. And indeed, the BSA would come to face many sex abuse lawsuits in the 1980s.Jun 4, 2024
https://www.yesmagazine.org › gay...
The Complex Reality of the Boy Scouts' Gay Ban
Did the Boy Scouts disband?
The Boy Scouts' $2.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization plan took effect last year, allowing the organization to keep operating while compensating the more than 80,000 men who say they were sexually abused as children while scouting.May 9, 2024.
Fwiw nowadays in boy scouts the only training you need to be a volunteer is learn about all the rules related to keeping kids safe. No one on one adult and child being the main thing taught.
Holy cow!
🙄
Another factor contributing to the decline in prestige of higher education is also that the culture among colleges has heavily feminized to the point that their cultural preferences get outsize importance. Though I’ve not really seen stats, women in my experience are driving the illogic that has taken over society, and it’s obvious now that women are the ones most heavily pushing gender ideology (about which Katherine Brodsky said it’s not surprising that women are in service of the patriarchy). This reduces my own opinion of higher ed bc it’s been captured by the preferences of upper middle class women.
Interesting and depressing. Prizing male-dominated jobs mirrors prizing stereotypical male behavior… in the dating world for example. Not always to good effect. I can see how looking for equity (good!) can often mean looking to be the same (er…) Its not that simple in many areas. Still bums me out that being a parent isn’t valued more. But if you do it well, your kids will receive -and hopefully feel- the value. And recognized or not -that’s really the important thing.
Here's some insight from watching my kids and their friends grow up: The boys all compete with each other - in academics and athletics. They want to be the best at all the things. The girls all jockey to be noticed and admired. It has less to do with accomplishment and more to do with possessions, social skills and physical beauty for the girls. The boys might allow one or two girls to enter into one of their status games but those games lose their luster when more than a few girls tries to compete in either. They don't want to compete with the girls, they want to compete with other boys, even in academics, when the girls obviously are just as capable. It's just an interesting component of human nature. (Coming from a mom who used to compete with the boys and is in a male dominated profession)
(another note: girls sports are an EXCELLENT place for girls to compete with each other in the same way as boys do: clean, merit-based, apolitical. You're either good or you're not.)
“For women, there is no attractiveness penalty for whatever job they obtain.”
That, at least, is progress. In the 1960s, Harvard men tended to seek dates and fiancées at nearby Lesley College, which trained women for “feminine” professions such as nursing, teaching, and executive secretary. (I don’t remember if Lesley was all women or coed.) Their more intellectually inclined peers at sister college Radcliffe (who actually attended Harvard classes by then, and received Harvard diplomas, but lived and graduated separately) were regarded as aggressive and unattractive. There were quite a few exceptions to this trend, I don’t want to exaggerate, but it was nonetheless a definite trend.
Also, this characterization of “masculine/prestigious” vs “feminine/low-status” occupations is very culture-bound and Western-provincial. I’ve encountered a fair number of Caribbean men who were nurses or physician assistants, good ones, and unembarrassed about it.
Perhaps this is due to the higher level of poverty in the Caribbean and the relative wealth that those occupations can provide.
Gender differences of many sorts decline with poverty despite intuition suggesting the opposite. So you’re probably right.
The problem with this trend is that assortative mating and the tendency for high-achieving women to seek even higher-achieving male partners while simultaneously displacing men from high-achieving careers is a significant driver of growing inequality and classism. Women are less likely to change their desires here, so it would be healthier for the culture and society if successful and high-earning men from the upper classes pursued and married women in less prestigious careers and from lower SES backgrounds.
Or, high-achieving women could get over that.
Well, yeah, obviously. I know a handful of girl-boss STAH / part-time work dad couples and it seems to work great for them.
Are you a high achiever? If you're straight, what kind of guy are you with or do you hope to be with?
It's all behind me, I'm old. I was for 39 years with a man 18 years older than me who was impressive but traumatized and broke. I've been told he "ruined my career." I was his caregiver for the last 10 years as he became disabled and demented. He died and left me in debt but with riches of experience beyond what I could have dreamed of if I had stayed "on track." In evolutionary psychology terms I collect my Darwin Award for that choice, I didn't pass my genes on, but have plenty of siblings who did.
That's rough ... I'm sorry. Love is hard.
Interesting. I read that statement differently.
While women don't get penalized for having a low-paying job, men in low-wage occupations can't get a date. In this way, men are valued based on their success, which sucks for the 50% of men who are less than average.
Did you mean "can't"?
There was a series of really gross ads in the New York subway some months ago for a dating service that stressed matching high achievers and came down heavily on the word "goals." One of the posters said something like, "Find someone whose goals make you ovulate."
Men in womanface invade women's sports because they'd rather come in first ahead of women - win the medals, scholarships and prize money rather than be trailing as number 52 in the men's competitions. But how many women impersonating men have signed up for any major league sport?? Although that's where all the money and prestige are! Then, of course, there are the thousands of voyuers, pedophiles, peeping Tom's in womanface who will seize the opportunity to indulge their fetishes at the expense of women's safety, dignity and comfort.
The declining prestige of universities is resulting from having shot themselves in the foot in numerous public faux pas (plagiarism, censorship/cancel culture, riots). Also dragging universities down in prestige, as well as corrupting their mission indirectly via insidious ways: myriad useless grievance degrees, burgeoning bureaucracy, cost vs value, etc.
Those may be a result of students being mostly female.
I noticed this with the Oscars years ago. They stopped using the female noun “actress” in favor of the male noun “actor.” Almost as if they considered “actress” inferior somehow. What’s wrong with “actress”?
Rob is always interesting, with a fertile range of interests.
I would love to know the breakdown of the college population in terms of # of females and males, not just % (any time politicians or activists use %, worry, alot). Has the # of males in college gone down over the past 50 years?
I am frankly puzzled that people are surprised that males have fallen behind females in academic achievement. In the 1960s in my elementary school it was openly acknowledged that school was for girls. Matter of fact boys that were good at school kept that fact to themselves. I still have my high school yearbooks for grades 11-13. (late 70s). The girls dominated the boys in terms of scholastic accomplishments every year.
To be honest, given the choice between being athletically gifted and academically gifted, I would have chosen athletics when I was younger. I love sports, I am competitive and I found school for the most part boring. School was a means to an end. I think many guys can relate to this (video games have taken the place of sports for many young males).
I am not very optimistic about the future for young men in our society. It seems that every technological advance is geared to enticing young men into time wasting unproductive activity. Online porn, video games, sports gaming apps, and soon virtual reality headsets! Woohoo!
“Homemaking and childrearing are very valuable activities. Yet, among upper-middle-class people, no one (male or female) is actively encouraged to do it. It's tacitly considered a "waste of talent.” Or something along those lines. Even enlightened and progressive couples who split housework and childrearing 50/50 think of it as splitting an undesirable and less valuable duty, accepting a "compromise" to their more “valuable” careers outside the home.”
*********
Truly? How absurd! Family unity continues in jeopardy.
I will never understand the prioritization of career over family.
Try bringing up a family on one wage these days.
That’s precisely what I’m doing — my wife stayed at home to raise our kids since the beginning in 2004 when we first started having children. It’s a struggle, but it’s well worth it. Youngest is 13 now so we are in the homestretch.
I also stayed at home until my son started school. It was the right thing to do.
Bravo to you
One area that you would expect to be balanced is IT. Way back in 1967 there were only 13 computer science majors in a student body of 45,000, and only 2 of them were women. Efforts have been made to get more women in IT. Given that it does not rely on physicality, there's no reason that it should not be open to both sexes. Ironically the first programmers at NASA were women, chosen because they were much better at math than the male engineers. More women are in IT now than were in my day, but they are still not paid or valued as highly as men, and they have to put up with a lot of nonsense from testosterone-addled male co-workers.
It’s a lot better now than it was 25 years ago when I got started, though. Back then, the overt sexism wasn’t even thinly veiled. (“Oh yeah? Let me see that. Because you’re too pretty to write good code.” “Hey, I’m here to talk to the IT guy. Could you let him know?”) That level of nonsense today would make a man look foolish even to his male colleagues. Where I work, there is no gender pay gap now, and I hate hearing that’s still happening.
It's different from what you had to deal with, but there are still efforts being made to make IT more friendly to women. Ironically a conference for women in IT attracted a large number of men identifying as women. (https://www.npr.org/2023/10/05/1203845886/women-tech-conference-men-grace-hopper) I suppose that's a consequence of the layoffs in Silicon Valley. Back in the mid-70s, when I was in software support for a computer manufacturer, all of the software analysts were men, save one. She eventually transferred, just to have a shot at advancement. At least 50% of the men had "years of experience" that were really one or two years experience multiple times. I lasted 4 years before going self-employed.
Goodness, what a chaotic failure of an event! I’m sure the organizers are making plans on how to prevent the madness next time. But how do you verify gender and prevent people from lying about it, especially when they’re desperate for jobs? I don’t know, but it should be interesting to see what they come up with.
Heres another anecdotal observation to support your theory- when a women does well in an occupation that is dominated by men, the knee jerk assumption is that she couldn’t have actually merited that success, she must have slept with someone to get there!
Still? That would be the flip side of the male scientist-professors (in astronomy and biology, in the news recently) who pressure female grad students to sleep with them as a condition of advancement.
Really? You’d think the #metoo movement would have a “cold shower” effect on the prof’s egos.
I guess they feel powerful and somewhat unaccountable, and they hold the keys (to the telescope, e.g.).
Thank you for this Rob. It's nice to read a thinker who isn't blinkered by male biases or group think. This (Women's "unpaid labor") has been written about for centuries from the French revolutionary Louise Michel, to Virginia Wolfe to Betsy Warrior; Housework: Slavery or a Labor of Love, Ann Oakley; Sociology of Housework, Marilyn Waring; If Women Counted, Silvia Federici; Wages For Housework, etc. These people, and others (men), posited that at the very least those whose child care and homemaking make possible the survival of subsequent generations should be at least given social credits like social security, health benefits, and educational stipends and credits for their work. Unpaid labor is an most all other cases called SLAVERY. Yet, women are compelled by the often overwhelming human, biological desire to mate, have a loving partner they can procreate with. They can usually only achieve this within the strictures and confines of the society they inhabit. A universal guaranteed income would not be a solution to this income disparity as there would be no recognition of women's sex-based labor (reproduction) and it would further increase the disparity between men and women's income.
As someone who is interested in the world of computers, media and entertainment, there's this observation I , and a bunch of other observers found online. Take note no one was able to find this exact study so take this with a grain of salt, but Lego did a study where they found that plays with the toy of a character, he tries to become the character, while for girls, she tries to make the character become her.
I wonder if this dynamic is playing out in real world occupations, considering you can argue that toys and games can act as shadow careers for kids. Once again, take this with a grain of salt, but I would love to see more research done in this area.