Hacker News Reader

Comment by darawk | Hacker News Reader

> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-dominated professions is sexism at work.

What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conception of economics to my understanding.

EDIT: In your edit you added the example of teaching. And that is, fairish. I'd grant you that teachers are underpaid, but that isn't sexism, it's a consequence of the structure of our education system. They're not underpaid because they're women, they're underpaid because they're being paid by a bureaucracy.

View on HN

Well, imagine a scenario where women are initially not in the labor force. But they want to work, same as anyone

Then, one day, society changes. "You can work, but you can only be a nurse, teacher, or secretary".

You don't think there'd be a supply glut driving down wages in those areas? Suppressing them over a long period as women gradually enter the labor force there?

And by the same token, that society that says you can't be an engineer or a CEO because you are a woman - that severely punishes those women who do seek those jobs - you don't think women would respond to that? That even if they could produce more economic value, the societal pressure can override the capitalist tendencies of organizations and individuals to maximize wealth?

Are you insinuating that women - today - are forced into that narrow set of professions if they want to work?

Certainly that was the case in the past, and cultural inertia is real. This allows inequities and biases to persist over time. So although women are not forced to choose teaching, for example, there are more teaching role models who are women and culture nudges women towards that career.

This causes the persistent inequity in career pay that was caused in part by the original influx of women into the field when explicit sexism was rampant.

Cultural inertia is surely a factor, but I doubt it's as severe as the parent is insinuating. For instance, how do you explain women overtaking men in say, veterinary medicine? At one point, the field was entirely male dominated.

So was nursing, and really most(all?) fields. Of course going from nursing to veterinary work is not as huge a leap.

And in all cases, somebody has to be the first one; somebody has to show a path, often against institutionalized sexism. Once the door is open (especially when there are few doors) I can see careers tipping fast.

Of course computer science used to have a lot of women; especially when they were being used as human calculators(!), so I don't know what exactly changed that made it a boys' club.

Regardless of the cause, it has the perception, which makes it self perpetuating in some sense - women see articles about how tough it is to be a woman in tech, and are turned off by it, even if the higher pay is there and it's all just rumors.

I suppose though there is something of a reverse impact in some fields (in terms of labor force participation) - like nursing, which is so female dominated, there's actually negative pressure for men who try to enter it . But it also just isn't held up as high as medicine at the MD level.

forced, no.

But do they face strong institutional barriers and negative climates in some of the best paying professions (like engineering)? Yes.

The scale of it isn't like it was 50+ years ago, but let's not pretend like it's "All Better Now"

They are certainly heavily pushed into those fields.

No, he is not. He is talking of the long-term side-effects of historic sexism.

Why the emphase on `forced` and `today` ?

Because it would make sense 50 or more years ago, when women were openly shut out from other professions. That's not to say the after-effects of those outmoded cultural traditions aren't having an impact, but to claim that this accounts entirely or even majorly for the professional disparity in female representation demands evidence.

Sure. But women are free agents. They don't all need to be teachers, nurses, and secretaries. They can be whatever they want to be.

Now, I fully admit, there is a degree to which women at a young age are socialized into those sorts of professions. And I am absolutely willing to call that sexism, and totally support every effort being made to change that.

"People are paid according to the value they produce" grossly simplifies compensation. If we must generalize compensation: people are paid the lowest amount they will accept.

Supply and demand and value are central to the equation, but large variability in compensation among near identical profiles in the US and Canadian software sectors is an indicator that the individual isn't good at knowing their value.

> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'.

I challenge you to question if either of these assumptions hold in all cases or just in an idealized world where everyone is a "rational consumer."

No, certainly it doesn't happen in all cases. But the idea that there is a systematic bias against female-dominated professions is just silly.

The problem is gender roles. Women are taught by society to think that, as women, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like teaching, tend to be lower paid than the careers men are encouraged to go into.

Men are pressured to be breadwinners, so they are more likely to pick careers based on pay.

Women are not pressured to be breadwinners, so they're more likely to pick careers that sound fulfilling and satisfying, but are less lucrative.

Media likes to focus on the pay gap, but has anyone investigated the fulfillment and satisfaction gap? I wouldn't be surprised if overall men are less fulfilled and satisfied by their jobs.

Men are typically raised from a young age that you do defines your worth. Women are typically raised with the idea that they have value in and of themselves. There are pros and cons to both sides of encouragement.

Too many women are raised to believe not that they have value in and of themselves but that their value is in their reproductive potential.

I'd say both men and women at some level value themselves in their attractiveness to the opposite sex. Women feel value by being attractive to men. And Men feel value by being attractive to women. Men are attracted to women who display youth and beauty as a proxy for reproductive value, and women are attracted to wealth and status as a proxy for support.

Sure, but women are taught (mostly subconsciously but in some ways explicitly) that their primary value as human beings is in physical attractiveness when young, in their fertility in their 20s, and in their ability to nurture when older.

We teach men that their value is in their accomplishments, which is a) more empowering; b) more under their control; and c) more conducive to independence and pursuit of self-realization (in career or in other aspects of life), positions of power, and yes, powerful and high-paid careers.

Men are not valued for their accomplishments, they are valued for their resources and ability to gain more resources. No where in any data that I have seen, for example dating, can we see that people who travel or achieve personal accomplishments are out competing people with wealth.

For example, let say we take two groups of men in the age of 30. Those in group A have traveled and accomplished a bunch of personal goals, but are at this point jobbing at minimum wage jobs. Those in group B stayed put and studied and work hard to position themselves at high earning jobs. Which group is rewarded highest by society? My bet if they did such study would be group B with a very clear margin.

Men are being taught that their primary value as human is to chase wealth. This causes men take more risk, die at a earlier age, and have a smaller social network to take care of them at old age. Regardless of gender, neither men or women live a life of roses, and being valued for physical attractiveness rather than wealth has benefits and drawbacks.

The difference is that it is generally easier to swap money for fulfillment and satisfaction than the other way around.

Most men may agree with you because they're socialized to think that way. Most women may not.

I think you're misunderstanding me.

If I have a high income, I have many options to swap that for fulfillment and satisfaction. I can buy stuff, I can go on interesting vacations, I can have expensive hobbies, I can donate to charities, and I can partake in a large number of experiences that are only available to those who can afford it. And finally, I can give it all up and pursue a life of simpler pleasures. Those are all options I have.

If I have a low income, I might still feel satisfied and fulfilled, but that could change. What options do I then have?

Women seek men with resources to reproduce with. Men tend to only care about youth/fertility. It's not like men can start reproducing with women who are no longer fertile, so they can't possibly lower the bar any further. Since women don't have social pressure to gather resources in order to reproduce, men are going to dominate in higher paying professions. This is similar to the same argument Christopher Hitchens famously made in his Vanity Fair article about why women aren't funny. It's not that women can't be funny, obviously many are. It's that they don't need to be funny to get laid.

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701

If you want to resolve this problem you need to either ask women to lower the bar and not seek men with resources or ask men to raise the bar and demand that women not only be youthful/fertile, but also have resources. Good luck.

Now that is an explanation I can get behind. I think that there is a degree to which society socializes women to prefer lower paid jobs. That I think is absolutely legitimate. But the idea that sexism causes us to value those jobs less is, I think, absurd.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over...

That's such a silly article. There are so many confounding factors as to make any attempt at determining causation specious. Women's employment rate grew massively over that time period. This means that jobs requiring no specialized skills would receive an influx of job seekers. If we assume the employment rate of men stayed the same over that period, we would expect all jobs that require no specialized skills or physical demands would reduce in wages as the demand for those jobs increased. As far as computer programming goes, it literally was a clerical job early on. Wages rose as the job started requiring more specialized skills (which apparently women couldn't or didn't want to get).

i think one forgotten issue is the part-time economy. I know in retail just as the work shifted to part time on demand hours, women's participation increased because it's easier for women to work part time than men.

In other news, economists discover that supply and demand balance to create price! When the supply of a thing goes up but the demand doesn't, the price goes down.

>The problem is gender roles. Men are taught by society to think that, as men, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like software development, tend to be higher paid than the careers women are encouraged to go into.

Kinda works both ways as an argument. If they were so concerned about pay, they can try and negotiate for more. Men are taught/encouraged to do this more from a young age. If you want to be paid more, you gotta haggle, you can't just accept the price on the sticker.

or it could be these careers speak more to women's aspirations than others. If an important goal for a woman is to have a family and children, working at higher paid jobs that require tremendous hours and travel are not going to be attractive. If the same is for men, likewise...the family man who turns down traveling or relocating, and can't work massive overtime will see his prospects decline too.

A lot of the problem with gender roles is many feminists have internalized male actions as the norm and female actions as inferior...so they see women as underpaid over as having the flexibility to raise a family

In some countries. China, India, Romania, Ukraine and a few others seem to have no shortage of women going into STEM.

actually that even starts in the early life. with barbie or special lego's just for women.

p.s.: my niche loves my old lego's more than the girlish ones.

"taught by society"

feel free to source that in a way that can be proven. The assertion is just pseudo intellectual excuse making. Society is NOT telling women to NOT be sanitation workers. Society is not telling women not to work on offshore oil rigs. Society is not telling women not to be surgeons but to in fact be veterinarians. Society and "gender role" excuses don't hold up to reality. Time to accept that the women you know, or imagine you know make their choices, largely based on their own interests.

You're welcome to try to convince women to become sanitation workers rather than paralegal interns in climate controlled offices. Good luck on that.

I don't see how you can possibly claim that society doesn't discourage women from pursuing "manly" careers. By the same token men are discouraged from pursuing "feminine" careers.

If a man says they are going to work on an offshore oil rig they are much less likely to get societal push back than a woman because it is seen as a normal thing for a man to do but not a woman.

If a woman is an elementary school teacher it is considered completely normal, whereas men are often looked down upon for doing so. The same happens with male nurses.

How can you read all the stories about sexual harassment in our industry and not think women are being discouraged from pursuing careers in tech?

You're just saying words, you've got no examples of where rubber meets the road. Just that "men are looked down upon for being elementary school teachers" What? Where? And female oil rig workers get "societal pushback" Again just words. Where? How? You've got nothing here so far.

I mean if you want to talk about cultural influence there's way more news articles celebrating women doing various things, celebrating women entrepreneurs, women soldiers, women and minority events and special recognition or conferences.

Read all the stories about sexual harassment? Anecdotally I've seen just as much sexual language coming from women in IT as men in terms of workers. Project mgrs, network admins, probably a few more. And those instances were miniscule and didn't make up anywhere near a day to day problem for people.

I have seen instances where a guy who was being a dick treated women poorly. He got a talking to and cut that out. I've seen women take their day out on men and women and never got any kind of talking to. It's really funny you're pointing to some sort of dysfunction and not demonstrating or sourcing anything but "all those stories"

It's not just our industry, ever hear the horror stories of women breaking into other male dominated fields like policing?

The idea that there aren't multiple forces, often brutal ones, nudging men and women into particular fields is just preposterous.

> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them.

Yes. But I think you miss one point. People are not rational beings (even trained ones are not), and "value they obtained" is a result of some psychological process which is not strictly rational. And if people estimate value obtained from employee by sex of that employee, it would be not surprising at all.

> To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conception of economics to my understanding.

Conception of economics is a theory. Reality is something different, theory is just simplified description of reality. Theory is much more formal, more simple and more understandable. Theory exists only in human mind as some entity of informational nature, while reality... well, reality is just a reality. Theory offers us laws that works in most cases. Or more precise, that laws works while axioms postulated by theory are fulfilled. But reality just works, it does not follow our laws and rules, it just works somehow.

No absolute truth exists. Every one axiom sometimes is not true. In a case when axioms are not true, theory becomes unreliable. If you think to rely on laws of some theory, then first you should check whether all relevant axioms are fullfilled in your case.

People use word "economics" and mean either theory or reality depending on context. This leads to confusion and inability to see the difference. Train youself to separate theory and reality on every occasion, try every time to use different words for theory and reality and you'll become immune to such mistakes.

As I undestand such a theory as economics, "people value things according to what value they obtain from them" itself is axiom. Here you see some case where axiom is false: its just a matter of fact. So reality and theory are different here substantially. You should choose some other theory to deal with such situation.

> Yes. But I think you miss one point. People are not rational beings (even trained ones are not), and "value they obtained" is a result of some psychological process which is not strictly rational. And if people estimate value obtained from employee by sex of that employee, it would be not surprising at all.

I agree in part. I agree wholeheartedly that the rational actor model is (at best) incomplete. We are not rational beings making perfect value judgments moment to moment. I further admit it is possible that, in individual interactions, the gender of the employee/agent we are interacting with may be a factor in price considerations.

However, ultimately prices are set by supply and demand. What the OP is positing, is that demand is suppressed by sexism. What would this mean? Some female-dominated professions are: Nursing, teaching, and social work [1]. Now think about what would have to be true in order for the OP's point to be correct. People would have to systematically demand less nursing, teaching, and social work in order to achieve the result they were implying. Do you think that is plausible?

When thinking about intra-profession discrimination, I would have no problem attributing that to sexism. That is, if you said to me that female teachers are systematically paid less than their male counterparts, i'd be all for labelling that sexism. But that's not what's being posited here. What's being posited is that because certain professions are dominated by women, people consume them less. People want less of them. But what is a profession's role in the world if not to generate its own demand? If people aren't demanding your services, you find a new profession.

In other words, if demand for the services women choose to provide is so elastic that it can be depressed by sexism, then maybe they ought to find better services to provide. Services that are important enough that the demand for them is non-negotiable, and can never be suppressed by sexist preferences.

1. http://www.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by...

Pay and prestige of educators has diminished as it has become more female dominated. This is a pattern seen across many industries when they shift from male dominated to female dominated. This suggests that there is a relationship between gender distributions in a job and its prestige and value given by society.

Not all jobs have direct "money in, money out" relations that you can use to judge value. This opens the door for all sorts of cultural bias that affects how people decide how much a particular job is "worth".

Has prestige also dropped for doctors and lawyers? They're not professions dominated by women AFAIK, but women've become quite well represented in them since the ~mid 80s, so one might expect to see this effect there.

I know job prospects aren't as hot for lawyers as they once were[1], but it's still one of very few professions that I'd expect to reliably make someone's parents' eyebrows go up and an "oh!" issue from their mouth on hearing their kid's dating one, ya know? So the prestige is still there, unless I've missed something. And doctors are doctors, so certainly in that category, too. I really doubt "software developer" automatically gains one anywhere near as much social capital, in general company and without further favorable details/context.

[1] as you correctly wrote, "Not all jobs have direct 'money in, money out' relations that you can use to judge value."

Women have been the majority of teachers in the US for over a hundred years

Sexism is present in those forces which guide girls and women toward those under-valued positions.

> I'd grant you that teachers are underpaid, but that isn't sexism

Sure; however a statement like "teaching is work befitting a woman" would be sexism.

Absolutely agree. It is sexist to socialize girls into specific professions. It is sexist to say "x is work befitting a woman". But women-dominated professions being paid less is not sexist.

What do you think causes such extreme gender disparities in positions like CEO, or board of directors?

I don't know. There are many possible explanations. One is sexism. Another is that women are less likely to negotiate. Another is that maybe women tend to be CEOs of companies that are less valuable, or that rely less on the expertise of their CEO.

Ok, so why are they less likely to negotiate, why are they more likely to ascend at less valuable companies, etc. The whole point of talking about the wage gap is figuring out why it exists. And inevitably, there are only two possible ends to this investigation. Either there are inherent biological differences that cause women to be less effective and valuable in our economy, or some societal manifestation of sexism is causing these differences. As far as I can tell there is no other possible answer.

Yep, that's correct. And it's almost certainly a mixture of the two. I'm not saying there isn't sexism involved, i'm just saying that it's more likely to be on the side of socializing young girls into choosing less remunerative professions.

Women are less likely to negotiate because of the societal views of women who are shrewd negotiators. The societal pressure on women to be passive is immense. Just look at women in politics for numerous examples. That's what's sexist about it. There are different expectations of people based solely on gender, and that further divides into race with black women at the bottom of that pool.

You need only listen to the experiences of women founders in Silicon Valley to realize your comment really doesn't match up with what really happens. Women, especially in the tech sector, are treated like personal sex objects of some VCs.

There is not a single situation you listed above that cannot be attributed to similarity bias or cultural bias against, both completely unintentional.

"They're not underpaid because they're women, they're underpaid because they're being paid by a bureaucracy."

That's a theory. The relevant question is, what evidence exists to support or refute that theory?

The fact that male teachers are equally underpaid, pretty clearly.

> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them.

That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men, causing them to earn lower salaries. Does that mean that people value jobs performed by men who negotiate more than jobs performed by women who don't? Of course not - it has nothing to do with the value-add at all.

Doesn't this article refute that idea? If the pay gap is less than 1% for same rank/same job that means whatever is causing that 1% delta is pretty small. How much of that can you attribute to a lack of "negotiating" and is that 1% significant ?

That would mean basically a woman accepted 99K where a man accepted 100K. At that scale negotiating and gap is almost non-existent.

And you don't generally negotiate position and or rank. You apply for or get recommended for a job and get it or not, negotiating is usually about the dollars and cents after being in strong consideration for a position or after being given an initial offer for a position.

If women /are/ discriminated against you might even argue, based on this data, they are better at negotiating than men and that could make up for them being so close in pay for same rank / same role jobs. The point is the data doesn't support it.

That's not sexism, though. That's women negotiating less.

To the extent that women negotiate less due to biology, it's almost definitely not purely down to biology.

That means there's likely some kind of societal pressure keeping them from negotiating as much. There have been plenty of studies that show assertive women are seen as just being bitchy while assertive men are seen as strong leaders.

That societal difference is sexism. Individuals don't have to be consciously sexist for implicit bias to affect women.

It's absolutely sexism that salary negotiations favor behaviors that men are comfortable with and women are not.

No, it isn't. The world doesn't need to be designed to produce equality of outcome. Just equality of opportunity. Women may choose to negotiate less, and that's fine. They'll get paid less. If women want to choose to negotiate more, they can do that too, and be paid more.

If you want to argue that it's sexist that we socialize women to negotiate less, i'm all for that, though.

> If you want to argue that it's sexist that we socialize women to negotiate less, i'm all for that, though.

If that's the road you feel comfortable walking down, I think it's fine to compromise at that point. Regardless of how it happened, the result - women not negotiating - is still the same.

Yes, but how you get there matters. If society is socializing women to negotiate less, that's society's fault and society should try to correct that. If women are simply biologically predisposed to negotiate less, that's nobody's fault and women can try to correct it if they want, or not. But it's not a social, collective problem.

To me this is moot. At this point you're fighting against the natural inclinations of the human mind. I'd pick my battles more carefully. There are other issues related to sex that are much easier to attack, with much greater potential impact.

It's not individual sexism, but it _is_ systematic sexism.

Women generally don't handle negotiating the same as men. But negotiation skills aren't relevant to most jobs. So if that's a factor in how people get paid, it's _systematically_ sexist.

I disagree. Women have the same opportunity to negotiate that men do. The fact that they choose to negotiate less is on them.

Do you agree that negotiation skills don't matter for most jobs? And do you agree that people should be compensated based on the value they bring to a job?

Because sexism or no, I think it's a tremendous problem when people get ahead for completely tangential reasons to their job performance and skills.

I agree it's a problem. But it's women's problem. If they want to get ahead - start negotiating. It's not incumbent upon society to bend over backwards to facilitate every subgroup's predilections. Salary negotiation is a necessary part of the job market. It performs a useful and important function - price discovery. It is not sexist if women are maladapted to it.

How is it sexism is sex is not a factor?

It is a factor.

In that case I'm missing your point. If everyone has equal opportunity to negotiate salary regardless of sex, then how does it matter whether or not salary negotiation skills should be awarded, from a gender equality perspective? Isn't that a separate issue then, not related to sexism?

Unless your point is that the sexism is at a larger cultural level that fosters the average woman to be less effective at salary negotiations. In that case I completely agree.

Studies have demonstrated that women who negotiate are less likely to get what they are want and are more likely to be punished for it.

> Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men

This blanket statement seems sexist. Some are inclined and some are not.

Besides, as soon as one leaves the world of small business, the corporations stick to salary bands attached to specific titles. The variations within the bands are usually driven by longevity with the company as well as performance reviews. It makes things easier in HR department, and creates a paper trail on compensation decisions in case someone decides to get litigious later.

Goodness, man. Stating facts is not sexist.

> Some are inclined and some are not.

That is what "generally" implies, yes.

There is an argument that women are generally less inclined to negotiate due to the effects of sexism.

http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2015/04/why-everything-youve-hea...

"Miller and Douglas discovered that women who had experience with successful negotiation were superior negotiators to men, even when they rated themselves as only average negotiators."

What's being discussed is not skill at negotiating, but predilection for it.

The research points it's an acquired, not innate, skill.

In the same vein, people who have never studied French are generally less inclined to join a conversation in French.

Well, I was simply taking the person I was responding to at their word. I'm not aware of evidence on either side of the issue of whether women negotiate more or less, I was just granting them their supposition, because I think its irrelevant.

Most of the research around the topic quotes a study on negotiated prices at car dealerships, where women ended up with higher prices offered at the start of the negotiation and ended up with higher prices by the time the process ended.

Which is a very specific use case of a specific environment with mainly unknown opponents (as opposed to work relationships, where you typically know the boss), tight deadlines (need a car immediately) and little wiggle room (shopping around car dealerships is time-consuming, sending resumes to competitors to test the waters is less so).

You can't pick on education and then talk about negotiation; educators often are represented by unions, which means that you're talking about a completely different ball game.

Whoa, people value things higher than or equal to what they pay for them(unless there is coercion as in the case of paying health insurance premiums in the US). In other words, price must be lower than or equal to value.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com