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Comment by howlgram | Hacker News Reader

Yes thank you, people seem to forget that the reason why STEM gets a higher paycheck is because there's less people willing to go for it, both female and male, the paycheck is not a prize you get for being male, it's a prize you get for the sacrifice you make. Look at it this way: no one is complaining about the lack of girls in the blue collar industry.

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> less people willing to go for it

Or capable. I imagine the IQ bar is set quite a bit higher for STEM-like courses and careers... Also, there's much less room for bullshit (at least in programming - your code either works, or it doesn't work, and that's really easy to verify at university and when applying to jobs - as opposed to e.g. marketing, where it's much harder to quantify someone's skill).

Citation needed; I don't buy that men in STEM generally consider it a sacrifice compared to working other jobs. I am lucky to have an entertaining IT job that happens to be extremely well paid. I never wish I was a nurse working my ass off on a night shift, or any other less well paid profession.

>Look at it this way: no one is complaining about the lack of girls in the blue collar industry.

Actually, I remember hearing quite a bit of complaining back when I was in middle and high school. However, it occurred alongside a concerted effort by the Province of Ontario to increase the supply of tradespeople at a time when there was a shortage of 'qualified' (read: certified by provincial licensing bodies) ones in Ontario, which led to exorbitant prices on associated goods and services. So, to be cynical, this could be much more about price correction than anything else.

>no one is complaining about the lack of girls in the blue collar industry.

Gender equality in STEM is more about just getting them in.

It's about social mobility for women. Which is why nobody cares about getting women as miners, plumbers and getting men as social workers.

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