Comment by traverseda | Hacker News Reader

Comment by traverseda | Hacker News Reader

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Right. The thing is that there's gender disparity going in the other direction as well, fields that pay well and are well respected but that are dominated by women. Nursing being an obvious example.

Any theory that explains why physics is gendered should also explain why education is also gendered. It's unlikely that those two fields ended up with skewed gender ratios for completely different reasons.

So, why do you think psychology, education, and nursing are all female dominated fields?

If it was simply a pattern of shitty behavior, what I would expect is some fields that women obviously don't have access to, and a more or less even gender ratio in all the other fields.

What I'm seeing instead looks a lot like gender ratios are a gaussian distribution, which I don't think fits your hypothesis that the gender ratios are caused by "a pattern of shitty behavior". That probably is a co-factor, but it doesn't explain the female-dominated fields very well.

Interesting, but I think this flirts a little too close to the fallacy that this goes both ways equally. In your examples of nursing, education, and psychology I would suggest that a man in each of those fields is actually advantaged compared to his female peers, even if he is outnumbered significantly. The same is not true for women in many of the well-paying fields in which they are underrpresented.

So, just from a very high level consideration of what is the most important thing to focus on, I still think shitty behavior is it. There is no better use of time than reading and reflecting on what shitty behavior is and then building up the bravery to call it out daily. That is hard, critical, adult work.

So why do you think the female dominated fields are female dominated?

I'm not trying to do the false equivalence thing here, or saying "what about the men". I'm certainly not saying "well men have it bad too".

What I am saying is that male-dominated fields and female-dominated fields both likely have the same root cause, and any hypothesis that explains one needs to explain the other. Well, plus or minus some co-factors.

So, how do we explain this data? If you're looking for the answer that makes this men's fault, you could pretty easily say that men don't enter those fields because it doesn't live up to their self-image. That definitely avoid the "fallacy that this goes both ways equally" while still having one root cause for all the data.

But that's a pretty lazy answer in my opinion, and doesn't fit with the data I've observed. Can you come up with a few more hypothesis that explain both male and female dominated gender ratios?

I'm just guessing, and I get the sense that you're open to that, so bear with me. I think the fields have sorted out by gender because of intrinsic interests/tendencies, cultural expectations (to your point about self-image), pay (women often can afford to make less while their spouses make more), and finally the systems that naturally come about which enforce those things.

I do think men bear most of the responsibility, and that's largely historical (men controlled the money) and partly because of the sex dynamic.

For my part, I think men, including myself, just have a long way to go to treat women fairly in the workplace. After that, my #2 focus is why "women's work" pays less. Elevating the economic worth of care jobs and such is another great societal discussion that needs a lot of attention.

I'm by no means an expert, so I'll definitely bear with you. But your hypothesis more or less matches mine. I do think you underestimate the amount of sexism men experience in nursing and child-education.

Now my problem is that gender ratio is the key metric we seem to be using to measure sexism in STEM fields, and I don't think any policy is going to fix that. We can try and mitigate cultural expectations, but if those cultural expectations are grounded on intrinsic interests, we're going to have a very hard time getting rid of them.

I think you really need to examine your idea that "men bear most of the responsibility". Men always bear most of the responsibility, and that's one of the oldest stereotypes. Men are generally considered to be more responsible for their own actions then women are. I think it's why they get longer prison sentences for the same crime. If you're not an object, you're a subject.

So why do you think men bear most of the responsibility, aside from historical precedent? Are men best situated to fix these problems?

I will note that a lot of new programmers are indian or asian men, which implies to me that tech is pretty good as far as racial discrimination goes. It certainly seems like a welcoming environment for those visable minorities. Or at least more welcoming then most of the alternatives.

Besides the history and baggage of patriarchy, men bear the responsibility because women still run into double standards of behavior (not allowed to be angry, critical, etc.), inequity of where they can comfortably hang out, and men are more likely to objectify women because of sex interests. Now those are just tendencies and many men do a great job working against them, but they are a massive part of a woman's experience in the workplace and I think men checking other men is the highest priority.

This story is illustrative, I think, and helps me think about women out in the world. My wife went into a bar in DC recently which at that moment was entirely men (imagine 20-30 middle aged male, DC professionals socializing, and they might have been colleagues), so when she ordered a drink, she took it outside. Outside there were two more woman and a tatted up male. What do you think would have happened if she had sat at an empty booth inside? What if she were me, and I'd sat at an empty booth inside? I think she would either been ignored OR one of those men would have seen her presence as an invitation. They would not view my presence as any sort of invitation. Small, fun example, I think, of the work men need to do.

What do you think is wrong with approaching a woman in a bar? After all, it's not a professional space, and she can always leave (as she did) or say "no thank you". Personally, I don't think there's anything men should change in this situation (as long as they're being respectful and non-annoying). If you went to a gay bar, I imagine the effect would be the same (nothing wrong with that either).

Also, thanks (both of you) for an interesting thread!

> my #2 focus is why "women's work" pays less

if you have a smaller set, and an equivalent distribution, smaller width of the bell curve is proportional to its hight.

> I do think men bear most of the responsibility, and [...] partly because of the sex dynamic.

Indeed, but group dynamics within the sexes are a factor, too, so the hypothesis would be incomplete without other closely and tangentially related aspects. Otherwise, if sexual attraction was the strongest drive, you'd have to expect male lab heads preferring female companions. Whereas, ironically, the opposite would have to be called sexual distraction. What do you make of that?

Why would a male be advantaged in those fields?

Male nurses are stronger and sometimes perceived as lower drama. Male teachers bring balance to classrooms; lots of kids respond better to one gender or another, so it helps a school to have some male teachers on staff, and yet they're harder to find.

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