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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

Words fail me reading comments like this.

To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do.

Nobody is forcing women to go into STEM. We are encouraging them because unfortunately they have to deal with toxic attitudes all the time and simply don't stick around.

And seriously to act like western society is forcing transgenderism is utterly ridiculous and ridicules the stressful and tough choices these people have to make.

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We should support any woman that wants to work in STEM. We should NOT encourage anybody to work in STEM. Women are more likely to want to work with people, not sit in a chair looking at a screen, droning for the corporation 8 hours per day.

The "toxic environment" is just what the field is. Dehumanizing by definition. It's got nothing to do with patriarchy or whatever else trending buzzword corporations push promoting more people take a career path working for them.

> To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages

We need more women on construction sites, mines, fighting on the front line, fighting men in MMA, etc. If you say no you are soooo dark ages. /s

Which part is meant to be sarcasm? If all of it then can you rephrase it without?

I am confidant that just the last line is sarcastic. The rest of the comment is serious.

People should be free to do what interests them, and should be encouraged to follow careers that benefit society and themselves.

Maybe we need _fewer_ people - men and women - giving each other head injuries in combat sports. Fewer people fighting in senseless wars.

Maybe we need safer worksites, so that people - men and women - can work in construction or mining if it appeals to them.

> Maybe we need safer worksites, so that people - men and women - can work in construction or mining if it appeals to them.

Are you implying that construction site work is almost exclusively a male domain because it is relatively unsafe work?

I'm not saying that I'd disagree with that statement, not at all.

I know it comes across as very sexist, but let me try to explain my own problem a bit further.

You could say I have a split view on things. I grew up in the western world with all of it's values. I greatly appreciate individuals being equal, etc. I myself am a father very involved with my kids, I take parental leave, and my wife has a career.

I work in the tech field with the majority of men, but still a lot of great women. Some women I worked with preferred to be in an all male team (this is Europe, not US).

So yes, I greatly value women having the same chances, being able to do anything they want, etc.

But then there is this other side, where I see that our culture is dying. We have certain values, but are not producing enough kids. And now we import people that seem to have an "attitude that belongs in the dark ages", as you called it. But why do we import them? Because they have enough kids.

So maybe I expressed myself wrong, and the real question is: How can our western values survive, when we don't have enough kids to pass these values to?

May I ask what country you live in? And does your country have laws for sufficient maternity/paternity leave?

Belgium. Mother gets 3 months, father 10 days by default.

Then we have parental leave, which is 4 months for each (can be taken fulltime, or part-time for 8 months, or 4/5th for 20 months). Then we have yet another 4 years each if you really want to take those.

I have 3 kids, and took more of my parental leave than their mom. I also enjoy taking care of my kids. So in practice I don't really live the traditional role ;).

> To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do.

The OP says nothing of the kind. It's quite scary that so many people try to shut down any proper discussion about gender roles these days, with comments like this.

Thank you. I was impressed of going backwards to the 60's reading nonsense like this. OP has unpopular opinion and knows it, but apparently still does not understand why it is sexist and degrading.

I most certainly know why it's sexist and degrading.

But the question still remains: The sexists and degrading cultures seem to produce a lot of kids. While the modern cultures do not produce enough kids. So which values will be passed on?

So what do we do? Is it intrinsic to these equality values, or can we keep these values and have another cultural change to make sure we produce enough kids to pass our values onto?

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