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Comment by danharaj | Hacker News Reader

The fact that women shoulder the primary economic burden of raising children is structural sexism. Sexism is not merely about personal conduct but also how we structure society. For millenia across many cultures women have had their participation in broader society curtailed to the sphere of reproductive and domestic labor. That is injustice. As Morenz notes, we don't have to accept that. We can structure our work so that women are not disadvantaged for having kids and men aren't penalized for taking a greater role in raising them.

This seems like violent agreement. I think Scott was trying to dismiss the people who criticize them by inviting Morenz to make a guest post. Perhaps his dismissiveness is the reason why this is so acrimonious.

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> The fact that women shoulder the primary economic burden of raising children is structural sexism.

You seem to be making a fairly subtle point here that I think others might be missing. Which is not that women choosing to take on the burden of childcare represents sexism (which is an argument some people make), but rather that the fact that their making this choice impinges upon their personal economic future is sexist. That is maybe a more interesting point than the former, but I don't think it really holds up to scrutiny. Choosing to take on the burden of childcare is choosing to spend less time working. In any other context, if a person chooses to work less, that negatively impacts their earning, and we consider that perfectly reasonable and fair. If I choose to play video games for 8 hours a day and work part time, basically everyone accepts it's reasonable that I make less money.

Now, if women are being pressured or forced into accepting this childcare responsibility at their own economic expense, then yes. That is 100% structural sexism. Also, if society would have treated men making this choice differently than women, then that too would represent structural sexism. But there are men making this choice, and their careers are generally just as negatively impacted as the women who make it.

to compare it to playing video games all day is (unwittingly?) falling prey to the very systemic sexism you're trying to fathom--that "women's work" such as childcare is not "work"--that it's economically unproductive and should be "free".

No, that was not the point of my analogy. Whether it is work or not is irrelevant. When I clean my home, that is work, but nobody pays me to do it. I do the work because I receive the benefit of that work. People care for their children for the same reason. And many (most?) couples consider the income of the breadwinner to be shared between the two of them for precisely this reason: Because the couple values the childcare that the childcare-r provides.

I'm not arguing that childcare isn't valuable. I am arguing that it isn't valuable to any employer of the person doing the childcare, and as such, they shouldn't pay for it.

yes, the employer is beside the point. the implicit assumption that women's work is not valuable is still (structural) sexism. that was the point.

edit: e.g.,

> "Choosing to take on the burden of childcare is choosing to spend less time working."

No, the employer is not beside the point. The employer pays your salary. If you do less work, you get less salary. That isn't saying their work isn't valuable, it is saying it isn't valuable to the employer. The person who values work pays for it. In this case, it is the woman herself who values the work. She is literally choosing to pay herself, in the form of a well cared for child. In the same way that when I clean my home, I am choosing to compensate myself for the effort required to do so by having a clean home.

You could have compared it to caring about elderly dad, doing volunteer work or anything else boring, unpaid but useful. Instead, you compared it to playing games which rubs people wrong.

Who cares what the evocation is? Are we not adults capable of following chains of reasoning without descending into literary analogy and euphemism? We're not analyzing Shakespeare here.

Where do you see euphemism?

and that's the systemic sexism--the systemic choices about what should, and what doesn't need, to be paid for.

why don't we instead have a society where all childcare is paid labor and we just "pay ourselves" for other self-benefitting labor (growing food, for example)?

(collective) assumptions like these are the systemic sexism. note that this is different from calling a specific person a sexist.

> and that's the systemic sexism--the systemic choices about what should, and what doesn't need, to be paid for.

Who is it you think ought to be paying for childcare? It's clear who pays for wage labor. The employer pays for it, because they value it.

> why don't we instead have a society where all childcare is paid labor and we just "pay ourselves" for other self-benefitting labor (growing food, for example)?

The answer to this question is "the entire history of economics and every lesson ever learned about how to structure effective civilizations for the entire history of humanity". I'm not really sure how else to respond to that.

> that "women's work" such as childcare is not "work"--that it's economically unproductive and should be "free".

Obviously contractual childcare is work.

Seems to me more similar to voluneer open-source development. It may be productive and useful for others, but that does not entitle anyone for compensation.

> But there are men making this choice, and their careers are generally just as negatively impacted as the women who make it.

I don't think this claim holds up to scrutiny. Yes, there are men out there whose careers are negatively impacted by starting a family, but by and large the expectation is a man continues working while a woman drops everything. That's part of the reason why family leave for men is less common.

Which boils down to structural sexism being an issue for both men and women. Men are not allowed to spend time with their family and women are expected to drop everything to take care of the children. In a more equally balanced situation, men would have the opportunity to be the full caregivers while women could continue their career in their field of choice. But right now a lot of options for families depend on your gender.

> I don't think this claim holds up to scrutiny. Yes, there are men out there whose careers are negatively impacted by starting a family, but by and large the expectation is a man continues working while a woman drops everything. That's part of the reason why family leave for men is less common.

That isn't what I said though. Obviously men who start a family but don't do the childcare won't be negatively impacted. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the ones who do curtail their careers to do the childcare. This is a less common arrangement to be sure, but I know more than one heterosexual couple who has done this (usually because the woman has a better paying career).

You said that they were equally negatively impacted though and I brought up an example of where that is clearly not the case. Which is parental leave, done in a way as to discourage men from taking time off to take care of a newborn while also pressuring women to be the primary caregivers.

That's my entire point. They're not equally impacted because there are larger societal pressures designed to punish women who want to continue their career and men who want to spend time with their children.

> You said that they were equally negatively impacted though and I brought up an example of where that is clearly not the case. Which is parental leave, done in a way as to discourage men from taking time off to take care of a newborn while also pressuring women to be the primary caregivers.

Read what I said more carefully. I didn't say all men are equally negatively impacted. I said the men who choose to take on the burden of childcare are equally negatively impacted.

> Read what I said more carefully. I didn't say all men are equally negatively impacted. I said the men who choose to take on the burden of childcare are equally negatively impacted.

And I think you need to reread my argument, which is specifically talking about those men who do take on the burden of childcare against the societal pressure to do otherwise. I think it would do you well to reread my argument from the top because it's starting to seem like you're arguing against something entirely different than what I'm saying.

Yes, you are making a separate line of argument that is completely unrelated to the piece of my argument you quoted. I am not responding to that because I agree with it - social pressure that pushes women into childcare is sexism. The impact of choosing childcare over career on economic is not sexism.

Have you considered that the primary enforcer of this curtailment is not adults but infants? I mean, I took long paternity leave, I am with my daughter at night, and am with her whenever I am home. She still wants to nurse on her mothers breast when she's sick or in pain. This makes sense as not only is it comforting to her (and a childs emotional need is very real) but it is also physiologically beneficial (nursing reduces stress hormones and helps her heal from disease faster). She enforces this dichotomy of roles by screaming if i try to comfort her and shes already decided what she wants by screaming mama. She'll take comfort from me only if shes decided that its something that doesnt require something no man can give. And her cry is meant to change both of our emotional states to fulfill her every desire.

Is this injustice? Perhaps you could characterize it this way, but since the perpetrator is beyond reason and lacks expression, I'm not sure how youre going to fix this.

This is an obvious truth to anyone with children. Women have to carry, birth, and recover from having a baby plus raise/feed them in the first 1-2 years. There are so many biological factors here that objectively make women better primary caretakers for children, putting careers on hold because raising a child is harder than most careers, that anyone arguing it's sexism is flat out ignorant of the reality of raising a child. I hate that progressives/feminists try to paint child rearing as an inferior choice to a "proper" career when it is something women excel at, and should be embraced and encouraged.

Men and women can both program, sure, but only women can make people. Society simply reflects this.

Structural sexism is not perpetuated by infants. I mean come on. Children wanting to nurse is not the big issue; children grow up, and do not need nursing when they become toddlers. So why are women still expected to be caretakers of toddlers, middle-schoolers, and tweens? Surely, there isn’t a physiological reason. There is clearly something larger going on.

In reality, men and women’s roles are arbitrary, and the sexist structures present today are not the result of children asking for it. You are overestimating the intrinsic qualities of human social and family interactions, which are not as set in stone as you claim. Even the concept of the nuclear family - with one possible nurse and mother figure - isn’t a universal construct of human societies.

While its not a universal construct - it is challenging to look at the history of many cultures who arrived at a similar distribution of labor and the behavior of other mammals and not wonder if men and women aren't inherently different in some generalized way that isn't readily alterable.

For those of us on the other side of the debate, there is always this vague sense of some people are underestimating the impact of these intrinsic differences.

Lots of things were/are found in many unrelated human societies, such as slavery, which was found all over the world for thousands of years and still exists in many places/forms today. Something being common isn’t an indication of whether or not it is intrinsic or “the only way”. We only make progress by challenging social structures and trying to improve them. Perhaps these kinds of commonalities exist all over because they are effective at controlling/enforcing oppression and power.

My point isn’t that men and women aren’t at all different, it’s that institutions use the “it’s human nature and it can’t be changed” argument to hide oppressive/coercive practices that are avoidable and able to be removed.

> For those of us on the other side of the debate, there is always this vague sense of some people are underestimating the impact of these intrinsic differences.

Nailed it.

I suspect that this distribution of labor is not due to intrinsic differences, but came with the invention of agriculture, and what we are dealing with now is just that we are used to these structures. Hunter gatherers did something else, and now that we are not all subsistence farmers we can do something else again.

> So why are women still expected to be caretakers of toddlers, middle-schoolers, and tweens? Surely, there isn’t a physiological reason.

Enhanced emotional bonding due to emissions of oxytocin during breasfeeding? Make men sit with children several times a day while getting oxytocin shots and perhaps they would have much stronger bonds with their children.

From Wikipedia: Maternal behavior: Female rats given oxytocin antagonists after giving birth do not exhibit typical maternal behavior. By contrast, virgin female sheep show maternal behavior toward foreign lambs upon cerebrospinal fluid infusion of oxytocin, which they would not do otherwise.

Of course not. But the average woman wants three kids. WHO says babies should breastfeed for two years. My daughter has nursed for 13 months. A mother taking off three chunks of 13 month leaves while married to a man probably earning as much or more than she does (since women disproportionately marry similar or higher earning men) is going to -- at some point -- realize that it's easier to stay at home. That is exactly what my wife did.

> Even the concept of the nuclear family - with one possible nurse and mother figure - isn’t a universal construct of human societies.

Yes it is. The only people who claim this are people who've never lived in an extendend family situation. You still know who your mom and dad are. They are still the primary care givers, and babies still have a primary attachment to their moms when born that self-reinforces itself unless there is some major disruption.

How many people do you think are involved in raising the average child? Two? I had a veritable village of people raising me. I can assure you that only one of them nursed me. For some reason, though, most of them were women.

It was even more obvious before the establishment of the nuclear family that a whole bunch of people should work together to raise children because not only does it improve the outcome, it's more efficient.

I'd like to get your perspective in 18 years.

I mean I was raised by my grandmother and grandfather while my parents worked. Did you think I didn't need to emphasize the importance of extended family? My father and mother also take care of my daughter, as do my wife's. However, she still wants her mom at night, no matter who is around. This makes it harder for my wife to work. It is unfair to even ask her to, given her work when dealing with the baby at night.

I suppose we could bottle feed. But my wife doesn't want to, and it is linked to worse outcomes for kids so asking moms to do this for the sake of their career is like asking them to cut their nose to spite their face.

> It was even more obvious before the establishment of the nuclear family that a whole bunch of people should work together to raise children because not only does it improve the outcome, it's more efficient.

Of course, but there's only one mom still. My parents were raised in a ' non-nuclear family' where aunts and uncles lived next door. Hell, I was raised by my mom's family and my parents often living together. Do you think the mom wasn't preferred out of all these people? You have to be joking. The only people who ascribe 'the nuclear family' as a bogeyman are people who idolize extended families. Believe it or not, even in an extended family situation, with grandma, grandpa, aunts and uncles... babies still prefer their mothers.

This assumes that men and women en masse want equal roles in raising children. I'm not convinced that this is the case.

Sure, many more women may choose to take the more active role, but it’s important to consider that these conscious choices are affected by implicit social pressures and expectations that are placed on men and women from childhood onwards, such as men being expected to be breadwinners and women being expected to be caregivers. These are pretty arbitrary social constructs that are not universal or intrinsic to nature or even human societies. So it follows that what men and women would say they desire is not the full picture, since they may be unaware of the implicit forces acting on them.

It's true that these social pressures exist, and they are certainly sexist. But I think it's important to distinguish that the pressure is what's sexist, not the impact of the choice.

Then let’s make an effort to expose and reform these sexist structures! That is the goal of people trying to reform the mindset of STEM institutions. These structures are not fixed, and so can be changed.

I'd love to spend more time with my kids and my wife would prefer to spend more time at work. I make 3 times her salary, though, so it's not really economically feasible for us to switch roles. She could afford to not work or work part time for 2 years. We couldn't afford it if I did it.

Although I love my kids I would go clinically insane if I had to do the stay-at-home raising of them full time. My wife OTOH loves it and would rather do nothing else. I know that this is swapped for many couples, but I still argue that reality is more skewed this way than the other. Maybe that will change over time.

People downvote but I assure you many dads agree.

IMO dads don't achieve the same level of bonding as women do to their babies and therefore we are able to tolerate less of the crap babies get into during the day.

Its not sexism, its just biology.

If I had a project I worked on for 9 months I would have more desire to continue working on it into the future. My investor is an interested party, but ultimately its entirely my drive which moves the project forward

What does? I made a few claims.

I was responding to the main premise of your comment, that "the fact that women shoulder the primary economic burden of raising children is structural sexism." This implies discrimination due to external forces that make men and women behave differently.

What do you mean by external forces? These are all interactions between human beings. We behave that we do in large part based on our interactions with others. Would you say that it is "external forces" that cause us two to communicate in English?

What is the alternative position you're suggesting?

"Structural sexism" implies nonintrinsic forces causing discrimination, hence why I called it an external force, as it's a force not generated internally.

I think the effects of evolutionary biology need to be considered when looking at behavioral differences. Evolutionarily speaking, women invest much more energy into growing, giving birth to, and caring for children than men. This leads to innate differences in behavior separate from social forces you are describing.

Then how come some women don't want children and even dislike children?

The reason why women are more involved in childcare after giving birth/nursery years is purely societal factors. It's expected of them to behave in that way in more conservative places and it's strongly implied in other places.

Biology isn't sexist. Men can't get pregnant so therefore only women can deal with pregnancy. Men can't breastfeed or pump, either.

People want reality to reflect their world view but biology is biology. It's not an indictment on society that only women perform certain biological functions.

The century is young. Who knows what the future might bring?

>Sexism is not merely about personal conduct but also how we structure society.

Great.

But my personal experience is that this notion seems to vanish as soon as we look at things like rates of workplace deaths, life expectancy, hours worked, imprisonment, or numerous other areas. And even if they don't vanish, the level of attention devoted seems to be remarkably different. Would the way we structure society in regards to structuring our attention for social ills also possibly include sexism?

And I guess such notions can be dismissed as being off topic. As they aren't relevant to the actual issue under discussion. But when we start viewing larger more structural things as sexism, then wouldn't even such dismissal potentially qualify as sexism?

This might surprise you but a lot of feminists are also strongly in favor of workers' rights and prison abolition. For example, bell hooks and Angela Davis.

I have never met people more passionately invested in the wellbeing of men than the feminists I read and live with. It is a shame to me that decades of propaganda have buried those voices and raised the voices of those who insist that feminism is a zero sum game.

>prison abolition

As in, no criminals go to prison? I wonder what these feminist feel should be as the punishment for rape.

>I have never met people more passionately invested in the wellbeing of men than the feminists I read and live with.

Many of those who want to ban abortion are very passionate about protecting the women seeking such, as they believe it is far better for those women to be denied such an opportunity (such as saving them from doing something they will regret, at least per the belief of the people supporting anti-choice legislation). Intentions and passion shouldn't be ignored, but neither do they provide a complete picture.

> Sexism is not merely about personal conduct but also how we structure society.

What does raising children have to do with society? Decision of having and raising a child is a fundamentally personal, not societal decision. Each pair should decide how they want to split responsibilities of raising a child before its conception, based on their preferences, and society should not force them to any model.

Also, it seems to me that society already prioritize child-raising too much compared to other non-work activities. If people would leave STEM/some other field due to work-life balance for some other personal goals than child-raising (say part-time working in a non-profit), would anyone care?

> What does raising children have to do with society? Decision of having and raising a child is a fundamentally personal, not societal decision.

Of course it isn't. Every society needs an up and coming younger generation as the older generation stops working. That is absolutely a problem on a societal level.

While i agree it may be a concern of a society to be stable, it does not automatically translate to necessary concern for society as a whole. Many things necessary for a society work even if society does not intervene in them. People would have children for emotional reasons even if society does not intervene.

Also, if a societal stability is a goal, then having more than replacement number of children is as problematic as having less.

>People would have children for emotional reasons even if society does not intervene.

What if that isn't true though?

Fertility is universally falling in rich countries.

Could you give me a number of births-per-woman that would motivate your concern? I think 1 birth per woman is a reasonable number for national concern. South Korea is already at 1.0.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/fertil...

Without a future generation long term concerns evaporate from concern. Maybe this has already happened in some peoples minds with regard to national debt, and the long-term sustainability of social security.

It is true that developed countries have often get to this point where it may be reasonable for society so support child-rearing for stability reasons. But they often still have much more people than say hundred years ago.

But note that this situation is relatively new, while natality was praised even during times where population was expanding. My point in this thread is that natality is not intristically good (or bad) value and it is for country to decide on which level want to motivate individuals to change their behavior, but having a child is still fundamentally individual decision.

I think framing child-rearing as an individual choice is a dangerous framing.

That's what I was getting at with the comparison to the movie Bird Box.

It's important to think of ourselves as biological systems first and thinkers-as-choosers second.

I suspect that an increase in the virtualization of our lives will lead to an equal increase in the will-full termination of our lives. Suicide. As our lives become less biological we will end them with greater intensity and frequency.

You may not be convinced, but ask yourself what would that road look like? Would you recognize the indicators? Could you and the people you care about hop off the ride in time? Why did so many Westerners join the ranks of ISIS?

> People would have children for emotional reasons even if society does not intervene.

Yes, but the success of those children is still a societal concern. You want some of those children to be a new generation of doctors, teachers, etc. etc... without supporting them at a young age (i.e. providing education, a welfare safety net) there's no guarantee that would ever happen, and they might end up being more of a drain on society than a productive member.

I agree that it is reasonable for a society to support parents with child-raising to a degree (by say offering free public education and healtcare). But it is a fundamental responsibility of parents, society is here in supporting role.

> What does raising children have to do with society

I'm sorry? Maybe the continuation of society?

>We can structure our work so that women are not disadvantaged for having kids

Can we, though? It seems that there is some amount of time that women are unable to work due to the physical rigors of pregnacy, child-birth, and (in many cases) infant care.

Taking time away from work, no matter what the reason, necessarily affects the trajectory of your career. We can try to minimize that in various ways (as the original article discussed) but it seems impossible to reduce it to zero barring sci-fi tech like artificial wombs.

It might be reasonable to say that we can structure out work so that women are disadvantaged _as little as reasonably possible_ for having kids.

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