Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com