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Comment by uncle_j | Hacker News Reader

There is an obvious distinction between people trying to socially arrange society and our biology. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous.

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Woman give birth, men cannot breastfeed. That are indeed biology. Kids being picked up from school predominately by woman is a social arrangement, the kind we hopefully at least try to change if we consider there to be better options.

But yes, many kinds of social arrangements come up naturally and woman taking care of house and kids seems to be one of them. Another one is "the powerful rule over the weak"... something we nowadays generally think should be kept in check to the benefit of society and thus spend effort doing so. But spending effort to keep pre-defined gender roles in check must be somehow bad?

> Kids being picked up from school predominately by woman is a social arrangement, the kind we hopefully at least try to change if we consider there to be better options.

Define "Better". Why should we be trying to change it? Why should we be meddling with other people's lives? People aren't being harmed here.

> But spending effort to keep pre-defined gender roles in check must be somehow bad?

Both men and women at least in the western world enjoy the same rights and discrimination by gender is not only frowned upon but can be brought before a court. I seems to me that they are already kept in check.

> I seems to me that they are already kept in check.

To a degree, yes. But are you really trying to pretend it's already perfect?

Though you seem to not believe in systemic injustice, so I doubt we will be able to find a shared consensus.

Custody is a more widely known example were us men fight an uphill battle. Obviously not everyone is unsatisfied with societies default roles, but I'd certainly consider this a harm, if I ever end up in such a situation.

Again, it could be worse. And I'm not trying to meddle in your life. If you and your SO want to live by traditional roles, that's great. But I don't want those thrust on (and thus being meddled with) my life. And I don't want to live in a society that doesn't even try to improve anymore.

> To a degree, yes. But are you really trying to pretend it's already perfect?

Perfect is the enemy of Good.

> Again, it could be worse. And I'm not trying to meddle in your life. If you and your SO want to live by traditional roles, that's great. But I don't want those thrust on (and thus being meddled with) my life. And I don't want to live in a society that doesn't even try to improve anymore.

Everyone is trying to pin an opinion to me here because I am just questioning the underlying assumptions. I don't really have one other than "You can't have it all" unless you are extremely wealthy or extremely gifted.

> But I don't want those thrust on (and thus being meddled with) my life. And I don't want to live in a society that doesn't even try to improve anymore.

Neither do I. However there will never be a utopia. I find it actually pretty immature to think that you can make everything perfect, there are trade offs to everything.

>> People aren't being harmed here.

Well, the author is saying that she is considering giving up her career in reearch which she very much wants to pursue to have children because she can't find a way to reconcile the two.

That is clearly harmful and if it is affecting women at a large scale as the author suggests then it is definitely something that should be corrected.

> Well, the author is saying that she is considering giving up her career in reearch which she very much wants to pursue to have children because she can't find a way to reconcile the two.

I disagree. Unfortunately you have to make decisions in life on what you want to prioritise. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Also I don't consider having to make a choice harmful. Being harmed mean things like being assaulted, having your house robbed, being abused by your spouse. What it does not mean is coming to realisation that you may have to make a choice between family and career.

You know what does allow you to have both, wealth.

> You can't have your cake and eat it.

Unless you're a man.

Not at all. I should have expected such a reply though tbh.

Many men work long hours and miss out on their family time. Also men typically work more dangerous jobs and are more likely to die on the job. They are also more less likely to win custody in separation. Men are more likely to commit suicide. Nobody has it easy and your sort of glib remark that ignores all the issues men currently face isn't helpful.

Gender norms are partly genetic. Historically women were either breastfeeding or late-stage pregnant their entire adult lives and so to survive they needed men to work, so that is what our gender norms reflect. For example, men who doesn't take care of their women are still seen as scum. Not because there is any need for that any longer, but because our genes tells us that such men are trash and should be shunned. So you wont find any society which doesn't pressure men to become a provider and take care of women.

Some norms are generic indeed like breastfeeding, some are not like "being seen as scum". Do not undervalue the power of cultural norms, they shape us social apes as importantly as genes. Indeed, it's been said (by paleontologists and ethnologists alike) that for humans (a social ape with complex language) cultural evolution have been more influencial than generic evolution. So bad we learn so much about genetics at school and comparatively so little about sociology and/or primatology.

You're suggesting we should arrange society a specific way because of some connection to "biology". I am saying that the arrangements you seem to be for are no more rooted in biology than the arrangements you seem to be against.

> You're suggesting we should arrange society a specific way because of some connection to "biology".

Nope. I didn't say that.

> There is about 4 billion years of evolution and the thinking that it can be socially engineered away is a folly.

I didn't make any statement on how to arrange society. I simply stated that I believe they would all eventually fail.

You called the expectation of men to be breadwinners a natural consequence of sexual dimorphism, and said it was folly to "engineer" it away. That is a statement about how you think society should be arranged and why.

Also, if you believe _all_ arrangements of society will eventually fall, then wouldn't that make any arrangement acceptable to you? Including the one you were dismissing?

> You called the expectation of men to be breadwinners a natural consequence of sexual dimorphism, and said it was folly to "engineer" it away. That is a statement about how you think society should be arranged and why.

No it isn't. It is a statement of what I believe to be the truth. All the evidence and arguments around the topic I have seen and heard seem to lead in that direction. If you disagree with that conclusion that is fine.

However it doesn't mean that I believe that things should arranged in such a manner.

> Also, if you believe _all_ arrangements of society will eventually fall, then wouldn't that make any arrangement acceptable to you? Including the one you were dismissing?

I don't know. I wasn't saying anything about that. I was simply disagree that it is sexism. I don't buy into this the notion of "unconscious sexism".

Maybe we are talking past each other because we have different definitions here. How do you define sexism (in this context, for you)?

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