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Comment by phendrenad2 | Hacker News Reader

This is because in our society, it's more acceptable for men to drop out and get into some skilled trade, like plumbing or climbing telephone poles. People just won't accept that women can also do that. So there's a lot of pressure to make sure your female children go to college and get a degree.

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> like plumbing or climbing telephone poles. People just won't accept that women can also do that.

You sure about that? Or is it that the majority of women don't see themselves unclogging toilets for a living? I have never seen it, but I would suspect list of female applications to plumbing or electrician school is very very short.

I do not necessarily agree with the original post’s statement but this response seems confused to me.

Few female applicants to trade schools is consistent with the original statement. If it is societally unacceptable for a woman to be a plumber then I would expect women to act as any rational agent and factor this in when planning their future career.

"societal unacceptability" is only one factor. personal choice is another. there's no reason to assume that gender disparities in a given field or trade are solely the result of the existence of the former.

I’m in agreement here.

It's socially unacceptable for a lot of men to be in trades as well, especially if you factor in family background. Let me know what school promotes trades as a good alternative to traditional education? It's almost always looked at as the options for "stupid" people. I don't think your anecdote holds up at all. It seems fare more likely that women in general just do not want physical labor jobs.

I don’t know what anecdote you are referring to, I did not mention one. I did not even make a statement of agreement or disagreement with the original comment. I just pointed out that I did not see a logical inconsistency.

As for your claim that higher class males avoid trades: yes of course. That is actually a great example of what I mean. People factor in social norms in their decision making, be it male or female.

You’re just infantilizing women by blaming every outcome on “society”. I fully believe women are capable of making their own decisions and there’s no “cabal of men” holding them back from unclogging toilets.

I would argue that I’m neither infantilizing women nor blaming every outcome on society. I never mentioned a cabal of men. It seems you are reading in many themes that are not present in my comment.

I believe that norms shape behaviour, that is the extent of my claim.

You are sort of skimming over actual need for actual physical strength in those field. But yes, these are assumed to be boys occupation - including when presented to children.

But like, given they require physical strength, it is hard to make a big deal about it.

I see. And there's no non-college educated professions where women are prevalent? It's plumbing or bust?

Of course clearly when women were under-represented in college, that was due to misogyny. And now that they are over-represented, it's also due to misogyny. No matter what the facts are, the conclusion is the same.

There's a word for that.

Systemic misogyny?

Do you think that when women were under-represented it was because they were plumbers or climbing telephone poles? Because that's the only way your suggestion makes sense.

They weren't working at all.

That is not actually true. The all women are stay at home thing was never true. Society always had women who worked, because they are unmarried, husband is alcoholic, husband died, husband does not earn all that much.

I am having trouble coming up with a single high paying, no degree required job that is majority female. Please let me know if I am missing some.

It does not need to be majority female - I'd say 30% female is more than enough to consider a job being accepting of women. But okay:

"The average Plumber salary in the United States is $58,659" - https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/plumber-sal...

"The national average salary for Human Resources is $65,314 per year in United States." - https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/human-resources-salary-SR...

"Forbes cited HR Manager as a “best paying job for women” in 2011, with over 70 percent of the profession dominated by females." - https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/07/11/why-human-res...

"At the administrative level, 30 percent of human resources assistants had an associate degree as of 2013, 26 percent had a high school diploma and 21 percent had at least one year of college experience" - https://work.chron.com/education-requirements-human-resource...

Does the average HR manager not have a college degree?

Pornstar :)

Really just a specialist type of plumber

OnlyFans, models, successful real estate agents, certain categories of social influencers

Good luck getting anyone on hn to consider that just maybe colleges being often openly hoatile towards men might drive them elsewhere

People have to keep in mind that the trades have generally been pretty sexist and not all that professionally run. I would not want my daughters to go into most trades because of this.

It's a lot easier for men to find a decent paying job that doesn't require a college degree and where you won't get regularly harassed.

Do you have any evidence for this implausible sounding claim that you're passing off as fact?

It’s actually the safety / creepiness risk of having to work in people’s homes.

>People just won't accept that women can also do that.

Most women just don't want to do that. I don't think it has much to do with acceptance. Women that want to become plumbers are few an far between.

I suspect it also has something to do with the vast majority of women having weaker wrists/forearms than men.

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