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Comment by microarchitect | Hacker News Reader

If you view my assertion as "disparagement," you've inferred malice where there was none. There's nothing disparaging about what I said. Yes, the assertion points out differences between sexes, so it is "sexist." So is pointing out that women tend to breast feed more than men.

There's a difference between these three statements:

1. Women and men are different - obviously true and too vague to be meaningful.

2. Women have breasts while men do not - obviously true and mostly (and hopefully) irrelevant to this discussion.

3. Women work fewer hours than men - A specific claim about women that may be used by some to justify their prejudices against women. I don't doubt that you made the claim without malice, but unfortunately these are the kinds of remarks that reinforce sexist stereotypes. For this reason, I wish people wouldn't make such claims unless there is watertight evidence backing these claims.

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This is madness. Breasts and uteri are relevant to this discussion. They set a lower bound on how much time a woman can take off when a couple has children. The lower bound for men is zero. My claim is that all other things being equal, this higher lower bound makes it likely that women take more time off of work. This is not guaranteed, but it's a fairly reasonable, uncontroversial conclusion. There's nothing wrong with clearly labeled conjecture, and I welcome hard evidence either way.

"Women work fewer hours than men - A specific claim about women that may be used by some to justify their prejudices against women."

From my original comment: "Fortunately, there are far better indicators than gender of how prone an individual is to take extended leave." Choosing a man over a woman based on gender alone isn't just bad for society; it's poor reasoning.

I'm stunned by the sexism in your response.

The lower bound for men is zero.

Maybe it is zero for men who expect their wives to do all the parenting. It's certainly not zero for everyone else.

Let's compromise. So, if he (I'll assume it's "he") concedes there are a lot of shitty fathers out there, can the fact 0 is a valid value in the range (and thus forming the lower bound) just be considered a fact and not a sexist remark? And since some time off is required at the very least to give birth (something a male couldn't do), the lower bound for women would be greater than 0?

Objectively, his bounds make sense. You may not like what that data means, but that in and of itself doesn't make him sexist.

The lower bound for women is essentially zero, especially when considered in the context of an entire career (i believe a women could conceivably only be away from work for six weeks). Do you really think six weeks accounts for the difference in pay, prestige, etc between men and women's careers?

Women do often end up taking much more time off, but it is absolutely not clear that has anything to do with "breasts and uteri". I would argue it's cultural.

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