Women from privileged backgrounds pursue prestigious professions over lucrative
phys.org
phys.org
I am wondering how marriage/relationship plays a role into career choices. I believe that people from privileged accounts are more likely to be in a stable relationship, which could (at least in part) explain why one partner can pursue a low-paying high-prestige profession while the other pursues a high-paying one.
It's a lot easier to make a decent living out of it if you already own a house and your parents can act as a safety net in case unforseen huge expenses fall from the sky (e.g. if your parents total their car: you won't need to cover for them)
One of the greatest luxuries of resources is the ability to do whatever you want.
The American attitude since the late 80s seems to be summarized in the old quip: why be a physicist when you can be his boss?
Or is your objection from ideology, and untouchable?
Even if e.g. the idea "that women in less developed nations are more likely to choose STEM fields" were absolutely true, what could you do about it? Make life more miserable to force women to take up STEM?
…who respects teachers or creative profession careers? Genuinely asking. Teachers are ragged on all the time (“those who can’t do, teach”) and creative professions are often mocked as well in my high paying circles.
If your social circles go around mocking teachers, you should probably find a better social circle.
Except when you show up at their house in anything cheaper than 100k USD car and wearing anything cheaper than 200 USD shirt. You will get judged implicitly, how wealthy you are all the time. And if you fail to pass that mark, you are automatically off the upper class list.
What's more honorable than a teacher? The janitor that cleans our public restrooms to enable us all including the teacher! That's right, stooping to the point where you clean other people's shit is the most honorable thing someone can do when the alternative was becoming a start up billionaire. Hats off to the janitors of the world.
That's why instead of having other billionaire friends as my peers normally would, all my friends are janitorial engineers!
What a realistic depiction of reality I just made! I'm not lying to myself or making stuff up. I respect janitors and teachers!
In my experience when you come home for Christmas and everyone's asking questions to the struggling-but-"creative" folks, it's not because truly in your heart either you or they believe they've done something more true, "right," or "better," but that you understand that inquiry is a small flattery that only minimally compensates for the hardship they've chosen, likely from lack of foresight earlier in life. These types love the attention as it makes what they do seem more important, but everyone involved seems to know that it's just a form of compensation.
When you've already beaten the struggle, or sidestepped it smartly, and succeeded, too much of a focus on your career is implicitly understood to not be polite conversation since people naturally compare. People who are smart are smart enough to get this, too, and so are typically happy enough to not talk about themselves.
All this is of course excepting genuine care, concern, and curiosity, but I think it does explain somewhat the balance of conversations overall.
Maybe it was a clear-eyed, fully informed choice that they are glad they made. Life is full of trade-offs. I am less impressed by people who avoid hardship and difficult trade-offs.
This is also the vision of ourselves we love to see in stories and movies, since it associates low income with passion and success with unhappiness, even though you can have both (or neither).
"I think ...' is not a supporting argument for 'I think ...'. It's probably a bit circular.
I think moonbeams on Neptune are made of silver, but why should anyone else think so?
If you mean the moonbeams, it was meant to lighten things up a bit. Sorry that didn't come through.
> Money doesn't make you happy, it's true. But there's a reason it's always presented as a dichotomy. It placates the masses.
I'm a bit lost on how that applies to artists who choose the tradeoff between making their art and wealth.
There are of course exceptions for people who are true artists, who could not live if their soul was not developed through creative work. But again, they are the minority. The "prestige" we allot to very average jobs is superficial, a social formality we perform as polite society because we perceive it as needless to have people constantly reminded that they did not achieve as much as they could have.
I don't see them much, nor does my comment match this story, nor did I post it because of some popularity.
> they are (on average) less fulfilling than simply having any somewhat high-paying job that offers security for oneself and one's family.
That's a misleading comparison: If you hold all other variables stable, of course a higher-paying job is better. But all other variables aren't stable; we need to make trade-offs. Your argument so far is that somehow the choice you would make must be the choice that would make most people happier.
Also, you've provided no basis for saying that most would prefer or do better one way or another.
> a social formality we perform as polite society because we perceive it as needless to have people constantly reminded that they did not achieve as much as they could have.
They did achieve, but different things on a different scale. It's like a basketball player saying that a hockey player, not having a good jump shot, didn't achieve as much as they could have. They are playing different games.
People in 'polite society' - i.e., people who made choices like yours - tend to have the narrow-minded belief that theirs is ipso facto the preferred way. It's especially a bias of people following a social norm - nothing challenges their belief, the norm supports it. I can't read your mind, but that seems to be the basis of your argument.
Speaking as someone outside a significant social norm, it's as if one day I made a 90 deg right turn off the highway and hit the accelerator. I am going far and fast; people still on the highway say, 'they're not getting anywhere'. It's annoying and a bit isolating; it's a trade-off but that's the choice I preferred, and there's not a moment's doubt in my mind about my direction. In fact, I think many of them would benefit from joining me (or taking their own roads), but 99% can't imagine a world outside their social norms, they can't see there's anything on the landscape but that one narrow highway. What a fool I would be, what a waste it would be, to let their reactions dictate my life.
Everyone at least has one lie they tell themselves so you can sort of relate. Everyone and I mean everyone is aware of the social formality you're talking about. There's literally no need to spell it out because you're just regurgitating truths that are obvious and self evident. The only time you would need to spell it out is when you encounter a poor soul who lies to himself. That's why my post was sarcastic because it's so obviously not true. Rich people do not actually respect poor people... it's absurd. Anyway as for lying to one self... This is exactly what wolverine is doing.
There's no winning here. That person will continuously construct a scaffold of rational points to support his beliefs because not doing so results in some sort of admission he can't directly face. But even so... an aspect of him knows you're telling the actual truth.
What supports your claims? Why are you so certain that there's nothing beyond them, nothing more to the world that you could learn?
> Rich people do not actually respect poor people... it's absurd.
Certainly not all do, and certainly not all don't. I'll point out that equality is a popular, fundamental notion across cultures. "all men are created equal" Liberté, égalité, fraternité. It's the foundation of democracy, where poor and rich have the same vote.
What else can I say? The points being talked about here are so obvious that it seems ludicrous to me that people don't believe it. From my perspective it's like someone was explaining to you that 2 + 2 = 4 and I'm more inclined to believe that you're just being delusional and lying to yourself.
But that's the nature of bias isn't it? Maybe I'm the delusional one. But there's no real way we'll convince one another otherwise.
>Certainly not all do, and certainly not all don't.
Most don't. It's just a general truth. Just like most men don't wear dresses, or most men are stronger than women, or most humans have 10 fingers. There ARE exceptions, but that does not eliminate the existence of a very general and very obvious truth.
And let me clarify what I mean by respect. I don't just mean lip service, or donations or creating non-profit charities because it's the current trending thing to do. I mean actual respect. Like genuine respect where you look up to them, hang out with them as peers and even genuine trust. Rich people do NOT actually respect poor people.
>I'll point out that equality is a popular, fundamental notion across cultures. "all men are created equal" Liberté, égalité, fraternité. It's the foundation of democracy, where poor and rich have the same vote.
All men are NOT created equal. Think about it. This isn't even remotely true or real. It is also why not all people are equal under democracy.
Have you ever wondered why we want everything politically to be fair under democracy while economically we want everything to be unfair under capitalism? It's so ironic we associate communism with dictatorship and capitalism with democracy.
> What else can I say? The points being talked about here are so obvious that it seems ludicrous to me that people don't believe it. From my perspective it's like someone was explaining to you that 2 + 2 = 4 and I'm more inclined to believe that you're just being delusional and lying to yourself.
What you can do is provide evidence and reason. That's what separates delusion from fact, what protects us from bias. That something is obvious etc. to you is not evidence; it fits just as well a delusion.
We're all subject to delusion. That you seem to believe it only affects others regarding this issue, and not yourself, makes you a strong candidate for it IMHO.
Also that you seem completely incurious about what other people think on this issue; you just rule them out a priori. That's another strong signal, at least when I find myself doing that.
But I would suggest not bothering with posting another argument here for me to read. Just consider my points internally. My dogmatic stance is unlikely to change since I am the more biased and less rational party here so anything you reply with is unlikely to convince me.
I'm not being snarky or sarcastic here. Genuinely I will not even consider 2 + 2 = 5.
That isn't even remotely true in the US, in the general case.
In some societies money and status are more connected than in others
I've heard stories of staff engineers at Google being offered IT jobs at their uncle-in-laws car dealership because "it'll be a step up"
That's not a widely held belief in some countries. Try mentioning you're an IT person in (say) the UK and you'll be looked upon like a plumber. aka "nothing special"
Ironically, plumbers (and other trades too) are in pretty good demand so themselves can make good $ compared to the standard office worker. ;)
Ask yourself who is looking at, or using your work and what are their thoughts regarding your work.
Every circle tends to mock people outside it - 'How could these other people not see that our path is the Way? Everyone I know agrees! These other people must be deficient, or else they surely would do what I do.'
IIRC teachers were included in the "heroes" group of people who kept things going during covid, no?
Values like these vary hugely group to group. For instance, journalists and academics think of themselves as very high prestige. Within their groups they are, and engineers and bankers aren't. The inverse is also true. It's part of the ongoing fragmentation of society.
When they want more pay or help/support, that is when people stop respecting them as much.
So they are respected when that respect is free to give out.
Contrast when you tell somebody you're a lawyer or lobbyist, some people will be impressed but other people will get a bit uncomfortable and try to change the subject or start telling "lawyer jokes".
What did the lawyer name his daughter? Sue!
Mercenaries on the other hand are not highly regarded because they are well compensated, and don't really care about the honor of fighting for some society that wants to pay them dirt.
Status is far cheaper to confer than money, so we make sure those willing to work for status are well compensated.
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
WW2 veterans receive near universal praise, but in the Vietnam era there were widespread (probably heavily exaggerated if not fabricated) reports of soldiers being spat on because a whole lot of people didn't think America's military adventurism was really in defense of America. Of course those who felt that the war was necessary in the fight against communism to defend the American way of life had a more positive view of the same soldiers. In more recent wars with all volunteer soldiers I think the reputation of soldiers is just as polarized although usually the negative side doesn't go further than cool sniffs and sneers; the spitting was probably all apocryphal in the first place. Certainly you won't see me going around thanking Iraq vets for their service; they signed up for a stupid war and I'm not going to thank them for making that mistake. I won't look down on a soldier who got drafted, but those soldiers who signed up for the travel, job experience, college education, etc are essentially mercenaries anyway.
So you recognize this is a myth, but nevertheless use it as an example? Vietnam soldiers were drafted, and a lot of anti-war voices were soldiers and veterans. The resentment were towards politicians (remember the “LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” chant.) in contrast, the “support our troops” slogan were an attempt to equate supporting the soldiers with supporting the war.
And the economic/social pattern was probably centuries-old back then.
edit: Given the comments and downvotes, perhaps it wasn't clear that I was speaking in the context of the article, which implies the ability to choose one's career. Women have "worked", but patriarchal society limited the work it would allow them to do. (and in most cases, essentially mandated they do certain types of work)
Women have always worked. People need to stop using the 1% as representative of the whole population in History.