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Comment by A_COMPUTER | Hacker News Reader

As a matter of fact I have seen feminists address this frequently. A common interpretation is that Patriarchy has "feminized" professions such as teaching and nursing, because they can be seen as "caretaker"-type jobs; and consequently, have left the occupants of these jobs underappreciated and underpaid. The feminist manner of "fixing" the gender gap in these professions would be by deconstructing Patriarchal social perceptions of these fields.

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I don't think this has anything to do with patriarchy, but rather with capitalism; "caretaker"-type jobs simply aren't generating enough short-term, individualised returns to make them worth a bigger paycheck; even if the society values these kinds of jobs, it values capitalism more, and capitalism puts almost no value on things that have no measurable profit.

This also explains why some people are concerned about the shortage of programers in general, and shortage of women programers in particular - programming is a high-paying job, so they feel they are supporting a just cause if they are encouraging people to learn programming. Noone feels the same about construction/garbagemen (male-dominated professions) or nursing/cleaning (female-dominated professions), so it can't be something to do with Patriarchy.

actually, there's a pretty strong push to get women into AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) fields. http://www.new-nyc.org/pages/become.html http://www.pwcusa.org/ http://www.nawic.org/nawic/default.asp http://www.wcoeusa.org/

But probably not to work as manual labor on construction sites...

There isn't a big push to get women onto construction sites because of cultural beliefs about what men and women do. This is harmful to both men and women. In this case, women are believed to be less physical able to keep up with the demands of manual labor on a construction site. Add in the fact that manual labor is often perceived as "lower class" and it makes a certain amount of sense those who are fighting for female equality would start with jobs in fields that carry social prestige. When you feel like you aren't getting enough of the cow/steak, why would you fight for the hooves? Stigma against "low class" jobs also needs to stop - these are very important tasks that we entrust people with.

I am sure that there are some women who might want to go into construction who are turned away by site managers who don't believe a women can perform as well or that they will be a "distraction" on male-dominated worksites. I am sure that a few more might have been turned away by a few bigots who aggressively treat them as though they don't belong on site.

[edits below] Just wanted to add that it is also easier to fight a fight based on the idea that women are just as smart as men, but relatively harder to fight the fight that women are just as strong as men. Even if many women are stronger than many men, in aggregate men do have the biological advantage with regards to strength.

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