Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Has it ever occurred to you that men and women often have different interests and value different things, and what impact that might have on career paths?

90%+ of elementary school teachers are women, which means almost all kids are taught from a young age that women are teachers. Should society be doing more to get men into teaching young kids? Or can we accept that maybe most guys don't want to deal with kids all day long?




Let's assume you're 100% right, and that men and women simply just have different interests and values (which seems a bit of a push, since that's completely confounded by the fact this issue varies wildly internationally), then these outreach programmes will let girls and women know the options available to them, and the women will choose not to take those opportunities.

Society should absolutely be encouraging more men into teaching. But that's the classic conundrum - people are working to fix a problem and you come in and say "No, no, don't fix that problem, fix this problem instead". I agree with you - more men should be encouraged to go into teaching, we need great teachers and it can be a very rewarding career - why don't you go and do something to make that happen.


>But that's the classic conundrum - people are working to fix a problem and you come in and say "No, no, don't fix that problem, fix this problem instead".

That's a complete strawman, nobody is saying that. People are pointing out the hypocrisy. The only problems in society that get widespread attention and support, are problems that impact women.

So no, if you want to be taken seriously then there would need to be parity in how these issues are treated.


It's not a strawman, you literally are saying that people shouldn't work on women getting into STEM because they aren't also working on getting men into education. What I'm saying is those are two different tasks, and it's unreasonable for you to ask someone who is doing 1 good thing to stop doing it because you want them to do another thing that you think is good.

>So no, if you want to be taken seriously then there would need to be parity in how these issues are treated.

Firstly, they already are taken seriously. Secondly, go ahead and look, there are plenty of campaigns to try and get more men into early years education.


>you literally are saying that people shouldn't work on women getting into STEM because they aren't also working on getting men into education.

Are you replying to the wrong message, or intentionally not quoting what you say I "literally" said?

Meanwhile, I have also noticed there aren't enough women working in mines and on roofs, collecting garbage etc. so I'm off to start my campaign to help.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: