Unsympathetic and undoubtedly unpopular as this opinion will be, my thought is, "suck it up."

Marilyn Vos Savant once commented on this phenomenon, calling it an "oversimplification."

Say you're a corporate CEO and you're reviewing two prospective candidates, equal qualifications: a man and a woman, both 21 and fresh out of school.

You're going to spend a huge amount of money training this person and your business depends upon long-term successful relationships with clients.

Who do you hire?

Statistically speaking, which one is more likely to leave the job to start a family? Which one is going to need paid time off because of a new baby? Which one is more likely to no-show when the kid is sick?

The last time I brought this up, there seemed to be a song-writing for "50 Ways To Dodge The Question."

Statistically speaking, I said. I'm not getting into questions about the hypothetical man and woman personally.

My personal favorite was "Sha-REEEK! That's ilLEEEEAGAL! Yeah, it is. It's discrimination. It's wrong. It's unethical. It's every vile thing you can imagine. The interviewer could be sued for bazillions over this.

Now prove it. Prove that the interviewer who met with these prospective candidates, asking only standard on-the-table interview questions, who went home to contemplate his two prospects and realized that the typical woman is much more likely to do the things I've said she's more likely to do, hired the man, and did so out of discrimination. All he has to do is interview them both, make a decision and announce the lucky winner. He is under no obligation to explain himself to anyone. Any thoughts about sexism, though he is a blatant offender, are kept entirely to himself. You will never win your case in a court of law.

Another objection I heard. "But...but...but...we have teleconferencing now." Bullshit. You can't shake hands over the internet.

Yet another round of that popular leftie game "I'm Entitled!" - itself a soft, PC cover for Marxist insistence on artificially-imposed equality of outcome, and consequent government power-grab.

To which I counter with:
Equality of Opportunity + Meritocracy.

If you're a big girl who wants to be a fireperson, you should be able to take THE SAME TEST as the men - a test of your actual ability to do the job - and get hired based on that ability. And your agreement to uphold your end of the contract.

Not strong enough? Not willing to live in the firehouse twice a week?

Nobody's discriminating against you, mamaleh. Nor are The Rest of Us obligated to twist ourselves out of shape so you can fulfill your personal dreams.

Don't most studies hold things like "years out of the work force to raise babies" equal?

It would seem like really shoddy statistics to compare two people who have not worked the same number of years, and who don't contribute the same while there (if the women, say tend to leave earlier for kids) and then say it's discrimination or some shite. I'm sure some folks try to do that but I'd like to how how that 70 cents to every dollar is calculated and what variables are held constant.

In my experience (because anecdotes are reliable judgments for a whole society!) I see many girls who are told to be nice and not make a fuss about things by their parents and those same parents turn around and teach their sons to be aggressive/assertive.

My father has many failing and I don't respect him for many reasons, but he never told me to be docile and always taught me to stand up for myself. I always knew that if I couldn't handle something, that my family was right behind me. That's very reassuring and today I make as much money as people with far more work experience because I know how to negotiate (well, I do take on more work, but I'd like to think it's also my mad negotiation skillzzz). Most companies will not just give you money - even if you really deserve it - if you don't ask for it. Especially in this economy. Your company is telling you no one is getting raises but some people are. Peek around your office and guess which ones.

I disagree Patrick. Its not horrible, its SENSIBLE. I as a would be employer, do NOT owe that woman a job, or that man. I owe neither of them a damn thing, what I do owe is the best long term candidate for the job...and I owe that to the share holders, I owe it to the existing employees, I owe it to the people who have already put in time, money, and effort to build the company. If it is discrimination to hire the one that is more likely to be there long term without extended interruptions, then we have made good sense a bad thing, and I say screw that.

In the modern economy, few companies can afford to indulge feminist fantasies. I'm going to start a small company soon, and will be hiring contractors instead of full time workers, I doubt I can afford to hire a woman when you get right down to it. A larger company can afford to have some female workers gone on benefits for maternity, no way I can.

Ben-David: I totally agree on the fireman/woman test. It should be a test of sheer ability because lives are at risk! If my house is on fire and I'm passed out from smoke inhalation and some 120 pound biotch comes in to pull me out I'm fucked. She'll probably be able to save my dog - oh wait, probably not because my dog is half her weight!

I weigh a lot, my husband weighs more. If shit goes down I want someone who can bench press 20 reps of 250 pounds and squat a friggen VW Jetta.

As for Patrick...I've gotten into this on here in the past: Your initial premise is on the right track. If two people, all else equal except sex, are in front of me for a job, stats do show the chick is more likely to bow out for a while to raise kids. Now. Why is she more likely to bow out?

I contend that there are men out there who would like to stay home and raise their kids, and there are women who'd rather be the breadwinner. Evolution/biology or not, there are definitely people out there who feel that way (my neighbors are one such family). Once men have the choice to stay home if they want and it's ACCEPTED and done on wide scale, women won't get paid as much b/c they're the ones staying home. And yet men won't be the first the stay home if they're earning more money - assuming families are trying to maximize their income.

I don't really have a conclusive argument. I'm just saying this pay discrepancy is going to continue for a long time because of the reasons above. If women get paid less because they stay home more that makes sense. But why do they stay home more? Because they get paid less. Also. I'm sticking up for men here b/c men get screwed over in life if they're straight and they prefer baking cookies and playing with their kids to putting roofs on houses.

Without going into details, I do think part of this is due to differing negotiation styles, which stem in part from, as Gretchen said, women still overwhelmingly being pushed to make others happy, while boys/men are encouraged to stand up for themselves. This was not the case in *my* family -- my opposite-sex sibling and I were both taught to stand up for ourselves AND to be considerate of others. But I see the effects of it over and over again. When something's wrong in the workplace, most women automatically assume it's their fault, while most men automatically assume it's someone else's fault. They may eventually decide otherwise, but it's interesting to see the default assumptions. (I believe the typical "male" approach here is the more useful on in the workforce.)

That having been said, the Newsweek article makes NO mention of the effect of women cutting back on work to spend more time with their kids. Are women as likely to do it when they have a job that they *love*? In my experience, no -- but even then, they're less likely to want to put in the crushing hours necessary to, say, be a law partner. Or a CEO. The exceptions I know are largely women with stay-at-home husbands (yes, they do exist).

One line from the article really annoyed me: ...as a recent Center for Work-Life Policy study revealed, 63 percent of women who leave jobs in tech and engineering say they've experienced workplace harassment, and more than 50 percent say they felt they needed to "act like a man" in order to succeed. Okay, the workplace harassment stuff is worrisome, but the compaints about "having to act like a man"? The hell? The people I've known who have succeeded in tech and engineering tend to be geeks. If you believe that being a geek means "acting like a man," you're going to be in trouble trying to work in tech and science, no matter how good your grades were in school.

Gretchen, sadly, no. Such studies want to prove a point, and select their data accordingly. It is all too typical for a study to compare men and women based on their age and education. Quietly ignoring the fact that the woman took 5 or 6 years off to raise a couple of small kids.

When studies *do* include the real years of relevant work experience, they generally find no difference in male/female earnings.

No company would forego the opportunity for a 30% discount on equivalent labor in a different package.

I agree with bradley in that I have a hard time believing in these studies that show women leave their jobs more readily. My experience, in a large tech organization, is that the women take 3-6 months off to have their baby and are then back in the saddle plugging away. It helps that our office has an in-house daycare that makes this a real possibility. But women who stop working completely to raise kids is a mid-20th century phenomenon that no longer seems to occur.

Another thing you have to ask in this situation is who is more likely to bolt to pursue another opportunity? I have a steady stream of men leaving my company because they are pissed that they didn't get that latest promotion. The women seem to be a lot more loyal than men ... willing to work with what they have.

Okay, Let's simplify this. If an employer could hire women at 70% the cost of a man for the SAME work every business would be stepping over themselves to hire women and there would be a severe male unemployment epidemic.
Business is about money and no business owner is going to say hey I can have the same thing say a copier, fax machine etc... for 70% or 100%, give me the 100% cost.

Let's just say what this really is. This is more feminist crying to get preferential treatment, not equal treatment for women.

Those feminazi's need to stop.

Really? Think about it........
If I could hire all women, pay them 70% of of the rate I would pay men, and get the same job done, why would I hire anyone other than a women.
Put another way, businesses are so bias against women, they are willing to spend an additional 30% on their labor........I don't think so!

MarkD is absolutely right: if this 70-cents-on-the-dollar nonsense was actually true, all of us guys would be out of work. An all-female staff would be an economic advantage that no competitor could ignore, no matter how sexist its management might be.

Marion, in regards to women in tech, I'm going to toss out something here that will probably get me in trouble, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it. Generally, you find two types of women in engineering. The first type are women who are, as you say, geeks at heart; they're in engineering because they love it. As in the case of most male engineers, it's almost a compulsion for them; they can't not do it. A secondary thing that goes along with that is that these women generally prefer working with men. I've had a number of them tell me so. It's not a misogynist thing; in a given situation some people prefer the company of the same sex, and some people prefer the company of the opposite sex.

The second group are basically the AA hires. They probably got a full-ride scholarship from an engineering school desperate to pump up their female enrollment and keep the Title IX quota enforcers off their back. These are the group that use their elective hours on Gender Studies classes. After graduation they get hired for the same reason, to fill a quota. They are much less likely to take advanced courses or engage in self-education activities outside of their classwork. You don't see these types in the lab late at night doing something not related to an assignement. They're the bottom 25th percentile of the female engineering cohort.

The point here: The first group are in it for the long haul. They are unlikely to leave the engineering field; they either remain practicing engineers or they go into engineering management. It's unusual for a good engineer, male or female, to leave the field. So, it holds that when you see a survey of women leaving the engineering field, you can be assured that the survey mostly surveyed women of the second group. And it's the women of the second group who are pre-disposed to see discrimination and harassment everywhere. They've probably been in conflict with their colleagues because they aren't very good engineers and they aren't willing to put in extra hours to get a project done. And, in my experience, a lot of these second-group women are Cluster B personalities and they have enormously over-inflated opinions of both their engineering skills and their sexual attractiveness.

I have a lot of respect for women of the first group. Many of them had a hard time growing up because they were outliers among their peers and they didn't have many friends. And yes, they've had to fend off sexual stereotyping pressure, not all of which comes from men. I have no respect for women of the second group. They're the ones looking for a shortcut through life, and when it doesn't work, they blame everyone but themselves.

Biology is a bitch. Until men can easily get pregnant and carry a child to term, women will bear the brunt of the negative career consequences of having families. I see why women get pissed over this: Men can have families and not be expected to sacrifice chunks of their career because of the physical and emotional realities of having kids. They can have the best of both worlds, if they so choose.

Before the feminist bitchfest begins, I'll add that feminism has been awful for women in creating the insane supermommies I see around me, who still believe it's possible and even desirable to have it all without dropping it all on the floor. These women are nervous, crazy wrecks. Some can juggle it all. Those women are rare and just better at it than everyone else.

Most of the people here seem to recognize the biological realities of having kids and how that choice limits what women can do with their lives. Let's try to remember it when men start complaining that they can't press the "abortion" button at will, or are being forced to support kids they never wanted. Biology limits all of our choices.

But women who stop working completely to raise kids is a mid-20th century phenomenon that no longer seems to occur.

It's not. My neighbor is a stay-at-home mom and she's not wealthy, either. They've gone without (dinners out, new clothes for the parents, etc.) for years to make it work financially. The mothers she's friends with are also stay-at-home moms, and this isn't the middle of the country, but Los Angeles.

Marion and Gretchen missed the point: you can explain differences in this sphere by measureable life choices, without resorting to unprovoable tropes about "society" or "daddy" or whatever non-empirical explanation is in vogue now.

Patrick: "It's discrimination. It's wrong. It's unethical. It's every vile thing you can imagine."

You and I have different concepts of ethics, wrongness, and vileness. If I am hiring a 21 year old into whom I will place a great deal of investment (both time and money) over the next decade preparing them for a professional role in their 30s, I am perfectly within the bounds of ethics, rightness and decency to consider whether the applicant is going to bug out for 5-6 years during that crucial training period, and perhaps never come back, or come back part time for years on end. Long term employees are much like any investment, and telling investors to not consider obvious facts is unlikely to ever work. Investors will likely pretend to not consider the obvious, which is what is going on now, but they will consider the obvious.

If laws force me to avoid a frank discussion of family plans with workers, I will resort to the measuring tools I have, which generally indicate that gals, not guys, are more likely to bug out during their late 20s and early 30s. And since many early 20s gals are still in denial about their future family choices, even asking them to consider how their plans effect your investment in them may be a waste of time.

Accordingly, employers will likely either just hire someone in their late 30s who is already trained and their family preferences are already pretty well established, or employers will pass on the 21 year old gal, because she is more likely to bug out for family reasons. As others have noted, the employers will be savvy about this, and never explain why.

Alternatively, you hire the 21 year old, but make the role a short term "gopher" role, where you don't really invest much in them. Their first or second promotion, to come in their late 20s or early 30s, when you have a better sense of the person, is when you identify family-centered workers versus the racehorses.

Ask near-retirement managers about this sort of stuff, and they shrug and admit that they consider the employees' age and likely family plans when hiring and allocating responsibility. Then they lie about it when asked by anyone who may hire a lawyer depending on the answer.

Dr. Helen has a post on a survey done on behalf of the US Department of Labor by CONSAD Research Corporation. You can get the full report online (95 page PDF).

From the foreword:

There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the gender wage gap. These variables include:

* A greater percentage of women than men tend to work part-time.

* A greater percentage of women than men tend to leave the labor force for child birth, child care and elder care.

* Women, especially working mothers, tend to value “family friendly” workplace policies more than men.

* Women may value non-wage benefits more than men do, and as a result prefer to take a greater portion of their compensation in the form of health insurance and other fringe benefits.

The forward concludes that “the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

MonicaP:"Men can have families and not be expected to sacrifice chunks of their career because of the physical and emotional realities of having kids. They can have the best of both worlds, if they so choose."

No, men are expected to sacrifice chunks of their family life in order to provide for their families. And they do, in my experience.

I find it bizarre that some women still think that spending less time with family while going to work and getting your ass chewed daily by boses, customers, clients, suppliers, and grouchy secretaries (who will claim discrimination if you so much as eyeroll them) is "having it all", where the alternative is working part time and hanging with your kids, which is what many gals do.

Ask guys if they would opt for fewer hours and more time with the kids, if as part of that deal their spouse stays on the 50-60 hour/week treadmill to earn, and the guys' response will be "hell, yeah!" Visions of woodworking and days in the park tossing the football with junior will fill his head.

But guys also understand at the outset that their female spouse will likely come down with "sex-drive flu", largely out of resentment at the man not providing as much money as she knows he could. The woman will not ever say so, and likely doesn't even recognize why she is resentful. But I saw it enough in marriages when I was in that age group and the gals kept working that it is a common and real issue. I would be keenly interested in seeing how many marriages survive a long-term income disparity, where the husband is opting to stay home with kids, while the wife humps those hard weekly hours.

I see why women get pissed over this:
I cant - unless they are fundementally stupid

Men can have families
So can women

and not be expected to sacrifice chunks of their career because of the physical
No, they just have to sacrifice time with their famillies

and emotional realities of having kids.
Just because men dont display their emotions in the same way as omen does not mean we dont have them

They can have the best of both worlds, if they so choose.
Bullshit, no one can have it all, not even men

As for why women aren't in science and engineering...could it be that many don't want to be?
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Actually Amy, more than 50% of engineering students are female.

"Actually Amy, more than 50% of engineering students are female."

Citation?

I would also note that there are Engineering Programs, and there are "engineering" programs.

Engineering at Phoenix University is not engineering at University of Michigan. The former is not the latter.

Biology is a bitch. Until men can easily get pregnant and carry a child to term, women will bear the brunt of the negative career consequences of having families. I see why women get pissed over this: Men can have families and not be expected to sacrifice chunks of their career because of the physical and emotional realities of having kids. They can have the best of both worlds, if they so choose.

Posted by: MonicaP at November 18, 2010 7:27 AM

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Gee, Having 100% choice of everything and still being able to complain about it is amazing. That's why American and western world women/princesses are becoming less and less desirable. Women have all these choices and still bitch. Do I want to get married or not? Choice of the woman. Do I want to have kids or not? Choice of the woman. Do I want to work or not? Choice of the woman. Does a woman want to bitch about her own choices? Definitely.

David M., I would note that men have the same choices as women in each instance.

The difference is, however, that for men, choices often carry different consequences.

Not having kids means having to protect yourself from women who would not engage with you honestly or competently on issues of birth control.

Not wnating marriage likely involves some relationships ending on bad terms, as partners realize you were serious two years ago when you told them that, and they can't change your mind with time.

Not working likely means never getting laid, since while unemployed women are still datable, good luck trying to find regular sex partners as an unemployed man.

Men,too, can complain about any of the choices and consequences that result. But other men will just tell you to STFU, and women will avoid your whining self.

Spartee, I sympathize with men who feel like they're not spending enough time with their kids, but the social pressures are not the same. I'm all for workplace policies that give men more time with their families, since this is good for everyone.)

I cant - unless they are fundamentally stupid

Stupid has nothing to do with it. People get upset about life not being perfectly fair. They need to get over it, but it's not stupid.

Luj, you can pretend I said that men don't have emotions if that makes you happy, but it's silly to pretend that women don't have a distinctly different emotional relationship with their children. It's not more or less important than fatherhood, but it IS different, and it comes with different social expectations.

DavidM: Oh, please. Men have all the same choices as women -- even the choice to embrace victimhood, apparently. If men don't want to get married, they don't have to. They don't have to have kids. They don't have to work. Didn't we just have a post not that long ago about all the deadbeat men who were getting plenty laid anyway? Men also have the option of complaining about women stealing all their choices.

Spartee: Who the hell works in the same place for 30 years in this era?! The only people who I know that do that are nurses...maybe some doctors.

My experience, in a large tech organization, is that the women take 3-6 months off to have their baby and are then back in the saddle plugging away. It helps that our office has an in-house daycare that makes this a real possibility.

And how many paid 3/6 month sabaticals/childbearing periods have you taken? and when y'all do take off that time frame, who picks up the slack? do you hire in temp workers to cover, or do you divvy up the work between those not taking a sabatical? And do they get paid more for it?

Also, do people with small children pay the company for the in-house daycare? or is that a "freebie"?

I have a steady stream of men leaving my company because they are pissed that they didn't get that latest promotion.

And how many are going on to a lower paying job?

Gretchen: "Who the hell works in the same place for 30 years in this era?! The only people who I know that do that are nurses...maybe some doctors."

"Twenty-nine percent of wage and
salary workers age 16 and over had 10 years or more of tenure with their current
employer in January 2010. Among men, 30 percent had at least 10 years of tenure
with their current employer, compared with 28 percent among women."---BLS Employee Tenure Survey

>>As for why women aren't in science and engineering...could it be that many don't want to be?

But could we at least acknowledge that the current president of MIT is a woman - (and a mother)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Hockfield

I see why women get pissed over this: Men can have families and not be expected to sacrifice chunks of their career because of the physical and emotional realities of having kids. They can have the best of both worlds, if they so choose.

The statement I highlighted is false. It has been stated many times, but that doesn't make it true. No one can have it all.

In fact, I'll go one further: men are expected to sacrifice chunks of their family life to maximize their career opportunites, because of the financial realities of having kids.

You makes your choices. You live with them. You hope they're good choices, but not all choices are equally good. And one hopes to not end up with a fat folder labeled Seemed Like A Good Idea.

"male bylines still outnumber female bylines by a rate of seven to one--despite women being the majority of journalism graduates since 1977."

Someone referred to this fallacy above, but i want to really point it out - here the writer is assuming that success in school equals success in the marketplace. what a luagh - even schools specigfically tilored to specific proessions get this wrong. Patton finished second formthe bottom of his class. Being able to shine teachers on for 16 years is not the same as being able to turn out a salable product.

They can have the best of both worlds, if they so choose.
- - - - - - - - -
So, Gretchen - how many women are stuck at jobs they don't like because they have to pay alimony?

So what are the likely consequences if the paycheck fairness act is passed? Contractors. I see lots and lots of contractors, and fewer regular employees. In fact all the best employees will have to move to independant contractor status as it become impossible for a company to reward the productive employees without potential for lawsuit.

Newsweek has maybe even less merit than the other MSM publications. The New York Times, TIME, and others were once decent publications, but they have become very leftist.

Time off for children doesn't fully explain this phenomenon. If you look at the data, it's apparent that even without children, women don't choose to work as many hours, for as many years, as men do. They also choose less lucrative professions.

You have to consider that the significance of a career generally differs for men and women. Women seem less likely to identify by their profession, and their social position isn't as dependent on their career status. It's less likely to affect their ability to get married, or maintain relationships. I've never heard of a man leaving his wife because she lost her job, for instance. So there are other factors driving men's behavior that women don't typically experience.

They can have the best of both worlds, if they so choose.

You're right: I worded that poorly.

I should have said that women with demanding careers will watch their careers suffer more by having kids than men with demanding careers. It's just physical reality. Nine months of pregnancy, 20 hours of labor, 3 weeks to 2 months of recovery and 1 to 2 years of breastfeeding leave less time for work. Not to mention the social pressure to be SuperMom, who runs her own Fortune 500 company while she's teaching Junior to play the piano.

how many women are stuck at jobs they don't like because they have to pay alimony?

This all comes down to poor choices. People who stay married don't pay alimony.

Contractors. I see lots and lots of contractors, and fewer regular employees.

I agree.

That'll be so much fun. You'll get paid $X amount, and you'll be responsible for paying all the taxes, nothing needs to be withheld.

But that will be a good thing. People don't really understand how much money they pay in taxes. Reality will smack 'em in the face when they have to sit down each quarter and write a check to the IRS for the full amount.

Taxman will never go for it, 'cause they want that money now.

"My neighbor is a stay-at-home mom and she's not wealthy, either."

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but it is becoming increasingly rare. The first 15 years of my career I saw many women leave my company to be stay-at-home moms. In the last 10 years I've only seen one woman do this out of about 100 pregnant females.

When I hire a woman, I don't even give this a thought. However, I do think about the markedly increased loyalty and cooperation that most women exhibit. Consequently, my product line is about 30% female. It would be over 50% if I could find more female engineers. BTW, I pay them the same or more as their male counterparts.

According to this article from Stanford: "Female students make up 20 percent of engineering undergraduates, but 55 percent of all undergraduates." Stanford being a reasonable challenging school, the engineering programs are likely to be serious.

I am familiar with two closely related programs at the same school: "technical computer science" (how to write software) and "business information systems" (learn a bit about computers while studying business). In the first, there are typically one or two women per class of twenty. In the second program, there are lots of women. If you were to average them together, you would get a decent percentage of women studying computer science.

Back to Stanford: look at the programs their School of Enginnering offers. One of them is "Management Science and Engineering"; another is "Bioengineering", which is not Biology but rather more of a technical nursing program with an emphasis on medical technology. I'd be willing to be that a lot of their the women in engineering are in those two programs, and the others are lucky to have a couple of women per class.

"I should have said that women with demanding careers will watch their careers suffer more by having kids than men with demanding careers."

I gently note, paraphrasing Hitchens, that which is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

You present here an article of faith, and however much you believe it, no one is obligated to agree with you. And perfectly reasonable people can say, without any more evidence for their position, that they think you are wrong.

No one is required to believe me, as much as I would love to have that superpower. I base my opinion on intense study of all the women and men I know who are juggling or have juggled demanding careers. The men often wish they had more time with their kids, but their career do not seem to be suffering for it.

Their careers may very well suffer for other reasons, such as lack of ability or effort.

bradley, good point; if you look at just the hard-core engineering programs (electrical, mechanical, civil, software, etc.) the percentage is probably lower. I'll toss out a personal observation: there are fewer women taking software courses then there were when I was an undergrad in the early '80s. I'm not at all sure why this is. I fear that a lot of female undergrads are being shunted off into "XYZ Studies" courses.

No Gretchen, they stay home more because they get pregnant, they give birth, they are the milk makers, and the release of hormones and their associated biochemical response that is present in most of the female sex will make them hesitant to be parted from their young. Very sensible from nature's perspective, not so convenient for the career perspective.

I love spending time with my kids, but while I can name a few stay at home dads whose wive's work outside the home, I can't name a single one who would actually have chosen that course at the outset, it is a position thrust upon a family.

------------------

Men do NOT get the best of both worlds, we get the shaft at both. We have to work countless hours, sometimes at very dangerous jobs, to provide for the wife and child(ren), to come home and scarcely see them. Add to that now the ease of divorce and the next thing you know the previously mentioned man is now paying child support to children he can't see at all without going through the gatekeeping support collector.

We don't get to take time off just whenever, we can't afford to leave the work force, we have NEVER EVER EVER "had it all" or anything even close to it. We'd love to be around our kids more, but see we do something called "Sacrifice" we give up things for ourselves so that others, such as spouse or child, may then be better off. How the hell you ever suspected that men get the best of both worlds is beyond me.

---------------

Work place policies that give more time with families is good for everyone? Not the company. And not the people who have to cover down for the guy who ducked out of work early.

---------------

Men who stay married don't pay alimony, that is absolutely true.

But women who don't stay married know that they get a paycheck without obligation. Can't just excuse the women's poor character as the fault of men's poor choices. Both have a hand in the problem, but the dupe is at least possibly innocent.

I work as a software engineer at a relatively large company. Our engineering workforce is 90%+ male, easily. The sales team is almost exactly the opposite.

What I've found striking my whole career though is that while there's relatively few female programmers, most that I meet are way above median in skills & dedication to their vocation. I don't know why this is, but my guess is that there's some truth to the old story that women are guided away from technical fields by teachers; perhaps only the most dedicated & obviously talented stick around?

I saw the same thing at university, I studied pure math, and in the student body women were a minority, but nearly 50% at the annual scholarship & awards banquet.

How the hell you ever suspected that men get the best of both worlds is beyond me.

I've already acknowledged that I worded this poorly and clarified, but keeping beating that horse if you're having fun.

Not the company. And not the people who have to cover down for the guy who ducked out of work early.

Increasing worker loyalty is good for the company. It keeps turnover rates lower and good employees happier. Good workers can minimize the downsides. A guy I know who took paternity leave for two weeks worked his ass off before and after. It worked out just fine. I didn't mind covering for him because I've used the policies to take care of my own family matters, as has everyone at my job.

But women who don't stay married know that they get a paycheck without obligation.

There seems to be this middle class fantasy that single mothers are rolling in dough, which doesn't seem to mesh with the poverty rates for single mothers. I don't know any divorced women my age who get alimony.

No one has ever had it all, male or female. Being an adult is about doing shit we don't want to do, and being a parent is about making sacrifices. If you're a man and you've had children with a woman who is not making sacrifices of her own, then you've screwed up somewhere. If you don't want to make these sacrifices, then don't have children. Lots of women are realistic about this, like Amy, who has chosen not to have children because a successful career is more important to her, and momof4, who has shelved her career for now to be a SAHM.

Which was actually my original point: Women in the workforce need to be realistic about how having kids is going to effect their careers and pay. If you're working and doing most of the childcare, you're probably on the mommy track.

There are lots of SAHM's still. We have plenty here in our area. They are all well educated women, who had degrees and worked before kids. Most of them do attend church. And most of us are planning to work again, generally after finishing up another degree while home. So, we expect to enter the workforce at the same rate as all the other newby grads. Seems realistic to me.

"Men can have families and not be expected to sacrifice chunks of their career because of the physical and emotional realities of having kids." No we are expected to be full time workers and then spend our evening as father and husband. None of my female friends cook or clean and none make anywhere near what the husbands do. The era when dad get to come home to a home cooked meal and sit in front of the TV was long gone when my generation started breeding. If I want a clean house either I clean or I get a maid. If I want a home cooked meal I'm cooking it. If leave it to beaver ever existed is doesn't now.

The husbands are lawyers, engineers, doctors. The wives are counselors, teachers or SAHM. One is lucrative the other is fulfilling. Can you guess why they can have the hot cars and nice houses but still have a fulfilling career? Well any guesses? If we have the stones to leave they get the house and car paid for. This however only applies to certain income levels.

You can't put a random women on a birth certificate and have her cover the kid. Oddly enough even when proven innocent beyond any doubt what so ever we still get to pay.

"Women in the workforce need to be realistic about how having kids is going to effect their careers and pay." What? If that was the original point I missed it. I got the impression that you sided with those moms that are pissed over the income disparity. That it's societies duty to ensure equal outcomes for full time workers and part time moms.

I dunno spartee, I guess it depends on how you look at it: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.t01.htm

Gretchen, you asked who the heck spends decades at the same employer? The BLS answer is, somewhere around a 30% of employees.

If you want to note the the modal, mean, median, etc. number is x%, you are now changing the inquiry's focus.

So, a majority of workers do not spend decades with the same employer - in which case my initial off-the-cuff comment was accurate?

Random, on-topic article that came up while browsing. It'll get the blood moving!

Excerpt to rile y'all up:

"Interrupted sleep is a burden borne disproportionately by women," said sociologist Sarah Burgard, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "And this burden may not only affect the health and well-being of women, but also contribute to continuing gender inequality in earnings and career advancement."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-11/uom-wum111610.php

My best friend, who has a Finance degree and worked in the field for years, cured me of believing the myth during a long discussion. He had facts, I had feelings and "gut emotions". He and the facts won.

As some of you observed, time in the workforce is the key here. In the 1980's a famous economist (I think it was Sowell, not positive) took census and other data and examined it for time in the workforce, education level and other things. Guess who won at ten years in the workforce? Women and minorities of equal education as their Caucasian male peers. It was the same all the way through.

There was also info about non-profits vs. for-profit businesses. Non-profits discriminated against women and minorities on wages at a much greater rate than for-profits did.

This must be one of the topics for the week. I just read an article in Slate about women in the Netherlands not working as much as men do or making as much, and liking it that way.

Interesting article. Women's support organizations were looking into to expose the unfairness of it all, and I guess they were informed that it's the women who want it that way.

Oh, those wacky Dutch people! Don't they know how to be happy, like us?

"Actually Amy, more than 50% of engineering students are female."
Citation?
I would also note that there are Engineering Programs, and there are "engineering" programs.
Engineering at Phoenix University is not engineering at University of Michigan. The former is not the latter.
----------
Hmm, I really thought that is what i read in an article recently but as I could not find the article I have to go by what I just quickly came up with. It appears that women make up 10-50% depending on the type of engineering.
I will also note that is statistics for some of the best engineering schools in Canada and the world, for example, the University of Waterloo, which is globally recognized as one of the best engineering schools in the world.
[If I can find some time I will continue to search because that is going to drive me nuts. My source is either the newspaper or someone from the University of Waterloo.]
------------
As for women taking time off work to have babies, I don't buy that as an excuse for men making more money. Men and women both take time off when a baby is born but both usually go back to work. In Canada both parents are elligable for parental leave, couples usually base the decision of who stays home on who makes more. I personally know many men who have taken parental leave.

If the statistics regarding pay differences are accurate than they must take into account number of years experience and part-time vs fulltime.

As for math and science, there have been many articles over the past few years stating that both genders now perform equally in those subjects. It is not like when I was in school [the eighties] and male teachers actively discouraged females from studying math and science.

>>I find it bizarre that some women still think that spending less time with family while going to work and getting your ass chewed daily by boses, customers, clients, suppliers, and grouchy secretaries (who will claim discrimination if you so much as eyeroll them) is "having it all", where the alternative is working part time and hanging with your kids, which is what many gals do.

I sometimes cheerfully loathe your comments Spartee - but I appreciate your honesty here.

You describe the women who are often trying hard to bridge the endless years after full time motherhood & before they're free to return to full time employment, as gals who are just "working part time and hanging with [their]kids".

If that's how you dismiss mothers juggling part-time jobs & family demands, at least I can understand some of your anti-women jibes. (For example, about females and their "sex-drive flu"!)

The [study's] forward concludes that “the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action ..."

Which is to conclude the obvious.

I'm an airline pilot, a profession which is, despite unceasing hiring efforts to the contrary (any woman who makes the bare minimum for qualifications will get hired; men, rarely), roughly 94% male.

Why is that? Because very few women choose to enter the profession in the first place. (IMHO, that is due to gender typical preferences: risk aversion, dislike of extensive travel, avoidance of high pressure occupations.)

However, despite earning exactly the same amount as their male counterparts, women pilots make less.

Which is where these pay studies veer straight into the ditch, to be admired only by idiots and ideologues (in case there is a difference).

Women pilots, on average, make less than men because it is a seniority driven profession. Overwhelmingly, women pilots choose higher seniority in a lower paying position (e.g., delaying an upgrade to Captain) because they would rather have more control over their schedule than make more money.

Further, to schedule work around their lives, women pilots are far more likely than men to drop trips without pay.

So, here is an example of a profession which women choose, in overwhelming numbers, not to enter, choose not to advance as quickly as men, and choose to work less than men.

Since there is no reason to suspect these phenomena are limited to pilots, wage gap studies are fundamentally wrong.

And the Lilly Bedwetter Act is yet another case of the Left's delusion in calling themselves the "reality based community".

----

And that is without taking on the other preposterosity: businesses are, en masse, willing to pay 20-some-odd percent above the going rate for labor.

Remember age discrimination laws? They were justified because companies (allegedly) fired older workers in order to replace them with younger, cheaper, workers.

So companies relentlessly discriminate on cost, except when they don't.

seems to me that the gorilla in the room is that it's NOT PC to actually acknowledge that what we are talking about is FAMILY units.

We keep saying "men this" and "woman that" but it has very long been the case of expectation of humanity that at some point you will make a family.

Lets think about what that entails. And what this whole idea of careerism even means. What is the purpose of adult life? What is the biological purpose of existance?

this is why we go round and round and round on the very same questions and never edge toward an answer.

we are fighting our biology constantly, because it says in our 20's that we should make babies to keep the species going. At one time our civilizations decided that OK, we can do that but we want to keep the man with a single woman he can provide for when she has kids with him. More or less that became marriage. His protect/provide role never changed much.

suddenly in the last 100 years we can just change that, and everything will just work out? Because we think it should? This is where our internal design runs headlong into our outer political thought processes. But what answer are we thinking up? Instead of looking at this as an integrated unit, we want to look at the players as individuals as if the other person doesn't exist.

Why would a woman take a lesser job and lesser money if she was always looking at being the sole provider? She wouldn't. If she is thinking of having kids, the likelyhood is that she is thinking of having kids WITH SOMEONE. Most likely a guy. Most likely a provider.

Even if she doesn't say so, or think about it in so many words. Why would any woman spend tens of thousands of dolars on a gender studies education, when it doesn't provide a good career path to wealth? Because she is assuming she will find a partner, and TOGETHER they will be OK in terms of money?

I know many, many women that have advanced degrees sitting on the shelf, but they decided after the first kid came along that their highest calling was to mother that kid. After taking 20 years out of the workforce to raise children, those advanced degrees are completely out of date, and so are their skills, so they never make a career out of it. Why did they get the degree to begin with? Because they had the time and the money, and wanted to have the best BASE to build their lives on. If they had never found a partner they would have been able to use that degree to make a decent living in any case.

they were preparing for eventualities. The fact that they didn't need to do that in the long run was their goal.

Men have an entirely different goal. We expect to provide regardless of outcome. So we maximize usually. It doesn't matter in our work goals if we have kids or not, we will try to get the bast possible compensation. IFF we have wive/kids, we may well decide not to persue jobs that keep us out of town all the time, unless they are temporary.

Looking at the whole thing as family unit, however old-fashioned and politically incorrect makes a great deal more sense when trying to figure out motivations. Most people figure they're going to settle down with a partner someday, and plan their future accordingly. A lot of them decide about children too, in that plan.

Trying to figure this stuff out in a one gender or other vacuum, really doesn't get you too far.

Not to mention the social pressure to be SuperMom, who runs her own Fortune 500 company while she's teaching Junior to play the piano

And by socail pressure you mean what?

Cause it aint men with the insane notion that someone can do everything themseves.

"No we are expected to be full time workers and then spend our evening as father and husband. None of my female friends cook or clean and none make anywhere near what the husbands do. The era when dad get to come home to a home cooked meal and sit in front of the TV was long gone when my generation started breeding. If I want a clean house either I clean or I get a maid. If I want a home cooked meal I'm cooking it. If leave it to beaver ever existed is doesn't now."

Bullshit. I know plenty of families where the mom stays at home and raises the kids and does 100% of the housework. Or works part-time and raises the kids and still does 100% of the housework. These women aren't being oppressed and nor are they riding roughshod over their poor wage-slave husbands; they as a couple have just found the method that works best for their family. If the Leave it to Beaver household is important to you, then you should have that conversation before you get married, let alone make babies. I dated a guy who told me straight up that he expected his wife to stay home with the kids until they were in school. Nothing wrong with that and I admired him for knowing what he wanted and being honest about it.

"The husbands are lawyers, engineers, doctors. The wives are counselors, teachers or SAHM. One is lucrative the other is fulfilling. Can you guess why they can have the hot cars and nice houses but still have a fulfilling career? Well any guesses? If we have the stones to leave they get the house and car paid for"

On the other hand, teaching is a incredibly important and vastly underpaid profession. If women didn't have the option of essentially being subsidized by their husband's salaries, then there would be much less people taking that career path. (Not that this is the ideal solution-raising salaries, raising standards, and eliminating tenure would be a better way of ensuring better teachers in our schools). Also I think many men seek out women in these less demanding career paths-they want an educated professional who they can respect, but not someone with an 80-hour work week who will make them feel emasculated by earning more than they do:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-530361/Blue-eyes-blonde--good-bed-What-men-REALLY-look-ideal-woman.html

My point is, I don't think it's as simple as women blindsiding men into supporting them as they pursue their dream jobs. The decision as to who works and the division of labor and childcare is an individual decision for a couple and hopefully every couple is making the best choice as to what works for them.

Vlad, I say here: "...feminism has been awful for women in creating the insane supermommies I see around me, who still believe it's possible and even desirable to have it all without dropping it all on the floor. These women are nervous, crazy wrecks. Some can juggle it all. Those women are rare and just better at it than everyone else."

I DO understand why mothers are upset with the situation, because life has told them they can have it all, and they believed it. This is America! You can be anything you want to be, and what you should want to be is a pilot/engineer/supermodel who bakes cookies for PTA meetings.

The reason why women make less than men is more involved than who cares for the babies, but this is a big one.

the release of hormones and their associated biochemical response that is present in most of the female sex will make them hesitant to be parted from their young. Very sensible from nature's perspective, not so convenient for the career perspective.

Yes, which links to what SwissArmyD is saying about fighting biology. I've observed it in so many of my friends having children (and I'm 32, so it's like a baby party right now in my social circle). The working fathers very much want to spend time with their children, but they don't seem to be torturing themselves over it the way working mothers do or seem terribly inclined to be SAHDs. Whether this is cultural or hormonal or just me having emo friends, I don't know, but it's not my imagination.

And by socail pressure you mean what?

Cause it aint men with the insane notion that someone can do everything themseves.

Never said it was. Women can be awful to each other and themselves. Check this shit out:

http://www.workingmother.com/web?service=direct/1/ViewArticlePage/dlinkFullTopArticle3&sp=3090&sp=98

As if pregnant working moms didn't have enough to worry about, now they need to concern themselves with how their baby showers might be effecting the environment. Check out any mother board and you'll eventually see the sniping about "real" moms, whatever that may be. It's vile, and I can only hope it'll ease as people get used to the sea change in social roles we've seen over the past 50 years.

Increased worker loyalty from...the people who leave early? But is loyalty increased by the people who have to cover the shortage...or are they looking for work elsewhere so they don't have to do other people's work for no extra pay?

-----------------

"There seems to be this middle class fantasy that single mothers are rolling in dough"

I didn't say it was a path to riches. You're carrying my statement a little to far, kids still cost money there is no way around that, but knowing you'll get money from a man and have no obligation to him in return is one helluvan incentive to divorce.

Men must be careful, I agree, but we should also start cutting down on the legal incentives to create those problems in the first place.

"Which was actually my original point:..."
I agree whole heartedly with your original point.

Also, my fault, I overlooked your earlier admission of poor phrasing.

-------

"I don't buy that as an excuse for men making more money."

Well what the hell would you buy??? Men do NOT take months off at a time, let alone years. If absense from work vs presence at work is not a good reason for an income disparity, you have absolutely no idea why those jobs exist in the first place. Men may get a small amount, but I don't know of anywhere that gives more than a few weeks, compared to months or more.

"As for math and science, there have been many articles over the past few years stating that both genders now perform equally in those subjects."

Cite ONE.

---------------

"teaching is a incredibly important and vastly underpaid profession."

Important yes. But underpaid? Compared to what? Private school educators can make plenty. Public school educators, it will vary by district, and frankly, 3 months off does not sound like a bad deal.

"If the Leave it to Beaver household is important to you, then you should have that conversation before you get married, let alone make babies."

This is not nearly the problem that it's opposite is.

You have the discussion about being partners, and you run like two people on the way to the top. Each successful, each doing well in their field. You have the discussion about kids, and mutually decide that after maternity leave, she is going back to work, and you are going to share everything...

And at the end of her leave she informs you that she is not going back to work, and you had better get a better job, buster, because you're the man.

If you're really lucky she'll say it in a nice way.

Women will deny this, but I bet a lot of guys know someone who had this happen, or ARE someone who had this happen. Most guys shrug, becuase this doesn't alter their assumptions that much, though it can really blow a hole in your plans.

The sense of entitlement to just change your mind like that, who has it? Does boyo get to change his mind, at any time? Or is this simply an expectation, on both their parts, that gets fulfilled.

Bullshit. I know plenty of families where the mom stays at home and raises the kids and does 100% of the housework. Or works part-time and raises the kids and still does 100% of the housework. These women aren't being oppressed and nor are they riding roughshod over their poor wage-slave husbands; they as a couple have just found the method that works best for their family.

My wife stayed at home with our kids for the first 13 years.

Now she is an RN, and has chosen a job where the hours overlap the high school's.

She could have made a lot more money along the way, but she is smart enough to not buy the pernicious nonsense that women can be effective mom's while devoting themselves to a career.

Oddly, when it came to assigning priorities, rather than engaging in magical wish fulfillment, she decided her children are more important.

If the Leave it to Beaver household is important to you, then you should have that conversation before you get married, let alone make babies.

My conversation right up front: "I don't cook; I heat; and if you want a home-cooked meal, you'll probably have to make one."

Spoken by someone who doesn't have a family.

The sense of entitlement to just change your mind like that, who has it?

I have one friend who did to her husband, and my only defense of her is that it seems to have been hormonal. Oddly, she rediscovered the desire for a career right around the time she stopped breastfeeding.

She could have made a lot more money along the way, but she is smart enough to not buy the pernicious nonsense that women can be effective mom's while devoting themselves to a career.

This is part of the social pressure I'm talking about. No one ever wonders whether men can be effective fathers while devoting themselves to a career. Women are held to different standards, and hold themselves and each other to different standards.

So, I'm a nurse...and most of my coworkers are women. How come no one yells and screams about attracting more men to nursing schools? It's the usual double standard crap. It's fine for the feminists to scream about the whole 70 cents thing, but I don't see them working to eliminate the prejudice male nurses face. And, Greg Focker was right - they do get it.

I make a lot less than my husband. I'm a nurse, he's a lawyer. I took several years off, he didn't. He's willing to work more hours, I'm not. I save lives...he sits in a courtroom. So is it "fair" that I make less money? *eye roll* Yeah, well, it's also not "fair" that I don't look like Megan Fox.

As for those deal breaker talks...everyone needs to have them, and stick to what they agree upon. I wasn't thrilled about being a full time stay at home mom for years. But I found ways to make it work for me, because that's what he and I had agreed upon.

"My conversation right up front: "I don't cook; I heat; and if you want a home-cooked meal, you'll probably have to make one."

>>Spoken by someone who doesn't have a family.

"And made it clear she has no intention ever of having a child.

If you're a guy who wants a wife and mother to raise children with, I'm definitely not your girl. If you're a guy who needs to live with your partner, I'm also not your girl."

------

Skipper, I'm not sure I understand your comment. My initial reaction would be to answer in much the same way Amy did. Assuming your comment was in relation to Amy's particular reference about not being willing to cook?

Or are you saying that discussing these things up front flies out the window if you have a family? As in, once you have a family, none of the things you talked about ahead of time matter, because the very act of having a family changes everything, and your previous intentions no longer matter?

I don't see how anyone could argue against the importance of agreeing on whether you WANT kids, and all the life changes that entails, first. Momof4 said here in a recent discussion that one of the things that attracted her to her husband was the fact that he wanted kids. I believe she is staying home with the kids and that they probably talked about that before they even got married in the first place, too.

If you don't want to have kids or live together, though, (or don't like cooking), and maybe (for example) already know that you want to move to another city within five years, or whatever, it makes total sense to talk about that with someone you are getting serious with. You should be telling them what it is you want to do with your life.

"I have one friend who did to her husband, and my only defense of her is that it seems to have been hormonal. "

Hmm, I thought only sexist-pig males talked about raging hormones...

>>Hmm, I thought only sexist-pig males talked about raging hormones...

Cousin Dave,

Actually, if you can't write the word "hormones" without automatically sticking "raging" in front of it as you just did, you might well sound like a sexist pig.

This is part of the social pressure I'm talking about. No one ever wonders whether men can be effective fathers while devoting themselves to a career. Women are held to different standards, and hold themselves and each other to different standards.

The reason no one wonders about men in this regard is that there isn't a (sane) woman who doesn't take it as given that an effective father is one who prioritizes providing for his family above everything else.

So, beware the passive voice: Women are held to different standards. By whom? Why?

It takes a special form of idiocy that can only be described as a form of religious belief to conclude that a woman can be equally effective as a mother and a careerist.

Unless effective is a synonym for sucktastic.

"My conversation right up front: "I don't cook; I heat; and if you want a home-cooked meal, you'll probably have to make one."

>>Spoken by someone who doesn't have a family.

Skipper, I'm not sure I understand your comment. My initial reaction would be to answer in much the same way Amy did. Assuming your comment was in relation to Amy's particular reference about not being willing to cook?

The reason for this thread is to discuss why there is a wage gap.

To the extent it exists anymore, it is because women make non-wage choices based upon considerations unique to women: having and raising babies.

Amy's obvious aversion to being a mother is fine, but it also means that her domestic arrangements are utterly beside the point here.

In an alternate universe where Amy has a baby, I'd put money on her changing the domestic arrangements in a big way, quickly.

To the extent it [a wage gao] exists anymore, it is because women make non-wage choices based upon considerations unique to women: having and raising babies.

Amy's obvious aversion to being a mother is fine, but it also means that her domestic arrangements are utterly beside the point here.

I don't see it as being beside the point, because it's getting to where about a fourth of all women (in the USA) aren't going to have babies at all. So you have a big population of women who decide not to have or raise babies, and it's relevant to look at whether they make the same wages as men.

Is it so far out of the ballpark to think that maybe when some women make the decision whether to have children or not, lifetime earnings might come into play? (Not that I'm saying this is what motivated Amy. Speaking for myself, lifetime earnings was not at the top of my list, but it was definitely ON the list.)

"No one ever wonders whether men can be effective fathers while devoting themselves to a career." MonicaP

Bull. Our wives wonder aloud constantly if we will ever be the good father and husband they wanted when they marry us, and oh, yeah, we should also put in more hours because baby needs a new pair of slippers.

Cousin Dave, sometimes you are just such an ass. Pregnancy is one big hormone fest and both women and men acknowledge this.

Sexist pig males use talk of "raging hormones" to dismiss the opinions of the women around them. There is a difference.

Does being an effective father have to translate into working more hours and making more money? I'm not behind this stuff about good fathers demonstrating that they are such because they are "good providers."

It sounds like there are some women who want to do all the kid-raising work themselves, and just want a man to pay for everything. But what I'm seeing more and more is that while women are willing to take a HIT to their income (and career development) in order to have more time for a decade or two to raise kids, they still want to work at least some of the time.

This could mean that the father doesn't have to worry about making more money, just because they've had a kid. If the couple spent their time before having kids saving money and paying off their mortgage, for example, you could easily have one full-time earner and one part-time earner absorb the kid costs completely. The father doesn't have to work any harder than he did before.

If I had kids, I wouldn't want my kids' father to be no more than a wallet and sperm donor. Presumably, I married this person and chose to have kids with him because I loved and admired him in many ways. So how is he going to pass those characteristics on to our offspring if he never gets to see them?

Maybe it's good advice not to father children with a woman who is just doing it because she wants to quit her job.

"Maybe it's good advice not to father children with a woman who is just doing it because she wants to quit her job." PirateJo

uh, sure, and you are going to figure that out with sodium pentathol or a mindmeld? It wouldn't be bad if they said it in so many words, you could plan for that, you could decide if you accept it.

Nope, why would they risk you saying NO? Once you are married and have a kid on the way, they own you legally.

Okay, SwissArmyD, then maybe it's a good idea not to father children altogether. Who says it takes sodium pentathol or a mindmeld to figure out why a woman wants kids? If mean didn't a) hear only what they want to hear, or b) listen with the little head, I'm sure they could figure it out before getting screwed legally. If you have sons of your own, make sure they know that, even if you didn't.

And don't start sounding like BOTU! I know your divorce sucked, and you got hosed, but let it be a learning opportunity. You can't blame yourself for the lies and sins of others, but you can still find ways to improve your game for next time. Don't get lied to so easily. I don't say this as someone throwing stones from glass houses, either. I'll never trust a "financial planner" again.

Well, if "mean didn't" was supposed to be "if men didn't" - but I'm sure you caught that.

But what about all the other things I said? Clearly there are ways for men and women who share the same goals about child-having and rearing, to make it happen. You have to figure out what you want, and then find someone who wants the same things you do. And who isn't lying about it! Bullshit detectors should be in good working order. Improve them if necessary.

>> This could mean that the father doesn't have to worry about making more money, just because they've had a kid.

That's been the promise from the beginning, but it's never come about. Having women in the workforce has only driven up income expectations. Most women still want a man who makes significantly more than they do. This is why we now purportedly have cities filled with single professional women who can't find husbands.

>> I DO understand why mothers are upset with the situation, because life has told them they can have it all, and they believed it.

I think we've reached the point where women need to be told NO, for their own good. It takes a certain lack of maturity for an adult to expect that they are entitled to the fantasy that is promoted to women in America.

What's interesting is that real career women recognize this. Women who have worked through their entire career, and foregone having children, tend to be unsympathetic to the claim that Suzy homemaker is being cheated.

marion, I also work in tech and am a woman and thought your comment about geeks was pretty funny.

In college as a comp sci major and at work, I can think of only one person who I suspected of treating me not so well because I'm female, and that may have been related to his culture. Then again, I never expected to be treated badly because I'm a woman, and I don't really look for it. Sometimes if you look for stuff, you'll find it, even if it's not really there.

I also think frequently women are more loyal to companies than men.

By the way, all the arguments about the long-term employee thing, whether the person is male or female, you're taking a gamble. Who knows what's going to happen down the road.

When I was in college, comp sci was mostly male. There might be four of us females and 20 males in a class. Some women found that intimidating. I never minded.

I've never understood why more women didn't go into this field. I don't remember teachers ever encouraging or discouraging my interest in computers particularly or saying anything negative about girls learning math. However, I wonder it it's related to math. Engineering is supposed to require math skills. I've always been reasonably good at math, but even in Gen X, there's been some tendency for girls to think they're supposed to be bad at it.

And Jody and Sam miss the point completely. Now answer me this: do women get to use their hormones as an excuse for bad behavior, or do they not? If they do, then why isn't the "raging hormones" insinuation valid? If not, then why did it come up in the first place? Note that I'm not the one who brought it up.

I didn't miss the point, I picked up on your snarky subtext. You brought the "raging" part into the discussion; MonicaP mentioned that she believed the reason her friend initially lost interest in working was related to hormones, because she regained interest once she stopped breast-feeding.

Of course women do not get a free pass "to use their hormones as an excuse for bad behavior." I don't even think focusing on your infant more than your career is bad behavior, provided the parents in question were making decisions as a team.

Every time I read this board I am so so so grateful for my parents, who love and respect each other, made decisions together, and had each other's back. And get this, angry men: My dad was supposed to be the sole caregiver for us, because my mom was our breadwinner. (As a public school teacher. They were master budget-ers.) But he about lost his mind raising three kids under age 4, so they both worked part-time and took care of us together. As a team! Imagine that!

"No one ever wonders whether men can be effective fathers while devoting themselves to a career"

Of course not, the greatest part of a father's role is providing the resources for his offspring. Providing iron discipline is a gradual process over time, part of which is set by example, part by instruction, and a large part by the sheer fact that, in the words of my daughter, "I like it better when daddy is a big teddy bear instead of big and scary." As Chris Rock said, "You can be the baddest momma on earth, but NUTHIN will bring a child in line like, "I'm gonna tell your daddy!" Dads are not as appreciated as a general rule, compared to mothers, simply because the father's role is not as often pronounced as the mother's is. However, the impact of his absense is obvious. His role is not more pronounced until children age, especially with regards to boys as he molds them into men...but women who ditch their husbands will never see that, and never understand why they themselves so often fail.

----------------

And Jody, if hormones have to come up in conversation as a reason or excuse or source of negative influence, chances are the word "Raging" in reference to them is not so much "sexist" as it is "Redundant".

Sam, the women that MonicaP mentioned had made an important agreement with her husband about how their family was going to be structured -- and then she broke it. And the excuse offered was "hormones". You don't get to have it both ways. Either hormones rage, or they don't. If they don't, then you don't get to use that as an excuse.

And Sam: you talk at me like you're familiar with my commenting history here, but clearly you aren't. For one thing, I don't recall seeing your name here before. For another, if you had ever read some older threads here, you'd see that I've drawn a distinction between the first- and second-wave feminists, and the current crop of gender feminists. The second-wave feminists would be horrified at a woman using "hormones" as an excuse for anything.

So lets see.

We have a woman, telling us about another woman who out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever - indeed no intention of doing so in the first place quits her job.

Then ater she was done breastfeeding this woman does another 180 and decidses to go back to work.

According to woman number one(who said she belives her freind) woman number two attributes both 180 degre changes in attitude on her hormones.

Along comes a man who decribes this as 'raging hormones'

One definition of raging is very intense.

So to recap we have a story of a woman who self admitedly suffered from hormonse doses so intense as to override her rational mind, and yet somehow it all comes back to "angry men" for using one word which accutalty described the situation?

Seriously? Angry men?

Doesnt seem like its the men who are angry

>>For another, if you had ever read some older threads here, you'd see that I've drawn a distinction between the first- and second-wave feminists, and the current crop of gender feminists. The second-wave feminists would be horrified at a woman using "hormones" as an excuse for anything.

Don't be so fucking pompous, Cousin Dave.
I hang around at Amy's a fair amount and I'm not at all clear about your precious distinctions - nor do I understand how "waves" of feminists suddenly turn into "crops".

>>One definition of raging is very intense.

And another one is: nutso.

But if you feel the need to enlighten us about hormones, why not explain some of the mechanisms of their action?

"(He just taught me how to cook a steak...don't laugh...cook it slowly and it's more tender.)"

I would suggest Dr's Eades Sous Vide Supreme. Kind of pricey, but you just put the bagged steak in the machine, set the temp for desired doneness and pluck it out when you're ready. Could be an hour or 24 hours later ... doesn't matter. You've got a perfect steak, tender as butter, every time.

The point of me bringing up my friend was not to give her a pass. She clearly went back on her word, and her husband suffered for it. But it's not helpful to assume that people do these things to screw men over, or because they feel entitled or see men as walking wallets. The desire to stay with her child is probably a very good evolutionary reaction, but it bashes up against the way modern people live their lives. I've heard more than once the words, "I had no idea I would feel like this."

Hormones are important, and it's ridiculous to think of them as passing flights of fancy that are invalidated by rational thought. Men have hormonal surges, too. It's why a very wise male friend of my family, when I was leaving for college, warned me that all men will lie for sex, even good men, that he lied for sex, and that I should be careful. Because none of us is as rational as we like to think we are, especially when we're talking about something as hormonal -- for both genders -- as reproduction.

Bull. Our wives wonder aloud constantly if we will ever be the good father and husband they wanted when they marry us, and oh, yeah, we should also put in more hours because baby needs a new pair of slippers.

Whose wives? None of my friends do this. Maybe it's the quality of the women and not women in general?

Sorry if this happened to you. But I have read hundreds of thousands of words of women going back and forth about whether working women can be good moms. No blame on men here. This isn't men vs. women.

Again, this isn't "men bad, women good!" stuff. The challenges facing the genders are just different, and men and women might fight about this stuff less if they just acknowledged the differences in human experience rather than harp on who's at fault for it all.

I'd get Dr. Eades Sous Vide Supreme in a hot second

It's awesome. We've done so many fun things with it.

ah, sorry PirateJo, I didn't make myself clear enough... bullshit meters and such only go so far, people have to actually be lying...

for somebody that changes their mind, as MonicaP says: "I had no idea I would feel like this."
there is no lie in that, but there has to be the space for it to happen. there has to be an assumption that even if you had said anything to the contrary, it's OK to change your mind. Because your husband will accept it. Because somehow you can get by on less. Like anything, there are a thousand shades of grey here, and for some people this works fabulously, and for others not as much. A lot of it depends on how you ask, or if it slides towards a demand.

My larger point ends up being that a guy should assume that he will be the only breadwinner, so that he isn't surprized if he suddenly is. The whole question of marrying well still stands regardless.

"Whose wives? None of my friends do this. Maybe it's the quality of the women and not women in general?" MonicaP

Actually what I see, often is a very subtle disparagement, or asking an unreasonable question in a reasonable way, knowing what the answer is. Like saying "why can't you come to Billy's ballgame, you can just take off from work early..." in front of Billy, knowing full well that there's an assignment due at work for an unsympathetic boss, and it can't be done. I've seen those happen from the side, heard them over speaker phones. The worst is when the kid calls you up and asks you something "well, mom told me to call you..."

Quality of men and women are variable, true, and I have a number of friends who have been maried upwards of 25 years. and still there are these little needles all the time.

"I sometimes cheerfully loathe your comments Spartee - but I appreciate your honesty here.

You describe the women who are often trying hard to bridge the endless years after full time motherhood & before they're free to return to full time employment, as gals who are just "working part time and hanging with [their]kids".

If that's how you dismiss mothers juggling part-time jobs & family demands, at least I can understand some of your anti-women jibes. (For example, about females and their "sex-drive flu"!)

Your indignation on behalf of stay at home parents would be more appropriate if I hadn't, at various times in my career, been a care provider for my own then-young kids, at the expense of my career, I note.

In short, I know what it is to leave a demanding career to provide care for young kids. Do you?

"The point of me bringing up my friend was not to give her a pass. "

Monica, I didn't think it was. I took the opportunity of your post to bring up a point that a lot of people try to ignore whenever this "wage disparity" subject comes up. Admittedly I used provocative wording, but I did so to put it in a context. As you point out, we've had many discussions here about how certain average behaviors of both men and womem are dictated to a significant extent by the forces of evolution, as expressed (in part) by our hormonal systems.

(Unfortunately a few commenters here were unable to get past the visceral reaction that's been drummed into them by over-exposure to gender feminism, and as a result they went completely off the rails. Interesting that I seem to know more about the history of feminism then they do.)

I hope your friend was sincerely apologetic to her husband, because obviously any time that a family makes big plans and then one spouse changes their mind at the last minute, that puts a big strain on their partner. Having said that, I think that maybe it's a possibility that they should have made a contingency plan for prior to the baby arriving. Because you're right; pregnancy is a hormone-fest and sometimes stuff happens and you have to switch to plan B. And that gets back to the wage disparity: when a couple has a baby, which parent is more likely to feel the need to take extended time off of work? Statistically, it's the mother. And if you take, say, two years off from work, when you come back you're going to be making less than your colleagues who worked over those two years.

So looking at it from an employer's perspective, there's a certain amount of risk inherent in hiring a woman that is not there (or at least much less) with hiring a man. You may protest that the stats don't do much to predict the actions of any one woman. That's true; the stats are rather subtle trends that only show up in large sample groups. But how do you know? Asking a woman interviewee questions about her marriage or family plans is specifically illegal. It's one of the first things they warn you about when you take job-interviewer training.

So what do we do about it? I'm not sure, but I do think we have to acknowledge the influence of gender-specific behavior trends. Pretending they don't exist at all is just not acknowledging reality. On the other hand, a civilized society should not permit them to be used as excuses either. Let me give you an illustration: Suppose a female friend snaps at me for no good reason one day. Then the next day, she comes back to me, and what she says falls into one of these categories:

* "I was PMS'ing; deal with it."
* "I was PMS'ing; I'm sorry and it won't happen again."

In the first case, she's using her female-ness as an excuse for bad behavior. My response to that will be "Later much, beeyotch." But in the second case, it is on me to forgive and forget. She has stated that she knows what she did was wrong, and she has implicitly identified why she did it and will be more careful in the future. I've obviously never experienced PMS, but I'm told it can seriously suck. OK, I get that. And it's not like I never had a bad day and barked at someone who didn't deserve it.

That's what I call acknowledging the reality, without allowing it to be used as an excuse. That's why I hope MonicaP's friend with the new baby really made an effort to apologize to her husband. And I also hope that her husband forgave her and helped her draw up another plan. Because that was the reality.

>>In short, I know what it is to leave a demanding career to provide care for young kids. Do you?

Of course.

Been there, Spartee. Done the part-time freelance thing before the children got to school age. Very glad we were happy with just two kids (both of us come from large families). I found the juggling miserably hard.

Cousin Dave,
"Let me give you an illustration: Suppose a female friend snaps at me for no good reason one day. Then the next day, she comes back to me, and what she says falls into one of these categories..."

Have you gone completely mental?

How on earth does this stupefyingly boring what-if anecdote of yours about a hypothetical, charmless snit between friends have anything to do with Monica's married couple and their infant?

Why should society give a flying fuck what happens in your example?

I'm not sure, but I do think we have to acknowledge the influence of gender-specific behavior trends. Pretending they don't exist at all is just not acknowledging reality.

This is definitely sticky territory for businesses and individuals, because, as you say, stats are one thing and individual behavior is another.

Women who dedicate themselves to their careers (or juggle family and career well) shouldn't have to start at a disadvantage because the math says they will probably be less valuable than male employees. And employers shouldn't have to ignore statistical probabilities. Perhaps the answer is giving individual women the benefit of the doubt unless they prove they don't deserve it. People who aren't performing shouldn't get pay raises and promotions.

That's why I hope MonicaP's friend with the new baby really made an effort to apologize to her husband.

I don't know whether she has apologized, but she IS working her ass off now, so things look back to normal for them. But now he wants another child and she is putting him off because she's trying to re-establish herself professionally.

I swear to God, sometimes I wonder how humans have survived this long.

"Paycheck Fairness"?! More PC feminoid bullshit.

Women make less because they choose to work fewer hours in more comfortable, convenient and safe jobs, and they choose not to pay the heavy personal price required to compete for top management positions.

Longer hours per week and more years on the job aside, I have yet to see the feminist who is willing to acknowledge that men deserve higher pay overall for no other reason than because they account for 95% of all workplace injuries and fatalities. (To a feminist, a man's life is worth nothing, it appears.)

The earnings differential is really all about MARRIAGE, and to a lesser extent, kids: Married men make more than everyone else. Married women make less than everyone else. For a long time now, never-married men have made LESS than never-married women (surprised?).

So, clearly marriage reduces a woman's earnings drive -- especially when she is a mother, while it increases a man's earnings drive -- especially if he is a father. Hmmm. Sounds like the situation is naturally working out best for --- having children!

No wonder the feminists are pissed off! Their goal is to expel women from the "oppressive" home and the "burdensome" role of motherhood and propel them into the workplace -- where they can keep wages low and be good little work-drones (good for the corporate bottom line) and taxpayers (good for expanding government)!

In most urban areas today, young women make MORE than young men -- due primarily to women's growing monopolization of educational resources.

I can hardly wait until women indeed have the same economic "power" that men currently have -- the whining will only reach new heights! When women "achieve" men's current situation, women will have the "power" to:

-- Control a MINORITY of the country's wealth, rather than the majority they currently control;

-- Earn most of the household income, but give the bulk of the money to their husbands to spend as the men determine;

-- Pay the vast majority of taxes to support social security, medicare and other social programs, but receive only a small fraction of the benefits.

-- Have no chance of finding a husband unless she makes more than he does, and is willing to support him if he decides he needs to "find himself."

-- Spend most of their time away from their homes and children, while others rear those children (Daddy? The "village"?)

-- Die significantly earlier than men due to stressed-out, work-dominated lifestyles.

-- Etc.

At the end of the day, of course, it is the few, mostly-male, CEO's and politicians at the top who benefit from feminism, along with a few token women. Everyone else suffers.

Why are women so stupid and gullible when it comes to this economic "power" being dangled in front of their faces like a worm on a hook? According to feminists, one should apparently aspire to be the harnessed mule, rather than sit in the wagon, because the mule is out in front, with all the "power."

Ladies, are you having fun yet?

Happiness is a warm puppy.

"How on earth does this stupefyingly boring what-if anecdote of yours about a hypothetical, charmless snit between friends have anything to do with Monica's married couple and their infant?"
-JodyT

Dunno Jody, could it be that both things are blamed on female hormones, and the reaction after sets the stage for understanding or unhappieness...

Or maybe this is just a guy perspective thing.

Interesting that I seem to know more about the history of feminism then they do.)

No it isnt, as wih any courrpt, brain dead ideology it depends on its followers blind devotion, unquestioning naivite, and general stupidity.

Interesting that I seem to know more about the history of feminism then they do.)

Same as any other speices, breeding enough to surive stupidity long enough to breed more

Soory, that second comment was twords Monicas wondering how our species survives

"Longer hours per week and more years on the job aside, I have yet to see the feminist who is willing to acknowledge that men deserve higher pay overall for no other reason than because they account for 95% of all workplace injuries and fatalities."

Assuming that statistic is correct, men account for 95% of all workplace injuries because they CHOOSE more dangerous jobs. It's not like men (or women) are dying from stapler accidents at the office. By this logic, construction workers, policemen, and firefighters should deserve higher pay than software developers, accountants, and CEOs since these are much riskier and higher-fatality jobs. Unfortunately, that's not the way society works.

And if you think that achieving equality will be so crappy for women, why even protest?

Shannon, that question about the construction workers is actually an interesting question. Of course, the answer is that the market sets the wages. And the market depends both on how much need there is for that job description, and how many people are trying to get into that field. I can tell you (because a relative of mine has checked into it recently) that in the city where I live, the police department is currently not taking applications because they have an enormous backlog and few positions open. I was surprised too; I had no idea that so many people were anxious to get into police work. But here at least, the supply is huge and the demand is small. So I'm guessing the patrolman on the street here isn't making six figures.

Software is the opposite: there seems to be a never-ending demand for it, and quite frankly, the percentage of the population who can do it well is quite small. Quite frankly, about 90% of the people who think they can write code actually suck at it. It takes a certain kind of mindset to do it well and keep at it year after year. So even though the potential applicant pools have expanded enormously in the past two decides, with the field becoming opening to people from India and Asia, there's still a shortage of good software engineers.

On the other hand, when you look at the skilled construction trades, they actually make money comparable to the software geeks. Have you priced an electrician lately?

"By this logic, construction workers, policemen, and firefighters should deserve higher pay than software developers, accountants"

In fact, Shannon, including overtime pay, benefits, job security, and pensions, they not only deserve better compensation, they often get it. At the highest levels of those respective occupations (Fire Chief, Police Chief, company owner), the pay levels are equal to or better than what many CEO's make.

All this aside, thank you for proving my point about how callous so many women are about men's vastly disproportionate occupational injuries and deaths -- suffered through their CHOICE to sacrifice themselves so they can provide for their FAMILIES. To you, apparently, men are just mules, creatures you don't give much of a thought about -- so long as the (probably air-conditioned) wagon you're riding in gets where you're going safely.

"And if you think that achieving equality will be so crappy for women, why even protest?"

Because I (unlike you, apparently) am not a misogynist. So you don't mind if women end up worse off just so long as they are suffering in the name of "achieving equality"?

I have always said that no one hates women like feminists hate women...