if you equalize everything else, it’s a fact that full-time men work more hours on average per week than women do
I just skimmed read, didn’t read the entire rant.
In my experience, men are held to higher expectations than women, that’s where the glass ceiling for women is. I worked with various cultures, I noticed that more conservative cultures with traditional view on gender roles expect men to be Superman; working almost six days if they could. I had a classmate from Nigeria who has been married. He was working two jobs at the time even though his wife is getting frustrated because he goes home late and occasionally sees his wife. She even implored me to talk to his husband about it. I did and mentioned to him it is affecting their marriage. Maybe he didn’t realise it because he is in that culture, but as an outsider with cosmopolitan background, misogyny/patriarchy are still to be blamed for holding men to extremely high expectations. And even if women meet the standards, biases from men (not all men) could impede them further. So, women keep working harder than men but their achievements receive fewer recognitions.
I’m lucky I am in a country where it is more or less equal. Men aren’t really held to impossible standards, although of course, toxic masculinity still exists to some; internalised mysoginy in the case of some women.
Last time I checked, only 13% of women are billionaires across the world, despite half of population are women. Extrapolate that and downsize it, the gender ratio and pay gap is still skewed for many countries. Although, I might have to applaud the billionaire class for being racially diverse as a consolation.
Nothing that I wrote there can fairly be called a “rant”, and I think you know that, and are just trying to give yourself a reason to not pay attention to it—it’s easier to rationalize dismissing it if it’s a “rant”.
I worked with various cultures, I noticed that more conservative cultures with traditional view on gender roles expect men to be Superman; working almost six days if they could.
This is why I compared men and women in similar positions, instead of just looking at the whole sex top-down. What you describe here can explain why women are more likely to work part-time, for example, but I’m comparing full-timer women to full-timer men. Even when it comes to women and men in the exact same job position, men work more hours on average, that’s the simple fact of the matter.
Last time I checked, only 13% of women are billionaires across the world, despite half of population are women.
Only 20% of librarians are men, despite half the population being men. So, using the above logic, that has to be because the library ‘industry’ is heavily sexist toward men. Right?
The notion that men and women want and pursue the same things professionally at the exact same rates is demonstrably nonsense, but it’s the premise required to draw conclusions about sexism based solely on the sex ratio in any professional demographic being anything other than exactly 50/50.
The notion that men and women want and pursue the same things professionally at the exact same rates is demonstrably nonsense
Because sexism still exist? Like I mentioned, misogyny and internalised mysoginy still exist to varying degrees. In my home country, there was a taboo on men working as nurse, but overtime it went away and now you would see as many male nurses as female ones. Then I moved to the West, for a culture supposedly more egalitarian, there are still fewer male nurses; it’s mainly people from my home country and maybe Indian men who work as male nurses. I had a male friend mocked for wanting to do nursing when we were in school. The same sexism exists on other roles with fewer women. Of course, there are still some innate differences between a man and a woman and some jobs might require utilising the difference; like men tend to be stronger so more men work in construction. But in jobs where the differences don’t make any, well, differences, perception of traditional gender roles is obsolete.
With all that said, you are telling me that somehow only few women want to be CEOs and become billionaires? There are plenty of competitive women and choose to focus on their careers. There is no fundamental biological reason for women not to pursue becoming CEO, aside from socially imposed traditional gender roles. If you are still not convinced, there are countries with higher shares of female CEOs 12. In South East Asia, where I am from originally, there is higher concentration of female CEOs compared to others, in spite of the broad conservative values and there are reasons for that which is too long to mention in this post.
Perhaps men work longer, because there is still either conscious or unconscious bias they are expected to be the breadwinners and “suck it up” when it comes to working longer; while women are still expected to provide more caregiving roles and thus they are expected to give up their careers to take care of children. As we speak, there is also still taboo on the idea of stay at home dad because the role is “for women”, like there is taboo on men being nurses.
I have seen all the of talking points on the gender debate so I can kinda expect what the other person might say. All I can say on the topic is that people are missing the forest for the tree. That being said, and sorry for trying to sound like I know better, but it helps to have a more cosmopolitan view.
No. Sexism could be a reason that one is prevented from doing what they want, but I’m talking about the desire itself, one step before that. Men and women don’t want the same things at the same rates, in the first place.
All the way from infancy, there are well-established average differences in preferences, long before the age where “sexism” has any meaning to them. The notion that there is no difference between the sexes until societal pressures push them one way or the other is, in a word, bunk.
It’s also been found that significant gender skews like ‘most engineers are men’ and ‘most nurses are women’ are only more steeply tilted in countries where there is more societal gender equality, e.g. Scandinavian countries compared to the US. In other words, the more men and women are truly free to pursue their choice of profession, the more likely they are to choose to be engineers/nurses (for example), respectively. It’s literally known as the ‘gender equality paradox’, because the researchers who discovered this were baffled by the results, having fully assumed that the more equality there is, the lesser the skew would be. But, the simply misunderstand that men and women, on average, simply prefer different things, professionally.
you are telling me that somehow only few women want to be CEOs and become billionaires? There are plenty of competitive women and choose to focus on their careers.
Yes, there are plenty. But there are plenty more men who do. That’s just the fact of the matter. When it comes to the entirety of the (very small, compared to the general population, by the way) demographic of hyper-ambitious workaholics that want to get to the top of their field more than anything else, the fact is that the large majority of that demographic, is male. So it makes perfect sense that the majority of those who succeed in those aspirations will also be male.
It’s exactly the same reason as why most librarians are women. That’s not because men are bullied out of it or anything—a small minority of people who even choose to begin going down that path, by majoring in Library Science in college, are men. They just don’t want to do that for a living at the same rate that women do, similar to how far more men than women want to be mechanical/electrical engineers. So, absent of any sexism, there will still be a large disparity.
And that’s just one example of how large sex disparities can exist with sexism having nothing to do with it. It’s never correct to assume any deviation from a 50/50 ratio in any professional aspect is caused solely or primarily by sexism or societal pressure, especially when it’s been shown that those skews tend to increase when there is more gender equality, as mentioned re the ‘paradox’ above.
And you just purposefully ignored what I said of countries where there are just as many women as men doing the same job, like women CEOs and male nurses in South East Asia.
I just skimmed read, didn’t read the entire rant.
In my experience, men are held to higher expectations than women, that’s where the glass ceiling for women is. I worked with various cultures, I noticed that more conservative cultures with traditional view on gender roles expect men to be Superman; working almost six days if they could. I had a classmate from Nigeria who has been married. He was working two jobs at the time even though his wife is getting frustrated because he goes home late and occasionally sees his wife. She even implored me to talk to his husband about it. I did and mentioned to him it is affecting their marriage. Maybe he didn’t realise it because he is in that culture, but as an outsider with cosmopolitan background, misogyny/patriarchy are still to be blamed for holding men to extremely high expectations. And even if women meet the standards, biases from men (not all men) could impede them further. So, women keep working harder than men but their achievements receive fewer recognitions.
I’m lucky I am in a country where it is more or less equal. Men aren’t really held to impossible standards, although of course, toxic masculinity still exists to some; internalised mysoginy in the case of some women.
Last time I checked, only 13% of women are billionaires across the world, despite half of population are women. Extrapolate that and downsize it, the gender ratio and pay gap is still skewed for many countries. Although, I might have to applaud the billionaire class for being racially diverse as a consolation.
Nothing that I wrote there can fairly be called a “rant”, and I think you know that, and are just trying to give yourself a reason to not pay attention to it—it’s easier to rationalize dismissing it if it’s a “rant”.
This is why I compared men and women in similar positions, instead of just looking at the whole sex top-down. What you describe here can explain why women are more likely to work part-time, for example, but I’m comparing full-timer women to full-timer men. Even when it comes to women and men in the exact same job position, men work more hours on average, that’s the simple fact of the matter.
Only 20% of librarians are men, despite half the population being men. So, using the above logic, that has to be because the library ‘industry’ is heavily sexist toward men. Right?
The notion that men and women want and pursue the same things professionally at the exact same rates is demonstrably nonsense, but it’s the premise required to draw conclusions about sexism based solely on the sex ratio in any professional demographic being anything other than exactly 50/50.
Because sexism still exist? Like I mentioned, misogyny and internalised mysoginy still exist to varying degrees. In my home country, there was a taboo on men working as nurse, but overtime it went away and now you would see as many male nurses as female ones. Then I moved to the West, for a culture supposedly more egalitarian, there are still fewer male nurses; it’s mainly people from my home country and maybe Indian men who work as male nurses. I had a male friend mocked for wanting to do nursing when we were in school. The same sexism exists on other roles with fewer women. Of course, there are still some innate differences between a man and a woman and some jobs might require utilising the difference; like men tend to be stronger so more men work in construction. But in jobs where the differences don’t make any, well, differences, perception of traditional gender roles is obsolete.
With all that said, you are telling me that somehow only few women want to be CEOs and become billionaires? There are plenty of competitive women and choose to focus on their careers. There is no fundamental biological reason for women not to pursue becoming CEO, aside from socially imposed traditional gender roles. If you are still not convinced, there are countries with higher shares of female CEOs 1 2. In South East Asia, where I am from originally, there is higher concentration of female CEOs compared to others, in spite of the broad conservative values and there are reasons for that which is too long to mention in this post.
Perhaps men work longer, because there is still either conscious or unconscious bias they are expected to be the breadwinners and “suck it up” when it comes to working longer; while women are still expected to provide more caregiving roles and thus they are expected to give up their careers to take care of children. As we speak, there is also still taboo on the idea of stay at home dad because the role is “for women”, like there is taboo on men being nurses.
I have seen all the of talking points on the gender debate so I can kinda expect what the other person might say. All I can say on the topic is that people are missing the forest for the tree. That being said, and sorry for trying to sound like I know better, but it helps to have a more cosmopolitan view.
No. Sexism could be a reason that one is prevented from doing what they want, but I’m talking about the desire itself, one step before that. Men and women don’t want the same things at the same rates, in the first place.
All the way from infancy, there are well-established average differences in preferences, long before the age where “sexism” has any meaning to them. The notion that there is no difference between the sexes until societal pressures push them one way or the other is, in a word, bunk.
It’s also been found that significant gender skews like ‘most engineers are men’ and ‘most nurses are women’ are only more steeply tilted in countries where there is more societal gender equality, e.g. Scandinavian countries compared to the US. In other words, the more men and women are truly free to pursue their choice of profession, the more likely they are to choose to be engineers/nurses (for example), respectively. It’s literally known as the ‘gender equality paradox’, because the researchers who discovered this were baffled by the results, having fully assumed that the more equality there is, the lesser the skew would be. But, the simply misunderstand that men and women, on average, simply prefer different things, professionally.
Yes, there are plenty. But there are plenty more men who do. That’s just the fact of the matter. When it comes to the entirety of the (very small, compared to the general population, by the way) demographic of hyper-ambitious workaholics that want to get to the top of their field more than anything else, the fact is that the large majority of that demographic, is male. So it makes perfect sense that the majority of those who succeed in those aspirations will also be male.
It’s exactly the same reason as why most librarians are women. That’s not because men are bullied out of it or anything—a small minority of people who even choose to begin going down that path, by majoring in Library Science in college, are men. They just don’t want to do that for a living at the same rate that women do, similar to how far more men than women want to be mechanical/electrical engineers. So, absent of any sexism, there will still be a large disparity.
And that’s just one example of how large sex disparities can exist with sexism having nothing to do with it. It’s never correct to assume any deviation from a 50/50 ratio in any professional aspect is caused solely or primarily by sexism or societal pressure, especially when it’s been shown that those skews tend to increase when there is more gender equality, as mentioned re the ‘paradox’ above.
And you just purposefully ignored what I said of countries where there are just as many women as men doing the same job, like women CEOs and male nurses in South East Asia.
You’re missing the forest for trees.