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54 40 or gently caress posted:And speaking of I'm wondering what are some of the thoughts surrounding maternity leave and parental leave. I'm due in April and I'm lucky enough to live where we get a year of paid maternity leave, as well as the fact that my employer will top up my employment insurance so I'll be making 93% of my salary. Are you registered for a Baby Box? I know they've been rolling out baby boxes in Canada this past year and I heard that Scotland will be getting the program too. It's based on Finlands baby box system where each newborn gets a box filled with supplies for the new parents and the box can double as a crib. Finland has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. It may not be directly related to feminism, but I think baby boxes are a great thing for new mothers, especially lower income ones who may not have all the supplies they need for proper newborn care.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 04:44 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:43 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:The reason it is mandatory is absolutely to avoid what you're talking about; these types exist here as well, though they're not as powerful or loud as in the US. Its utterly baffling that we don't invest more in childcare in America. The return on investment is incredibly good at all levels of society. Well, no, I know exactly why we don't invest more in childcare. Idiots think it would undermine the mother/child bond if we made 'easy ways out' for them to 'abandon' their kid. Its the same idiot reasoning behind denying women's health services: the most disgusting kind of paternalism.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:00 |
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Not a Step posted:Avoid 'cheats' like baby language, don't offer shortcuts. This is off-topic so this is all I'll say, but baby language isn't a "cheat," it's natural and something a lot of mammals do. It's good for babies. It shouldn't be the only way you talk to them, but doing it is good and fine and helps them learn. It's like baby food. It's not wrong to give it to a baby just because eventually they'll grow teeth and need adult food. There's actually a sexism aspect to the criticism of baby talk - paternalistic male researchers arbitrarily decided anything mothers were doing without their guidance was stupid and wrong. Kids are humans and thus great at code-switching. Just because they call their stuffed bear a "baba" at two doesn't mean they'll be calling the park rangers reporting a grizzly baba sighting at twenty.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:16 |
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Nessa posted:Are you registered for a Baby Box? I know they've been rolling out baby boxes in Canada this past year and I heard that Scotland will be getting the program too. Not a Step posted:Its utterly baffling that we don't invest more in childcare in America. The return on investment is incredibly good at all levels of society. Even here in Iceland it took women forming their own political party to kickstart things for the better. (though, yes, the left wing parties did involve women far more than the right wing ones and even mandated half, dad)
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:34 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:This is off-topic so this is all I'll say, but baby language isn't a "cheat," it's natural and something a lot of mammals do. It's good for babies. It shouldn't be the only way you talk to them, but doing it is good and fine and helps them learn. It's like baby food. It's not wrong to give it to a baby just because eventually they'll grow teeth and need adult food. There's actually a sexism aspect to the criticism of baby talk - paternalistic male researchers arbitrarily decided anything mothers were doing without their guidance was stupid and wrong. Kids are humans and thus great at code-switching. Just because they call their stuffed bear a "baba" at two doesn't mean they'll be calling the park rangers reporting a grizzly baba sighting at twenty. Im talking about those baby genius things where they get kids to express words through simple motion rather than trying to form and sound out words. It was a popular thing for awhile. It can short circuit the learning process by providing a 'good enough' method that doesnt build into true language unless its a lead up to full on sign language. Grammar is an important component and additional layer of complexity to language acquisition. To stretch the exercise metaphor to the breaking point its like a compound lift compared to a Smith machine of just saying unrelated words. Also baby talk is cool and good, so long as its words that mean things. Kids can pick up any language humans have ever invented, clearly baby talk isnt going to impede anyone. It just needs to have meaning and structure and you're good to go. Oh! And being bilingual is a *massive* bonus to development, so if you or your partner know a second language use that just as often as you use your primary language. Kids are smart and can pick up on two different language structures and will separate things out on their own.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:35 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I would think that something that supports mothers, which are to my general knowledge quite often women, would be very feminist indeed? It's one of the reasons we support the introduction of it here. That is true. Baby boxes are definitely feminist and I feel they should be standard in every country.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:45 |
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Not a Step posted:Im talking about those baby genius things where they get kids to express words through simple motion rather than trying to form and sound out words. It was a popular thing for awhile. It can short circuit the learning process by providing a 'good enough' method that doesnt build into true language unless its a lead up to full on sign language. Grammar is an important component and additional layer of complexity to language acquisition. To stretch the exercise metaphor to the breaking point its like a compound lift compared to a Smith machine of just saying unrelated words. Oh yeah, that poo poo. Real baby sign language is really cool but infants have no business watching DVDs of any kind. And you don't know this about me but I'm super into weightlifting so the smith machine analogy was perfect. The way babies acquire multiple languages is fascinating (they do better if each parent sticks to a single language, for instance), although young bilingual kids can do deceptively poorly on language development testing if the person testing them isn't taking that into account - like if the test were measuring vocabulary size and 1000 is normal, your bilingual kid might only have 600 english words but another 600 in spanish. The kid is actually above average, but their parents need to advocate for them and make sure their educators are setting expectations accurately. My favorite thing about baby boxes (aside from their nigh-miraculous help with infant safety) is that the people behind them took the time to make everything cute. It's not drab government-issue "you'll take what you get and you like it" stuff. It's designed with an awareness that the babies who will be using it are special and treasured.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:59 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Oh yeah, that poo poo. Real baby sign language is really cool but infants have no business watching DVDs of any kind. And you don't know this about me but I'm super into weightlifting so the smith machine analogy was perfect. The way babies acquire multiple languages is fascinating (they do better if each parent sticks to a single language, for instance), although young bilingual kids can do deceptively poorly on language development testing if the person testing them isn't taking that into account - like if the test were measuring vocabulary size and 1000 is normal, your bilingual kid might only have 600 english words but another 600 in spanish. The kid is actually above average, but their parents need to advocate for them and make sure their educators are setting expectations accurately. Unless anyone else is interested I'll call this discussion here, but the 600/600 thing wasn't something I personally ever thought of. My wife does that kind of thing professionally though and if she was awake I'd ask her, and she'd probably tell me at length about yet another way one size fits all testing fucks over kids. I'm mainly just repeating what she's told me over the years, shes the actual scientist. My area is poverty and labor economics. To bring it back around to the thread topic we long ago established that when we have a kid I'm going to be the primary care giver because she likes her career way more than I like mine and frankly shes much more influential. Its left me in a somewhat frustrating place at times though, since I'm always the trailing spouse when we move for her career and have to find whatever is available. As a result I do relatively boring data analyst work that has nothing to do with my personal interests, although the coding is sometimes interesting. I get most of my personal fulfillment through talking with her about her career and the challenges she faces, since they often touch on policy and early childhood investment. I also do most of the work maintaining the household because she frequently works late or brings projects home, so its just easier for me to keep the rhythm of housework going. I'm relatively content, but it would be weird if we hadn't worked this out while we were dating and instead I had just been expected to conform to this role.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 06:29 |
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A psychologist my mom worked with told her and my dad not to try to teach me 3 languages growing up because it would impede my development but gently caress that poo poo, both me and my sister were speaking/reading above our levels in both languages by kindergarten and we totally could have handled a third. I wish I spoke Spanish damnit
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 06:40 |
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Is there a thread for educational politics? That'd be really interesting, this is a fascinating topic!
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 07:01 |
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Not a Step posted:Unless anyone else is interested I'll call this discussion here, but the 600/600 thing wasn't something I personally ever thought of. My wife does that kind of thing professionally though and if she was awake I'd ask her, and she'd probably tell me at length about yet another way one size fits all testing fucks over kids. I'm mainly just repeating what she's told me over the years, shes the actual scientist. My area is poverty and labor economics. Yeah that was a real experience a family I knew growing up had - their son got put in some kind of delayed language skills program at school because of it and he was pretty miserable until everyone figured out the flaw in the test. Grill your wife on a bunch of stuff and then start a politics of education thread please
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 07:15 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Yeah that was a real experience a family I knew growing up had - their son got put in some kind of delayed language skills program at school because of it and he was pretty miserable until everyone figured out the flaw in the test. I'll talk to her about it, but I'm not great at organizing material into a thread. She worked for a couple of years for a midsized school district in the South. That was just an exercise in sadness but it touched more on racism than feminism.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 07:30 |
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Hi thread, long-time lurker, first-time poster... On the topic of women in the workplace, the Gallup Poll just sent this article out on their newsfeed today: The Dwindling Female Labor Force in the US quote:From 1975 to 2000, the labor force participation rate -- the percentage of the population that is either employed or unemployed and actively seeking work -- among U.S. women rose dramatically. But at the turn of the millennium, it began to decline and has been falling ever since. quote:The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that full-time working women make 83% of what full-time working men make. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that women who hold full-time jobs earn 79 cents for every dollar that men with full-time jobs earn. The gap is even more pronounced for African-American and Latina women, who earn 64 cents and 56 cents, respectively, for every dollar that white, non-Hispanic men earn. \
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 16:48 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:This is off-topic so this is all I'll say, but baby language isn't a "cheat," it's natural and something a lot of mammals do. It's good for babies. It shouldn't be the only way you talk to them, but doing it is good and fine and helps them learn. It's like baby food. It's not wrong to give it to a baby just because eventually they'll grow teeth and need adult food. There's actually a sexism aspect to the criticism of baby talk - paternalistic male researchers arbitrarily decided anything mothers were doing without their guidance was stupid and wrong. Kids are humans and thus great at code-switching. Just because they call their stuffed bear a "baba" at two doesn't mean they'll be calling the park rangers reporting a grizzly baba sighting at twenty. This is really refreshing to read. I've always been super wary of baby-talk with my son, but still indulge him a little here and there and felt guilty about it. My son clearly knows what a pacifier is, and that "pacifier" is our word for it, while his is "bao." I've taken to asking him where his "bao" is, and he'll usually produce one he's hidden somewhere in the room, or at the very least go looking for it. Also, baby-boxes are an amazing idea, and I'm glad that they're becoming more of a thing. Nessa posted:That is true. Baby boxes are definitely feminist and I feel they should be standard in every country. 100%.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 17:58 |
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I did get my baby box and it's great, it wasn't an overwhelming need for me since I'm privileged enough to be financially comfortable at this time but it's an initiative I wanted to support and take part of. It is feminist as gently caress and I'm also glad it's becoming more and more commonplace Rabbit Hill posted:Hi thread, long-time lurker, first-time poster... On the topic of women in the workplace, the Gallup Poll just sent this article out on their newsfeed today: The Dwindling Female Labor Force in the US Wow I'm shocked, not. This goes well with how it's just not sustainable financially to have children with costs that demand both parents to have a career, and guess who is going to be encouraged to give up their career? I also love the wording of "outdated company cultures". See: commonplace sexism.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 18:05 |
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Since gender equality in other countries was discussed, I'll talk about one I've worked with a bit. Japan probably has one of the worst patriarchal systems that disadvantages women in a developed country. Their politicians know this, and have recognized this as a problem, but the country itself is incredibly slow to realize the impact it has on society. : http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...r/#.WH-jOD8zXIU The Japanese government at one point offered incentives to any company that promoted women into management positions. Not a single company took the offer. Apparently there were other stipulations that went along with it. Currently only about 9% of management positions in Japan as of 2015 were held by women. The government wants to hit 30% by 2020, but realizes that's highly unlikely. It created an old boys' club, and men are four times more likely to have to work more than 60 hours in a week than women. This in turn has created Karoshi (death by overwork) where workers just die at their job, or commit suicide from the stress of their job. It goes to show how much the patriarchy hurts men as well.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 18:28 |
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54 40 or gently caress posted:I did get my baby box and it's great, it wasn't an overwhelming need for me since I'm privileged enough to be financially comfortable at this time but it's an initiative I wanted to support and take part of. It is feminist as gently caress and I'm also glad it's becoming more and more On this note, have a story about succeeding in science as a woman. Connie Eaves posted:I've always been impatient and in a big rush so I wanted to have children early in my career. I was very strongly advised by my supervisor, who I admired and respected enormously, that it wouldn't be very clever to have children when I was pursuing my doctorate. So I didn't get pregnant until I was a postdoctoral fellow. Still, I think that when I did become pregnant it posed a challenge to my supervisors in their trying to predict how serious I was in becoming a career scientist, and this was exacerbated by my having all four children within 7 years. But I was determined to be very active in my career so I never took time off work. I only took two weeks off when my first child was born and one weekend off for my last. So my supervisors got used to the idea that this was of no real concern to them. (For context, Connie Eaves is now 70, so this is mostly describing events of 40-50 years ago, but it's still a bit ). She is one of the most recognised names in her field, though.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 19:30 |
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seiferguy posted:Since gender equality in other countries was discussed, I'll talk about one I've worked with a bit. Japan probably has one of the worst patriarchal systems that disadvantages women in a developed country. Their politicians know this, and have recognized this as a problem, but the country itself is incredibly slow to realize the impact it has on society. : http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...r/#.WH-jOD8zXIU I'm really skeptical Karoshi would end even if the Japanese workforce was an even 50/50 split at all levels. We'd just see women dying more often too. They've got a lot going on over there way beyond sexism in the workplace. Japanese racial attitudes and their justice system makes the U.S. look like a motherfucking speed demon when it comes to addressing problems. Hell, the vast majority of places in the world make the U.S. look pretty good in terms of attitudes towards other people, Europe included. Even Trump marginally adheres to the idea of "good" immigrants who followed the rules whereas in Europe advocating for a melting pot can be grounds for getting your rear end booted from office by someone to your right (or left, see Scandinavian immigration policies) in the next election.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 19:42 |
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Lead out in cuffs posted:On this note, have a story about succeeding in science as a woman. God that's rough. It's easy to imagine mandatory parental leave in white-collar jobs where every day is pretty much the same, and coworkers can usually take over the tasks without retraining or a huge hit to their own duties, but in something like science... there are discoveries that will happen in those years you're having your babies, and they can be discovered by you if you're there or they can be discovered by someone else if you're not. If you have multiple kids and take the recommended amount of time off for each, your field could have changed so much you'd need a whole new degree to catch up. "That's the tradeoff people make when they choose something like science," some will say, except men never had to make that tradeoff. Lots of historic scientists had kids, sometimes tons of them. But their wife was at home handling that poo poo. It wasn't their problem or their supervisor's problem. We need a completely new societal understanding of work and its place in people's lives. It would reach far beyond childbearing too - people need time off to live their lives, to attend to medical needs, to support family members, to rest and try new things. Imagine if that meteoric rise in American productivity had come with a corresponding drop in hours worked.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 19:46 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:God that's rough. It's easy to imagine mandatory parental leave in white-collar jobs where every day is pretty much the same, and coworkers can usually take over the tasks without retraining or a huge hit to their own duties, but in something like science... there are discoveries that will happen in those years you're having your babies, and they can be discovered by you if you're there or they can be discovered by someone else if you're not. If you have multiple kids and take the recommended amount of time off for each, your field could have changed so much you'd need a whole new degree to catch up. Maybe I'm completely off base, but it seems like pushing women who want to succeed in careers like this to find spouses who would support them in their pursuit (and making it okay for men to fill that role) would be the ideal outcome, right? Part of excelling and making real progress in difficult fields is having the support structure that makes it possible to do so while still having some semblance of a life outside work and still pursuing other goals (like children), and as much as it gets looked down upon a family structure with a stay at home parent to care for the house and children doesn't actually seem like a bad thing in theory, and the main problem is that in practice our culture pushes us to rest that role on the shoulders of women. I mean, I commented on this in the men's thread before it got shut down, but it's super relevant to women's issues too - our society simply doesn't offer the respect to support roles (not just parents) that they deserve, and this cuts across genders and layers of society and the harms of it have largely fallen on women, both because those support roles are often dominated by women and because for women to succeed to the extent men historically have we absolutely need men to be willing to fill those roles in their place.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 20:21 |
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DeusExMachinima posted:I'm really skeptical Karoshi would end even if the Japanese workforce was an even 50/50 split at all levels. We'd just see women dying more often too. They've got a lot going on over there way beyond sexism in the workplace. Japanese racial attitudes and their justice system makes the U.S. look like a motherfucking speed demon when it comes to addressing problems. Hell, the vast majority of places in the world make the U.S. look pretty good in terms of attitudes towards other people, Europe included. Even Trump marginally adheres to the idea of "good" immigrants who followed the rules whereas in Europe advocating for a melting pot can be grounds for getting your rear end booted from office by someone to your right (or left, see Scandinavian immigration policies) in the next election. Oh, I agree that that a stressful workplace wouldn't go away with more women in management. But I certainly think it would help in that it would begin dismantling the old boys' club that is the main pusher of "stay a few hours after work, also we're going drinking after work. If you don't show up, you're probably not going to get that promotion" mentality. Granted, a lack of women in management is a problem in the US too, and I think that also has a strong correlation as to why our parental leave policies are so awful.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 20:30 |
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GlyphGryph posted:Maybe I'm completely off base, but it seems like pushing women who want to succeed in careers like this to find spouses who would support them in their pursuit (and making it okay for men to fill that role) would be the ideal outcome, right? Part of excelling and making real progress in difficult fields is having the support structure that makes it possible to do so while still having some semblance of a life outside work and still pursuing other goals (like children), and as much as it gets looked down upon a family structure with a stay at home parent to care for the house and children doesn't actually seem like a bad thing in theory, and the main problem is that in practice our culture pushes us to rest that role on the shoulders of women. Supporting egalitarian marriages and tearing down the patriarchy and toxic masculinity bullshit that prevents men from being equal partners is great and something I wholly support, but the woman will still be the one physically bearing the child and she'll still need time and accommodation for that. Maybe something like a year of mandatory parental leave for each parent, which the mom can use during her pregnancy or after as needed, and the dad can use anytime. I know some couples who are lucky enough to have good parental leaves at both their jobs alternate taking short chunks of time off, so neither has to fully put their careers on hold, although of course that won't be possible for all jobs. Flexibility in work hours would be a massive help - say mom does mornings at home, does the first few feedings and pumps to tide the kid over through the afternoon, then dad comes home and takes over while she goes off to work a half-day. And yeah, we should celebrate this poo poo. Sending a coworker off to parent for a while should be applauded like when the CEO takes a month off to climb everest. Ideally if everybody's taking leave employers would stop acting surprised every time and treat it like a crisis, and those employee absences could be used as a chance to cross-train workers or give someone new to the field some experience to pad their resume, something. I support structured time off for childless workers and workers who need to handle non-childrearing related domestic support issues, but I think that's less a feminist thread discussion than a labor rights discussion. Somebody make that thread!
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 20:33 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Maybe something like a year of mandatory parental leave for each parent, which the mom can use during her pregnancy or after as needed, and the dad can use anytime. I think it got alluded to in some previous posts, but the Nordic approach is pretty close to this, with an added incentive for the non-child-bearing partner (trying to be inclusive of lesbian couples here) to bear an equal share of the childcare responsibilities. https://sweden.se/society/10-things-that-make-sweden-family-friendly/ quote:In Sweden’s efforts to achieve gender equality, each parent is entitled to 240 of the 480 days of paid parental leave. Each parent has two months reserved exclusively for him or her. Should a father – or a mother for that matter – decide not to take them, they cannot be transferred to the partner. It kinda also helps that basically everybody is unionised. But yeah, two (or three) years total would be ideal, since it would help eliminate the gap between birth and pre-K.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 21:35 |
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Lead out in cuffs posted:On this note, have a story about succeeding in science as a woman. This is what my wife encountered when she was still an academic. Having a personal life is only permitted after you've got your position, or else it shows lack of dedication to the job and potential flight risk. We didn't even get 'formally' engaged until after she had decided to get out because apparently a newlywed is expected to be primed for baby leave at any moment. Rabbit Hill posted:But, you know, the pay gap is a myth!!! I did study labor economics so this is one of the few things I can speak about. The important thing to remember when talking about the pay gap is that when you control for job type, industry, experience, tenure and education it mostly goes away. I think theres something like a 5% residual 'unexplained' pay gap, and a lot of that has to do with pay negotiation. This doesn't mean the pay gap isn't real. What it means is the focus on fair pay laws is largely missing the point and are kind of a cop out (although laws that force more transparency in pay negotiations would be a major positive). The pay gap manifests mainly in structural issues around labor participation, family leave, promotions and other intangibles that affect how women move through the ranks rather than just the number on the pay check. For instance, successful women are significantly more likely to leave the work force to focus on family, leaving the top end of the wage distribution skewed towards men. Women at all levels are also far more likely to be 'secondary earners' whose labor participation rate is highly influenced by job type and economic circumstances (by comparison men put in 40 hours a week in basically all circumstances). Basically the pay gap is real but it doesn't manifest directly in your pay check. Its a poo poo cupcake where the cake is the choices women are forced to make between work/life balance that men aren't with a frosting made of network effects from heavily male upper management and a cherry of closed door negotiations on top. Lead out in cuffs posted:It kinda also helps that basically everybody is unionised. But yeah, two (or three) years total would be ideal, since it would help eliminate the gap between birth and pre-K. Out of curiosity, is this per child? Is there an upper limit on children before benefits are reduced? I'm always curious as to how policy handles edge cases. Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jan 18, 2017 |
# ? Jan 18, 2017 21:44 |
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Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but NPR did a series called Stretched on paid parental leave in the US. I found the series very interesting. It's really depressing how poorly the US handles this issue.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 21:48 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:God that's rough. It's easy to imagine mandatory parental leave in white-collar jobs where every day is pretty much the same, and coworkers can usually take over the tasks without retraining or a huge hit to their own duties, but in something like science... there are discoveries that will happen in those years you're having your babies, and they can be discovered by you if you're there or they can be discovered by someone else if you're not. If you have multiple kids and take the recommended amount of time off for each, your field could have changed so much you'd need a whole new degree to catch up. I completely agree with your greater point, but I feel like after the recession many employers decided to force folks to perform the jobs of 2-3 people so that this sort of thing becomes artificially difficult. Which leads to... Tiny Brontosaurus posted:And yeah, we should celebrate this poo poo. Sending a coworker off to parent for a while should be applauded like when the CEO takes a month off to climb everest. Ideally if everybody's taking leave employers would stop acting surprised every time and treat it like a crisis, and those employee absences could be used as a chance to cross-train workers or give someone new to the field some experience to pad their resume, something. But let's be honest here, employers are going to whine and cry about every loving thing they can.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 22:03 |
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Solkanar512 posted:I completely agree with your greater point, but I feel like after the recession many employers decided to force folks to perform the jobs of 2-3 people so that this sort of thing becomes artificially difficult. Which leads to... Yeah great point, a fully-staffed workplace can absorb attendance fluctuations, one cut to the bone can't. And it's good to have reminders as often as possible that the presence of whining doesn't mean something progressive is a bad idea, because whining is inevitable.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 22:06 |
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Not a Step posted:Out of curiosity, is this per child? Is there an upper limit on children before benefits are reduced? I'm always curious as to how policy handles edge cases. I'm not Swedish (though my ex-wife was, so any experience I have was from talking to her/friends/family), but I believe so. Apparently you can also take it any time until the kid is eight years old. I guess in theory you could chain together your leave over several kids, but you'd have to have them pretty close together (like, get pregnant again a few months after the previous one was born) for that to actually work. My sense of the society is that this would just be accepted, including by the employer. For additional context on the work culture, everyone gets a minimum of five weeks vacation per year, and most people take this in one run over the summer. It's just accepted that most businesses will be running at low capacity during that time. Come to think of it, this also helps a lot with having kids since it coincides with school holidays.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 22:11 |
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Lead out in cuffs posted:On this note, have a story about succeeding in science as a woman. There's a lot of survivor bias among leading women in science, so you get older women who are amazing for putting up with the kind of poo poo they did and succeeding in spite of it, but who also take a "poo poo sucks; gotta deal if you're gonna be a woman in science" approach to mentorship. In biology, we've now reached gender parity at the PhD level, but we lose women during their post-docs because they hit their 30s and lose interest in dealing with the work-life bullshit and biases. One of the most outspoken advocates for women in science in my field is a trans male, which blares loud and clear how heavily the system fights and destroys outspoken women.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 22:15 |
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There are similar problems in my field. We all know there aren't enough female directors, producers, and writers, and that leads to a dearth of female stories, but tackling that problem from the top down is only half the battle. Studios are telling the truth in some respects when they say they can't find enough women to hire. It's because those women get pushed out at earlier stages - they don't have the wealth or crony connections to fund independent films so they don't make it on the festival scene, they don't get the PA jobs because women "aren't cut out for it," they don't get promotions because they didn't get invited to the strip club business meeting, they don't stick with their film major in college because of one too many creeps in the all-night editing lab, they don't pick up cameras in high school because AV club is made up exclusively of vicious girl-hating nerds, a million different problems, many of them so "trivial" that men sputter and dismiss them as whining and proof that women can't hack it if they're going to let a little thing like that bother them.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 22:21 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:There are similar problems in my field. We all know there aren't enough female directors, producers, and writers, and that leads to a dearth of female stories, but tackling that problem from the top down is only half the battle. Studios are telling the truth in some respects when they say they can't find enough women to hire. It's because those women get pushed out at earlier stages - they don't have the wealth or crony connections to fund independent films so they don't make it on the festival scene, they don't get the PA jobs because women "aren't cut out for it," they don't get promotions because they didn't get invited to the strip club business meeting, they don't stick with their film major in college because of one too many creeps in the all-night editing lab, they don't pick up cameras in high school because AV club is made up exclusively of vicious girl-hating nerds, a million different problems, many of them so "trivial" that men sputter and dismiss them as whining and proof that women can't hack it if they're going to let a little thing like that bother them. The same in code. Although I would particularly cite *internal* stereotypes, the ones that say "girls don't like to code, they find code boring" as the #1 biggest factor. You can fight the patriarchy to do something you really want to do. You can't fight you own subconscious desire at 11 years old not to install Python and spend hours pottering about with it, because everything about code is so "boy branded."
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 22:28 |
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To elaborate on primary vs secondary earners a bit, two earner households (in the US, which is what I studied, things may be different elsewhere) tend to have a primary earner and a secondary earner. The primary earner, in general, provides a fixed supply of market labor pretty much regardless of the returns to labor. In other words, primary earners work 40 (or 50 or whatever) hours per week almost regardless of their take home pay. Households fine tune their income through the secondary earner. Secondary earners are highly influenced by take home pay and competing demands for home production. In the US women stereotypically are secondary earners, or transition to being secondary earners once they accumulate enough wealth and/or their partner makes enough income. 'Secondary' earners should really probably be called 'home production specialists' though, while 'primary' earners are 'market production specialists'. The split isn't inherently sexist. It holds up even in lesbian households. What is sexist is that woman are just automatically assumed to be home producers and men are automatically assumed to be market producers, regardless of their own preferences and abilities. I don't have JSTOR access anymore so finding papers for most stuff is hard, but I liked the lesbian earner study enough to keep a link to a free pdf handy: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1351193
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 22:31 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:There are similar problems in my field. We all know there aren't enough female directors, producers, and writers, and that leads to a dearth of female stories, but tackling that problem from the top down is only half the battle. Studios are telling the truth in some respects when they say they can't find enough women to hire. It's because those women get pushed out at earlier stages - they don't have the wealth or crony connections to fund independent films so they don't make it on the festival scene, they don't get the PA jobs because women "aren't cut out for it," they don't get promotions because they didn't get invited to the strip club business meeting, they don't stick with their film major in college because of one too many creeps in the all-night editing lab, they don't pick up cameras in high school because AV club is made up exclusively of vicious girl-hating nerds, a million different problems, many of them so "trivial" that men sputter and dismiss them as whining and proof that women can't hack it if they're going to let a little thing like that bother them. Another hard example of toxic masculinity is that this sentiment is reinforced to men in that they are expected to dismiss just about any problem that isn't bleeding to death in one another as whining. Worse, they'll call it "bitching" to really drive the whole 'women are bad, therefor you're being a woman' narrative home.
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# ? Jan 18, 2017 23:07 |
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Not a Step posted:To elaborate on primary vs secondary earners a bit, two earner households (in the US, which is what I studied, things may be different elsewhere) tend to have a primary earner and a secondary earner. The primary earner, in general, provides a fixed supply of market labor pretty much regardless of the returns to labor. In other words, primary earners work 40 (or 50 or whatever) hours per week almost regardless of their take home pay. Households fine tune their income through the secondary earner. Secondary earners are highly influenced by take home pay and competing demands for home production. In the US women stereotypically are secondary earners, or transition to being secondary earners once they accumulate enough wealth and/or their partner makes enough income. Nothing to add except you might still have access to JSTOR and other journal resources through a public library system.
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# ? Jan 19, 2017 00:53 |
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I'm technically still a grad student so I do have access to a bunch of stuff. I'm not sure if my school tracks what I search through them, or if it matters, but if there's any specific articles anybody desperately needs, I can see what I can do.
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# ? Jan 19, 2017 02:08 |
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seiferguy posted:Since gender equality in other countries was discussed, I'll talk about one I've worked with a bit. Japan probably has one of the worst patriarchal systems that disadvantages women in a developed country. Their politicians know this, and have recognized this as a problem, but the country itself is incredibly slow to realize the impact it has on society. : http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...r/#.WH-jOD8zXIU Story: We visited a Japanese company and I get to talking with one of the women working there. She's actually been a philosophy undergrad like me (though her masters was in something else) and were getting it on fairly well when she had to go out and do her job. which was making tea for those of us visiting. The masters educated woman was made to do tea for the men When I talked to her about it afterwards she told me it was something she'd grown used to and was just happy she wasn't still working in Japan and that her Icelandic boyfriend was way cooler than her Japanese one. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Supporting egalitarian marriages and tearing down the patriarchy and toxic masculinity bullshit that prevents men from being equal partners is great and something I wholly support, but the woman will still be the one physically bearing the child and she'll still need time and accommodation for that. Maybe something like a year of mandatory parental leave for each parent, which the mom can use during her pregnancy or after as needed, and the dad can use anytime. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I know some couples who are lucky enough to have good parental leaves at both their jobs alternate taking short chunks of time off, so neither has to fully put their careers on hold, although of course that won't be possible for all jobs. Flexibility in work hours would be a massive help - say mom does mornings at home, does the first few feedings and pumps to tide the kid over through the afternoon, then dad comes home and takes over while she goes off to work a half-day. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I support structured time off for childless workers and workers who need to handle non-childrearing related domestic support issues, but I think that's less a feminist thread discussion than a labor rights discussion. Somebody make that thread! One of the best speeches I've heard at a feminist event was when the head of the nurses union was making GBS threads on the doctors for not siding with them, only for them both to be shot at by the, first responders (translation?) union head in an epic speech for them sticking together against them because they weren't university educated, which made the nurses into great big hypocrites despite their valid complaints.
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# ? Jan 19, 2017 18:17 |
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Ah, the nurse thing reminds me. There's a lot of misogyny associated with midwives as well. Where I live it is absolutely incentivized to go to a midwife as your primary care provider unless you have a high risk pregnancy. It's fantastic, you have someone who is university educated and has taken further education on pre and postnatal care for both mom and baby. Still, there are huge issues with things like getting notes from a midwife and how much respect is given to the role. It's really sad to see.
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# ? Jan 19, 2017 19:09 |
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54 40 or gently caress posted:Ah, the nurse thing reminds me. There's a lot of misogyny associated with midwives as well. Where I live it is absolutely incentivized to go to a midwife as your primary care provider unless you have a high risk pregnancy. It's fantastic, you have someone who is university educated and has taken further education on pre and postnatal care for both mom and baby. What do you mean by getting notes?
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# ? Jan 19, 2017 19:10 |
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:What do you mean by getting notes? For example, I was getting some episodic migraines from what is likely hormone fluctuations. My work sick leave policy is only three absences in a six month time span. So I mentioned the headaches to midwife, she writes me a note advising my employer that I may potentially need some discretionary sick days due to these headaches in my pregnancy. The response was that the midwife note wasn't adequate, it had to come from my family doctor. Any kind of medical notes. Their reasoning is under the guise of "if it's that bad you should be seeing your doctor" but midwives are genuine primary care providers for pregnant women. They have the power to send you for blood work, they can prescribe certain medications, and they're a lot more accessible than doctors in terms of wait times and not to mention they have the specialization. When I told my midwife about this she said they have a secondary letter that explains midwives are PCP, because this is a documented issue.
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# ? Jan 19, 2017 19:46 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:43 |
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54 40 or gently caress posted:For example, I was getting some episodic migraines from what is likely hormone fluctuations. My work sick leave policy is only three absences in a six month time span. So I mentioned the headaches to midwife, she writes me a note advising my employer that I may potentially need some discretionary sick days due to these headaches in my pregnancy. The response was that the midwife note wasn't adequate, it had to come from my family doctor. Any kind of medical notes. I guess I can't be surprised, but wow, what a bunch of bullshit.
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# ? Jan 19, 2017 19:55 |