I wonder if certain fields are getting coded as “soft” sciences or “women’s interest” programs and others are getting coded as “manly he-man mammoth slayer” fields.

Absolutely. At Harvey Mudd, biology was nicknamed “humanities.”

Kirbywarp, the number of women dominated managerial positions will increase as the disproportional number of college and graduate educated women continue to feed into the system.

So there’s no inequality because…there might not be inequality in the future?

Yourr riught mags…there aren’t many women garbage collectors. Here,s my experience. I know the job pays well, I knoww there are benefits. Both of which beat food services wages hands down. The job is smelly. Well that’s what showers are for. So, there are job openings for sanitation workers and I applied. I can lift and carry fifty pounds for an extended period of time and that was one of the questions asked on the application. I get called in for an interview. I get told that I’m too small to do the job. They refuse to believe I can lift fifty pounds repetitively. Also, for a lot of women, childcare factors in. Not many providers willing to be up and working at five am so mom can be at work on time.

The fact that I’ve done farm work (lived in a small town) including haying and therefore KNEW what I could and could not handle and had references to that fact had absolutely no bearing on the interview, which was over the moment I walked in the door. And that’s the way it goes with a lot of heavy labour jobs. I get told that they don’t doubt that I’m a hard worker, they just doubt my ability to keep up so I don’t stand a chance.

While arguably it’s a more gendered problem, I’m not sure we need a men’s suicide organization any more than we need a women’s lung cancer organization.

Still, I certainly wouldn’t object if concerned people started one, as long as it had activities other than “harass feminists on the Internet.”

(Or more often, “harass feminists on the Internet about things like ‘rape doesn’t really happen’ or ‘uppity women should be beaten,’ then being up men’s suicide as a chip in the ensuing argument, giving no indication at any other time that you give a shit about men’s suicide.”)

https://www.google.com/webhp?rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&sourceid=chrome-instant&ix=sea&ie=UTF-8&ion=1#hl=en&rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=comparison%20of%20male%20and%20female%20doctors'%20salaries&oq=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&gs_l=&pbx=1&fp=d54c0545889e0871&ix=sea&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1024&bih=475

I’m in medical school and the gender ratio is pretty much 50:50 (with some bouncing around between years). However, there are more men going into physical disciplines (surgery) or ones which require a partner who takes care of the kids for long periods (ICU, ER, cardiology). The disciplines that have lots of women are the ones that deal with kids or allow for flexible hours to accommodate their families (Family practice, pediatrics).

Not sexism you say? I’ve been explicitly told that I shouldn’t do surgery by someone in health care because women aren’t tough enough. I’ve also had people encourage me to work with kids “because I’m so good with them.” As women, we are expected to take time out of our careers to spend with our children – to the point where most of my classmates are planning their futures around when they will have children. Meanwhile there are about a dozen fathers in my class of 180 (5 of whom have had or will have a baby this year). No one sits around questioning about whether they will be able to be good fathers with the workload and time away from home. Nobody questions whether their wives will care for their kids. By contrast, if a female med student has a child it suddenly calls her entire career into question.

Unless you’ve married someone very successful/wealthy, a female physician is going to be the primary income earner in a family. So why the hell is there the assumption that women, not their partners, will be the main caregiver of their children?

Hint: the answer is not “There’s men who don’t get into medical school!!!!111”

Flora: oops, thanks for SHARING your experiences!

Lauralot: There are men’s mental health organizations, I’m pretty sure.

Kirby: Depression may be underdiagnosed among men, because depressed/suicidal men may turn their depression outward (such as through violence or substance abuse) because of crappy-ass masculinity shit, and a lot of people are not prepared to deal with that.

Mags: I attempted suicide. Fuck off.

Let’s also note that there is often a large disconnect between who goes to school for a career and who actually ends up in the field. Any number of my college friends, who went into science or medicine or other “serious” careers, are now leaving to have children and have no plans to return to work in the foreseeable future.

It’s a bit of an elephant in the room; it isn’t exactly that they’re going to school and starting work as a hobby or diversion before getting down to the “real” business of parenting, and when we talked about this sort of stuff in college they would always say that they intended to balance career family, but when it actually came down to it, the career went out the window.

I see Manboobz is directed by the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee.

hey david, i notice you’ve totally failed to close the thread even though katz already won it.

On the women as candidates issue, as usual for mras, it’s an oversimplified cherry picking:

http://rooneycenter.nd.edu/assets/11304/dolan_conference.pdf
http://jcelestelay.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/herrnson_lay_stokes.pdf
http://prq.sagepub.com/content/57/3/479.abstract

There was one woman who graduated in my major in my undergrad program (not counting me, since I’m not a woman). None of my in major professors were women. I suppose those men got rich from choosing the super lucrative career field of “philosophy major”?

It’s worth pointing out to that the top major for women is business right now. Second is health professions majors. M’Kay? And a higher percentage of men than women go into social sciences or history. It is true that women have a slightly higher percentage of art and liberal arts jobs, but do you think men are getting rich from social sciences and “protective services” jobs? http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/02/top-10-college-majors-women-forbes-woman-leadership-education_2.html Science and computer majors, with specific differences between those (http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/02/top-10-college-majors-women-forbes-woman-leadership-education_2.html) are notoriously unsafe and unencouraging learning environments for a lot of women as well. I’m really wondering why you think that men’s social sciences degrees are so sexy vs. women’s social sciences degrees in equal numbers, for example, or what about the business and health degrees?

‘and when we talked about this sort of stuff in college they would always say that they intended to balance career family, but when it actually came down to it, the career went out the window’

We? Interesting. I have literally never in my life heard a male business owner, actor, politician or other public figure get asked how they’d be balancing family and work. Because people don’t expect them to.

TK, I’m female, so yeah, it was an all-female discussion.