I met an underwriter through synagogue who works at the predatory lending office mentioned in this article (Queen Funding LLC). I will have a talk with him about this..
Your friend will nod in agreement, but nothing will change. He went into the firm and is staying on mostly likely knowing what is going on, because the pay is too good.
That’s awesome. Hope it results in some positive action, but I’m not optimistic one person would maje a difference in the face of many getting fat off this.
I know a bunch of beautiful, accomplished women with great jobs who can't find good men to start a family with. Young mens' failure-to-launch is becoming a big problem....
I'm going to talk about some gender differences that are true in general, and I could back up with citations if I had the time. But remember everybody is their own special case - things that are true in general for a population don't necessarily describe individuals of that population.
1) Women tend to marry up. An accomplished woman with a great job wants a man with a better job. That shrinks the pool a lot for her! A beautiful woman wants a beautiful man, or is willing to trade some beauty for other qualities like status, money, personality, etc. This shrinks the small pool even further.
2) An accomplished woman is likely in her mid thirties, she's got just a couple years to find someone and start having kids to have that family. A small pool with a tight time-frame.
3) Many of the "good men" in 35-45 age group are already married. That pool just keeps getting smaller.
I mean really she wants a 35-45 year-old hyper-successful man who's still single. Those kinds of men are probably not looking to marry 35 year old women. They're super desirable men and they can date from the pool of more desirable twenty year old women. Seems like a very tough situation to be in.
While I recognise a lot of truth in this, I don't think there's ever been a time when I'd have wanted to date or marry a woman 20 years my junior. I have some lovely friends in that range, but they're socio-culturally so different from me (as a reasonably successful, well-off middle-aged man) that it's hard to see them as partner material.
I think what eloff hits on is a gating problem in the choices that each sex typically makes in eloff's construction of their interactions.
Successful women want to marry someone as or more successful, making their pool smaller. Men don't tend to worry as much about marrying someone as or more successful as them, so as you move up the "success" distribution, women have ever fewer choices, and men even more, causing a lot of mismatching problems for women above [x] percentile.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Successful women in their mid thirties find themselves with nearly no options (because of their own preferences which are deeply rooted in culture and genetics), while the kind of men they are interested in have all the options in the world. It's really unfair - and I think it's not discussed enough that women who focus on their career first often do it at the expense of having a family. It's very hard to get both as woman - and you choose in your early twenties and find yourself locked into that decision. Men don't have the same problem.
I'm not sure what advice I would give to my future daughters, other than make it clear to them that it's a very important choice they'll have to make.
Agreed, it's a bit ridiculous. Twenty years is probably too much (especially for a long term relationship) although I do know men who do that.
I went 9 years my junior and it has mostly been a good thing. Especially where starting a family is concerned it has made it so we're not rushed on that decision and can get our finances in order first.
I think these beautiful accomplished women you speak of might need to try something different/hit up a new watering hole rather than blame a lack of appropriate salary-man breeding stock, as even this wrongheaded article states that these mystifying jobless millennial men (who are presumably ruining America) total only around 500,000, when the number of millennial men is healthily in the millions.
It's not a failure to launch so much as it is a reasonable choice to refuse a path that is not appealing to them. While I chose to marry and have children I in no way presume that my choice to do so is correct for all; it is entirely reasonable for others to choose differently than I.
Why should the individuals in question follow traditional paths, when there's ample adequate satisfaction and happiness to be found in life paths that carry less personal responsibility and financial burden? If having children and a life-partner does not out weigh the relevant stressors, in their subjective assessment, then I see no reason why they'd choose as I have.
I like how the reason to care about men's failure to launch is the lack of reasonable spousal options for women. Men are people too, independent of their utility to women
Well you know, if perhaps HR reviewed it's practices and didn't make discriminating against men a point of pride, then perhaps there would be less "failure-to-launch".
The laws of supply and demand apply to the marriage market. The most attractive are always in hot demand. Women generally marry up (hypergamy). Successful people pick other successful people. All of these factors shrink the pool.
From what I can tell, women who consistently complain they can't find a good man wants a self-made man who's already succeeded, instead of one in the process of acquiring that success.
This is identical to a guy who quits on the third day because he's not the CEO yet, even though his job is in the mail room and no one even knows his name yet.
Want something in life? Work for it. There are no participation prizes in life: this goes for both the traditional male and traditional female roles. Success only sees success, no matter what you choose to do in life.
By this definition, the example millennial male who is studying to become an EMT is on track to contribute but doesn't qualify as a "good man". Seems a little short-sighted.
if he's not contributing to family life while he's studying then you're right, he's not. He may be aspiring to be a "good partner", but if he's _only_ working on bettering himself that is exactly what most people do not want in a partner.
I know a bunch of single men with nice engineering jobs (mostly aerospace). The notion that there just aren't good people or there on either side just seems silly to me.
Maybe men are smartening up. They don't want to be saddled with a divorce, alimony, child support, or several hundred thousand in college tuition costs down the road.
Good point. I wonder how many people out there look at a $12/hour job and realize they can't afford to live off that after loan payments. Maybe they are holding out for something better, or perhaps are exasperated and given up?
I, as a fairly non-descript white guy, am always worried when out walking near a single female that she might be afraid of me and what I might do and take steps to help alleviate that (walk slower, etc.).
I mean, it seems like the most reasonable course of action. Sure, I'm never going to confront/assault/rape anyone, but the 5'2", 110 lbs woman walking in front of me on the street? She has no clue. How hard is it for me to slow down half a step and give her some relief?
> How hard is it for me to slow down half a step and give her some relief?
Why would dropping back give relief? Seems to me, moving to the side as far as the sidewalk, etc., permits then accelerating to pass so you aren't behind is the better course of action.
Yeah. It's all situation dependent. If you slow, then she'll keep increasing the distance between you. I try to pass if reasonable. Especially if we hit a light or something, even crossing on red if no cars. Really anything that feels reasonable to show I'm not interested in them at all. Hard to give all angles in a comment.
I guess my point is that I feel like you are doing something wrong if you /aren't/ considering how those around you are interpreting your actions. It's like the people at the grocery store who blindly stop their carts in the middle of the aisle and walk away to browse...seriously? You didn't consider how your actions impacted anyone else at all?
You're right, nobody thinks men are smarter than women. And it isn't true.
So, let's think about why we see gender roles in employment. Why are there so few women software engineers? One possible explanation is that women just aren't smart enough. If you don't believe that (and I don't), then you need another explanation. Maybe it's because of sexism. But if you don't want to believe it's sexism (as the OP implied), then what is it? They're not too dumb, and the hiring process isn't sexist, so why? And that's where hands come up empty.
That leads to nonsense like the person on this thread who said women are "wired differently", which presumably makes them less suitable. Which is just a polite way of saying women are too dumb to program, without facing the reality that that's exactly it means.
Except they're not, they're only empty if you haven't done any reading in this field.
> That leads to nonsense like the person on this thread who said women are "wired differently", which presumably makes them less suitable.
That was your supposition, not the only intepretation of those words. In fact, the weight of the evidence seems to support his statement, but similar to Damore, people like you are just fond of attacking reactionary strawman interpretations of the words actually employed.
> Which is just a polite way of saying women are too dumb to program, without facing the reality that that's exactly it means.
No it's not. "Wired differently" can mean many things, only one of which refers to competence.
Maybe anti-male sexism prevalent in the health care and education fields is causing women to prefer those fields.
Fix the sexism in health care/education. Elementary teachers should be 50% men. Nurses should be 50% men. Instead those fields are 90%(!) women! That is a HUGE level of bias and discrimination
Possibility 1: Female-dominated fields discriminate against men.
Possibility 2: Those fields are female-dominated because they can't get into male-dominated fields.
So what do the pay and prestige look like for female fields, vs male fields? Well, take medical. Nurses (low prestige, low pay) are >90% female. Doctors (high prestige, high pay) are about 70% male.
This suggests to me that there's indeed a huge level of bias and discrimination, but not in the way you think.
Possibility 1: Male-dominated fields discriminate against females.
Possibility 2: Those fields are male-dominated because they can't get into female-dominated fields.
Men do not work as teachers because the media has painted men as "sex crazed". Most mothers would be uncomfortable with having a male 4th grade teacher for their daughter.
Many women would be uncomfortable having a male gynecologist or a male nurse helping them deliver their baby.
> Doctors (high prestige, high pay) are about 70% male.
Sorry but this breaks your narrative: 60% of new MDs each year are female. However: female MDs are more likely to quit the profession or go part time in order to raise kids. Again, this might show anti-male discrimination because it is not socially acceptable for male doctors to quit work to stay home with the kids.
---
The above suggests to me that there's indeed a huge level of bias and discrimination, but not in the way you think.
You have a number of issues with your narrative. "Quit the profession or go part time in order to raise kids". So what other reasons do women have for quitting the profession, other than because men are too victimized to be stay at home dads?
--
edit: fwiw, I googled stats. According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, 2017 was the first year ever that female medical school enrollment was greater than male medical school enrollment. I also went to graduation by year as far back as 2002, and it has always been more men than women. So yeah, your statistics are bullshit. Care to offer a source?
--
And mind you, being a stay at home parent is considered a low-prestige, low-pay role. To the extent that it's discouraged for men, that's a result of a sexism that puts men in a dominant role and demeans them for doing "women's work".
The idea that men aren't teachers because the media paints them as sex-crazed is absurd. The gender disproportion of teachers existed long before the media mentioned such things at all. And you offer no evidence whatsoever for the assertion.
> Men do not work as teachers because the media has painted men as "sex crazed". Most mothers would be uncomfortable with having a male 4th grade teacher for their daughter.
> Many women would be uncomfortable having a male gynecologist or a male nurse helping them deliver their baby.
And what is your opinion of the above bit of my previous post (since you avoided that in your answer?)
The way you're ranking occupations has an implicit bias. Let's rank them for work/life balance. Nurses are busy and work long hours, but when the work day is over, they go home until the next shift. Doctors go home, and possibly get paged to come right back.
Is it possible men and women weight values differently when selecting occupations?
There's a presupposition that the natural distribution of intelligence is gender-neutral. Which suggests that the unequal distribution of software engineers by gender has a cause other than intelligence.
So what is the cause, then? Is it biological, or social, or random chance? "Random" doesn't seem likely, especially given how many other professions are male-dominated, and the relative economic and social power of those roles, compared to female-dominated professions.
"Biological", if it doesn't map directly to intelligence, needs another cause - something that can be measured. Do you have a suggestion for this? I don't.
"Social" is the most likely reason, but how is "social" different from "discrimination"? How do you define a social cause for men dominating the industry that can't be readily interpreted as discriminating against women?
is there a reason why you're so intently focused on the metric of intelligence here, as if it's the end-all-be-all of psychological factors?
I work in personality psychology research, so this whole IQ-centric line of reasoning is very dubious to me. There are many other influential phycological factors involved in people's lives that aren't (as far as we know) a direct result of nurture, and when taken together often make a more significant contribution to people's lives than their score in the single dimension of IQ. Learning disabilities and affective/mood disorders are a big example of this, and personality traits are just as impactful in how a person's life unfolds, regardless of intelligence.
It doesn't need to be IQ-based. I'm dubious about any sort of "genetic" argument for why some fields are dominated by men, and others by women. The shift in programming from primarily women to primarily men is evidence for that, imho - if the leanings are genetic, why a change over the course of one or two generations?
>if the leanings are genetic, why a change over the course of one or two generations?
A trait not being the direct result of nurture does not imply it's the result of a traditional long generic process, and this is something that we're only just beginning to scratch the surface of with epigenetics, so it's unlikely that such questions will get definitive answers anytime soon. That being said, the observation that a trait may be determined at birth only suggests that the trait is heritable, but not that it's genetic; those are two separate concepts, and heritability allows for much more variation from generation to generation, such as the case of children of immigrants from poor countries generally being taller than their parents when they're raised in western countries (which is likely due to improved nutrition enabling the full expression of their heritable height).
For example, you could ask the same question about whether the increase in learning disabilities and affective disorders within the past few generations in western societies is also "genetic". The default answer there of course, is that these conditions were only formalized as officially recognized diagnoses recently, and that such traits are only known to be heritable anyway (i.e. there are no definitively known "autism/adhd/etc genes" as of yet), so they're likely caused by the combination of the environment enabling the expression/observation of heritable predispositions. We can then similarly propose a null hypothesis to the male/female divide with the observation that western societies have only recently attempted to become more egalitarian by making various fields more equally attractive than they used to be, along with technological advances creating even more of such equally attractive opportunities, leading to heritable traits expressing themselves more noticeably through choices in the overall job market. In other words, being a professional "gamer" wasn't a viable job option 500yrs ago, but neither was being a professional "camgirl" either (to use two distinct, yet similar and stereotypically gendered "modern" occupations), but being a farmer was, in which case equal male/female distributions among farmers would've been the result of an underlying bottleneck in the pipeline, rather than the lack of one.
To suggest that this issue is either purely "genetic" or purely "social", is severely oversimplifying the matter.
I don't believe there is a heavy bias in favor of female doctors, I believe it is a field still majority male, although becoming almost equal. Nurses were traditionally the only actual healthcare profession open to women so it makes sense they would be overrepresented there.
Male nurses now actually can find they have an advantage in hiring because they often have an easier time with the lifting and physical labor being a nurse often requires.
My point is the comparison between nursing and programming is not strong.
