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Comment by a3n | Hacker News Reader

It's not too long ago that women wouldn't be promoted or considered for certain jobs, because they might get pregnant and leave. That was an all but accepted and admitted practice.

There are certainly current results from those legacies, since people tend to hire people like themselves. And there probably are more than a few surviving neanderthals that still believe those practices should be followed.

So yes, being a male, just like being white in the US, does give you certain current or legacy advantages.

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You make many claims that are not really validated. And what does "like themselves" even mean. People can be different or similar in many aspects, gender being just one of many. Is a man who hates math and loves football more like me than a woman who likes maths and hates football (I hate football and like maths)?

Also, perhaps women getting pregnant was and is a real issue. There might be real risks and costs attached to companies.

And you make the same mistake as the parent I replied to, looking at thing out of context: presumably there are jobs where women were less likely to be promoted, but at the same time you neglect that there are jobs where men are less likely to be promoted (or being hired to begin with). Overall, men don't get a free pass in society, otherwise there wouldn't be so many books and articles on career advice. It's not like "hey, you are white and male? - hired!".

The context mistake is particularly easy to see in IT: because there are many more men than women in IT, for every woman who doesn't get promoted there are several men who don't get promoted. But only if a woman doesn't get promoted it makes headlines and she can sue for sexism.

Not to be too blunt, but you are supporting the parent's point about the existence of neanderthals who still believe that women are a bad idea, because they might get pregnant. You've just given legitimacy to that exact opinion!

Real risk or not, it's the cost of doing business in America - it is illegal to discriminate against women on that basis.

It's a neanderthal idea that women get pregnant? Funny... Did you get your biology education in the bible belt?

Neanderthals are deemed to have been gentle and intelligent, btw, their reputation as brutes was misguided.

Men did not invent pregnancy. If you want businesses to hire women, it seems fair that you should compensate them for the added risk.

Suppose you have two equally qualified candidates, one male, one female. If an employee quits, it costs you months of productivity and thousands of dollars to recruit a new candidate. Obviously the male candidate is economically more viable because he is less likely to drop out because of children.

If you don't acknowledge that issue, you will never be able to help women (if they need help, which is not a given). I think the state should pay businesses for the loss, or perhaps even reward businesses if their employees become pregnant, if society wants more women to be hired.

Feminist stance is of course that men should be equally like to drop out and take on the "burden" of raising kids (that is what feminists think of family life - the only explanation why women put up with children is because the patriarchy forces them to do it). The reality is that being allowed to spend time with their kids is actually a privilege, not a burden. Women drop out to enjoy the time with their kids. They also tend to choose professions that don't allow them to provide for a family long before they even have kids.

Otherwise, why wouldn't they just continue to work and use their salary to pay a nanny?

One hamfisted solution would be to require both men and women to take the same time off if they were to have children. That way one gender isn't seen as having a greater possibility of taking longer parental leaves.

Mandate that both parents must take at least some baseline time off from work. Say mandate at least three months. There will be people who take longer, and some who opt out of work altogether but this would eliminate the thought pregnancies get in the way of productivity for one gender and not the other.

This is pretty much what happens in Scandinavian countries. E.g. in Sweden, parents each get three months of paternal leave. An additional part of the paternal leave can be divided between parents as they see fit. https://sweden.se/society/gender-equality-in-sweden/

Have to make sure the family has still enough income, as women often choose lower paying jobs. Also take care of the desire for part-time work, sick children and issues like that.

Lastly, this would actually take away privileges from women (privilege to choose to be a stay-at-home mom), but if that's what feminists want, why not.

Ha! Neanderthals butchered and ate their neighbors in the winter when food was scarce. Doesn't sound very gentle to me.

It also doesn't seem like an overwhelmingly helpful survival trait for the species, given that the only thing left of Neanderthals are a few genes here and there. Similarly, the only thing left of modern social Neanderthals are a few scattered and aberrant practices.

It's a neanderthal idea to determine whether or not you're going to hire/promote/review a candidate based on what plumbing is in their pants.

Acknowledging the 'issue' you described above isn't taking a brave stance against overreaching feminism. It is actually illegal. Not to say that people don't do it all the time. (Yay, at-will employment!)

This conversation is actually a perfect illustration of how one aspect of gender-based discrimination works.

And if we're going to talk about speaking statistically, according to the Disparate Impact clause, if whatever criteria you use for employment happens to statistically discriminate against a protected class, what you're doing is also illegal.

(And while we're here, black people are more likely to get arrested, and Russians are more likely to be alcoholics. I'll be sure to mention that the next time hiring is under debate.)

By making it illegal, governments simply weaseled out of the issue and put the burden on business owners. If they really would have wanted to solve the issue, they should have compensated business owners for the risks of hiring women instead.

It being illegal is pretty irrelevant for the discussion - in Nazi Germany it was illegal to be a Jew. Laws are being made by fallible people.

Is it really discrimination if arguably the man brings higher value to the company than an equally skilled woman? This is very different from discrimination against minorities, because there is an actual relevant difference between men and women.

It's not fair, but that is what nature has handed us. If societal consensus is to make up for the difference, society should do so via their governments, not shift the burden to random private people. It's not a business owner's fault if you get pregnant, especially since it's probably illegal by now to have sex with an employee.

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