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Comment by apatters | Hacker News Reader

> I'd like to see more fathers as primary caregivers

I'd like to see moms and dads choosing who the primary caregiver will be in their own families. I don't see why it's the business of government programs, Hacker News commenters, "society" or anybody else.

I identified as a feminist when feminism was about correcting obvious inequalities between the sexes. Nowadays it seems to be more about behavioral engineering and how we can coerce people to behave in a manner which matches our definition of a perfect society. I no longer identify as a feminist.

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Feminism is about behavioral engineering because we live in a winner-take-all society, and even sexism that falls short of "obvious inequalities" can hold people back dramatically. We live in a world where it's just easier for couples to have the woman be the primary caregiver, because of social pressures. Every school, doctor, etc. has my wife and I write down our work numbers. Nobody ever calls me first. I did the entire application process for my daughter's pre-K, and they still called my wife first to remind us to submit the enrollment contract. Merely not leaving your family makes you an above median father in society's eyes. But god forbid you're a mother who doesn't think it's a priority to shuffle your kid from activity to activity all week.

>Nowadays it seems to be more about behavioral engineering and how we can coerce people to behave in a manner which matches our definition of a perfect society.

I haven't noticed this, are you sure it's not your attitude that's changed, not society?

For example, TFA talks about adjusting seemingly unrelated parameters like working hours to exert influence on gender parity benchmarks.

Not that I think working hours aren't too long, considering modern technology, but that's another story.

Trying to persuade people to live differently is not "behaviour engineering", it's how all social change occurs. Society is just people's attitudes and behaviours wrt. each other.

It seems like all you're saying is, "I supported feminism when things i didn't like were criticized. Now things I dont care about are criticised, I don't like it."

Forget the feminism, there's documented problems with your approach in general. You're assuming local optimisation leads to a global maximum (or not caring whether it does), whilst any entrepreneur can tell you that's false.

I think OP is just saying that being a male primary caregiver, or supporting other men who are, is one way to help with this problem. I'm not sure where the coercion is -- what's the threat being made?

> I think OP is just saying that being a male primary caregiver, or supporting other men who are, is one way to help with this problem. I'm not sure where the coercion is -- what's the threat being made?

I don't think there is a threat, but it does ignore the fact that men and women are different. For example, men tend to be more competitive, negotiate harder for pay rises. Women tend to like more flexibility in their work.

Some of us think that the fact that there are fewer male primary caregivers isn't a problem to be solved, but natural given the natural preferences of men and women in general. I think there are many more women than men working in pre-school education for a reason. Furthermore, many women are made to feel ashamed of their desire to be housewives, think it is some failing on their part, and end up seeking a life-consuming career -- not because they want to, but because society tells them they should.

> I don't think there is a threat, but it does ignore the fact that men and women are different. For example, men tend to be more competitive, negotiate harder for pay rises. Women tend to like more flexibility in their work.

How much of that is that we (1) socialize women to be that way; and (2) impose disproportionate parenting obligations on them to begin with, which causes them to seek more flexibility?

> How much of that is that we (1) socialize women to be that way; and (2) impose disproportionate parenting obligations on them to begin with, which causes them to seek more flexibility?

I cannot speak to (2), but cross-cultural studies suggests that differences in the way women are raised across different cultures don't influence women in the way you suggest. In fact, in more prosperous societies, there are greater sex differences, not less: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3JuaIg99X0

This question is what's at bottom of this entire discussion. I'm guessing you think socialization is the overriding factor. Others attribute the majority of the differences to nature.

Everything that's been said in this thread follows from each commenter's position on this question.

> Others attribute the majority of the differences to nature

In the world of policy, we often have to run with an assumption before we can prove it. The question is, what presumption do we apply? The logical thing to do is to make an educated guess from observation. Look at history: Women have long been excluded from the professional world, and been socialized to accept non-economic societal roles. This is recent history: Had my grandmother gone into my field (law), she would've started her career at a time when firms openly refused to hire women regardless of qualifications; had my mom done the same, she would've started at a time when the practice was still widespread and the federal government was fighting to stamp it out. We can also look cross-sectionally. In countries with strong communist influence, the representation of women in science/engineering is much higher than in the U.S.: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/stubborn-obstacle....

If you're a doctor treating a patient who had cancer 10 years ago and it went into remission, you're committing malpractice if that's not the first thing you check for if new troubles arise. Given the above observations, it is disingenuous to start with the presumption that observed differences have biological rather than sociological explanations.

You may think the nature presumption is wrong. Fair enough. But, humbly, you're too confident in your reasoning if you think your case is so strong that the nature camp must be acting disingenuously.

There are all manner of research findings about the biological differences in the sexes. And reasonable people can in good faith build cases from that research just as you've done from the observable evidence.

Would I be wrong to conclude that you have a strong preference for the socialization explanation? I feel like this debate is held back by the illogical and erroneous belief that a socialization explanation is Good, while the nature explanation, should it turn out to be true, would be Bad. Or, that anybody who believes the nature explanation is themselves Bad or at the very least has bad intentions.

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