I don't get this... Male engineers have kids and date too. Female employees, engineer or not, get pregnant. "As a female engineer" I would prefer if people -- including fellow women -- stopped treating us like we are some kind of exotic species.
The questions and answers here aren't necessarily specific to women. The idea of the series is just to ask women engineers questions and see what they say.
But it seems rather stereotyping to start out with kids and relationships for a series about female engineers. Or do "Ask a male or non-gender specific engineer" series also start with those questions?
I mean, they're important questions, but the stereotype seems rather blatant here.
I think it's hilarious that there are so many comments like this one that make it clear that people are criticizing this article without actually reading it.
[As others have pointed out, it's the 4th article in a series so they are not "starting out" with stereotypical questions]
Even before I read this, I expected the comment section to be full of comments being like "why can't it be ask an engineer" or "why are they asking questions about kids, men have kids too".
I've noticed a pattern where if there's any social issue on hacker news that is politically polarized (i.e. women's issues in tech, BLM, diversity in hiring, etc.) you can expect a a huge wave of comments that criticize the article from authors who don't actually read it.
The funny thing is that when you get into social issues that are not that polarizing (i.e. living wages, ethical issues of AI, privacy) the community tends to have a much more intelligent, civil discussion.
Well the problem of our world is that such article's actually support the gender/race/whatever split. I mean they basically want to solve it, but they create a paradoxon by treating these special.
if people would just stop caring about differences we might start to actually have a better world, but I guess we are far far away from it.
well I mean when I search people for a job I mostly look at their performance and if they actually can't meet my requirements I need to say no.
Well now guess what happens if I have 20 canidates and I now pick the canidate with the highest performance, the chance is pretty high that I also indirectly support the split, it's just because a minority will sometimes stay a minority which doesn't actually happen because you treat them differently, but because they either don't have the chance to get better or because some jobs are just not attractive for them.
So the only way to solve the problem is just to stop treating people differently.
Discussion is good, but overly discuss it is not, yeah there was a problem in the past, but I think it actually got better, while the last years somehow made it worse by unnecessary discussions or by people who actually seeked attention and actually put even more salt into the wounds. And the internet made it worse since it makes it hard to differentiate between attention seekers and truly suppressed people.
So you believe that by singling out women we may be adding to the problem because we are reinforcing the culture of treating people differently instead of judging them equally? That's a really fair point; it's exactly why I'm uncomfortable with policy solutions like affirmative action because I think they fight discrimination with discrimination.
This is exactly the type of discussion I'd like to have more of on Hacker News, I'm just making a broader call for us to do better as a community (and try to read the article if you are going to comment).
I think your point is interesting, but what do you propose to do regarding the injustices of the past in women and minority groups? You can't just unilaterally declare that the field is level, and ignore history.
Are you concerned about the women in the past and the injustices that they faced (in which case you're going to need a time machine to fix it) or are you worried about injustice faced by women in the present?
You're basically talking about reparations to a gender.
People of the present come from the people of the past. If society does terrible things to one person's grandparents and good things to another person's grandparents, one of those people is going to have more difficulties growing up. If this was condoned by society, perhaps society should take steps to fix it, otherwise the cycle may continue.
This only applies for segregated societies, though. I can see an argument for reparations to the grandchildren of slaves, for example, because their whole economic structure was impacted in a heritable way. The same doesn't apply across generations for women - if your mother was discriminated against, you suffer equally for it whether you're male or female.
Dude, if your mother was discriminated based on her gender, and you share that gender, you know that her story of discrimination (in the workplace, say) likely applies to you. If you're a man, you know that scare story doesn't apply to you.
This series isn't supportive of gender based discrimination, it simply acknowledges the physical fact that men and women exists as two separable groups, and then asks question to a small sample of the underrepresented group.
There are undeniable differences between women and men, and pretending that they don't exists, as you suggest, doesn't make them go away. It merely means that one of the groups will not have their specific requirements considered.
I'm assuming people haven't read it because the comment (and a several others in the thread) starts complaining that the series "starts" by asking stereotypical questions to women. The first line in the article is talking about this is a series and that it's not the first post (it links to the first one). So I'm making this assumption because people are making a claim directly disproved in the first line of the article.
I do agree that every question in this article is just as relevant to men.
If you want people to improve, you must promote curiosity and indulge their questions. Even when those questions are stupid (in some fashion). Just about the easiest way to shut people up and send them back into their heads, with their patriarchal stereotypes unchallenged, is to tell them that the questions they're asking are wrong.
The industry is crawling. We'd like it to be running, but we need to be patient and allow it to walk first. You cannot build mutual understanding without patience.
I'm a male engineer and single father. So I'm responsible for all of the facets of child rearing including but not limited to dealing with a sick kid. All of the talk of making workplaces better for people with families seemed really foreign to me. I would prefer that my company not even be aware of the concept people having children. It's none of their business. Of course it's not practical for companies to have zero awareness, but the less they are involved the better. If I prioritize X over work, then that's an opportunity for someone else to move into that slot and get the promotion. It doesn't matter if X is boogie-boarding, playing video games, or taking care of a child.
I support extending maternity/paternity leave for everyone. But if I take 3 months off work every year for 4 years in a row I shouldn't expect to get the same raises and promotions as everyone else. If at N years of tenure I get more vacation days? Time spent on paternity leave shouldn't count towards that. It's the same as if I chose to take 3 months off to section hike the Appalachian Trail.
> It's the same as if I chose to take 3 months off to section hike the Appalachian Trail
Only it isn't. If you don't hike, nothing happens. If you (or someone) doesn't take care of your sick child, including doctor's visits if needed and so on, that is a criminal act. You are responsible for your child.
We need folks to take care of their children. Both men and women. I'm more than willing to give parents extra time off work to do so. I support both maternity and paternity leave and I wish both would take it. I'm saying this as a childless woman.
And I think since our children are important, both for families and society in the present and future - I don't think folks should be punished for doing so. This includes holding future promotions and days off against them for doing the very things society thinks they should be doing - namely, parenting.
>> It's the same as if I chose to take 3 months off to section hike the Appalachian Trail
> This includes holding future promotions and days off against them for doing the very things society thinks they should be doing - namely, parenting.
You ignore the parent poster. His point seems to be the idea that a person can take upto 3 months off of work shouldn't be equivalent to someone who didn't take that 3 month block off regardless of the reason, child rearing or hiking the Appalachian Trail.
If I took that much time off and a coworker didn't, especially year after year, I wouldn't expect them to get more raises, more seniority.
This idea me at home taking care of my kid is the same as people at work is silly. Promotions shouldn't be given just because someone has worked at a place for an amount of time. The exception being cost of living increases. Seniority on the team, responsibility and the increases in compensation that come with that should be according to ability, time dedicated and skills, etc.
On the flip side, if my time is spent engaged with my child then it can't be on increasing my career if I'm at home full-time parenting. This isn't about working parents but, during maternity/bonding leave. It's either one or the other.
I might have ignored the parent: got lost in discussion.
"It's either one or the other"
The problem is that once a woman gets pregnant, you have different physical needs. Lots of women need healing time afterwards, and sometimes needs time off pre-birth. Especially if you have a cesarean. In a sense, this is just like punishing someone for having their appendix taken out or having a heart attack and needing time off.
Folks are generally willing to look over that sort of thing and give promotions based on the time they spend at work. Even if they wind up seriously sick or need surgery 2-3 times over 5/6 years - which more closely imitates the time folks take off with children. Actually, it is a bit better as a company can plan for the time off with children much better than a sickness or surgery.
Do some women take a very short break to give birth? Yes.
And that is just part of the health aspect. Nevermind that the maternity leave helps with knowing how the non-verbal little human operates and I've read somewhere that it helps descrease post-partum depression - or that it can be difficult (and more expensive) to find childcare for infants.
From my perspective the fewer personal decisions my employer is involved in the better. If my employer wants to offer 401k match, that's great. But I should get to opt out and put that into a 401k plan of my choosing, not be limited to the crappy options my employer provides. It's great that employers offer a health care plan. I should be able to take that money and shop around for options that are a better fit for me personally. I've never even smoked pot a single time in my life, but it's disgusting that so many employers do random drug testing. It's none of their business if people do drugs off the clock. And I could rant all day about Hobby Lobby and their ilk denying people coverage for abortions. The best thing my employer could say about whether or not I choose to have children, or what kind of health care I should get, or how I should plan for retirement, or whether or not I use drugs is nothing at all.
I recognize I'm in the minority for some of those. I'm not suggesting people who want their employers involved in their reproductive choices are "wrong," because I honestly don't feel like there's a right or wrong here. It's just that it's foreign to me to view my employer in that way.
If I choose to go camping instead, should my company pay for the permit because not having one would be a criminal act?
> And I think since our children are important, both for families and society in the present and future - I don't think folks should be punished for doing so.
So let's raise everyone's taxes to reimburse private companies for the cost. But let's not punish companies for hiring parents.
You might choose the responsibility... that could be argued to a point, actually. And I assume you are smart enough to realize that having a child and going camping are two different sorts of things. One has a lot more free choice than the other one - and a lot more control over when it happens and stuff like that. No one suddenly needs to camp: But some folks suddenly need to take care of a sick child or take them to the hospital.
I don't think the employer should have to pay the camping fees any more than I think they are responsible for directly paying for school-related costs for children: However, I do think paid vacations should be a standard thing for everyone, to the point you can take a month off to do that hiking. Even if you work at some fast food place. So in a round-about way, yes. You should bet paid for that through some manner.
I'm also very much supportive of comprehensive sick time so that you can take 2 months off after surgery and not have that held against you.
> So let's raise everyone's taxes to reimburse private companies for the cost. But let's not punish companies for hiring parents
First, I fully agree with having higher taxes for this purpose. I don't view taxes as a punishment, in general, though I have the understanding that applied correctly, they can be a deterrent or encouragement. This, to me, is on par with everyone being taxed to provide education to children. I don't mind because education is important and society improves because of it... even if I don't have children.
Heck, I'm willfully living in a country that does exactly this. There are a few downsides. Some folks do abuse it (true with any sick leave policy, really), and stuff costs a bit more. On the other hand, they credit these sorts of policies to better equality and things like that.
> One has a lot more free choice than the other one
What difference does this make? It means deciding to have a child is a much bigger decision than deciding to go camping, but doesn't suddenly push the burden of that decision onto anyone else. Taking care of a sick child should be the kind of risk you accept when deciding to have a child - your responsibility.
Ah, but society prefers[1] if people choose to take that responsibility and raise kids. I haven't seen evidence that society cares about whether one goes hiking for 3 months or not.
Now, you may be right and in the minority that this preference is wrong, and we should allow leaves of all kinds. But you will have to convince people to vote for legislators who will mandate those sort of policies.
[1] Evidence that society wants people to raise kids: child tax credits, FMLA policies, demand from the leading presidential candidate for increased parental leave etc
But this is something the society (i.e. the government) should take care of, not individual companies (that might, but likely won't, benefit from future offspring). For example, by sponsoring companies that hire workers that have kids (or otherwise levelling the playing field between non-parents and (less-productive) parents in economic terms).
I agree that society and the government should take care of it, but I disagree on the methods.
I'm all for laws giving parents leeway to have extra time off to take care of kids, job protections for maternity/paternity leave, even the government chipping in for the extra days. Of course, I think everyone should be entitled to sick days - jsut parents have more.
You know, because they have more responsibility than I do - which actually makes parents more productive overall than someone like me it. It just doesn't all show at work.
That's how I see. As a society we need to decide if encouraging people to have children by setting up parent friendly policies is important. I feel it is given the same reasons you gave and thus am in a proponent of those policies. Claiming they are unjust to people without kids ignores in my opinion the societal need to keep a good replenishment rate of our population to support older generations and keep the working population large to support everything from infrastructure to social services funded.
Another option is immigration which has its own pro cons.
This might have been true in the past, but it's not really true anymore. We have a shortage of many things on this planet, but people aren't one of those things. Having children, at this point, is exacerbating environmental issues without providing much tangible benefit to society. It's been well documented that society gets more benefit from immigrants anyways...first-world countries can easily get away with negative replacement birthrates because the third world is growing so quickly and many want to move here.
There are arguments that our society should support parents, but they're moral arguments, not practical ones. Society doesn't need to encourage people to breed. It's ingrained in our nature and enough will do it anyways that we'll be fine.
Calm down Malthus. Overpop has always been a slippery slope, and we've always been "on the tipping point!" You also pretend that culture and cultural attitudes are not important and potentially conducive to the success that a region has.
Notice I did say that there's a moral argument to be made for society supporting parents. Otherwise, procreation could end up the province of the wealthy and people should be able to exercise their biological imperatives if they choose. But the comment that I was replying to was arguing that society needs people to procreate, which is just laughably false. There's a big difference between limiting procreation (i.e. China's "One Child" policy) and not incentivizing procreation. You act like I was advocating the former when I was only talking about scaling back the latter.
> You also pretend that culture and cultural attitudes are not important and potentially conducive to the success that a region has.
I'm not pretending that...I'm acknowledging that more diverse areas consistently outperform areas with monocultures. Adding people with new perspectives almost always improves a situation. Why do you think there's such an emphasis on getting more women and minorities into tech? Hint: it's not just bad PR. Those new perspectives will make the workplace environments and the products and services they produce better.
Yeah, I guess I didn't make it clear in my OP, but I didn't mean to suggest that the way I feel about employment is "right" and the way those women talked about it is "wrong." I just wanted to offer a different lens through which I view the employer/employee relationship.
For me personally, it give me the creeps when my employer encourages or discourages behavior in my personal life. It's why even though I've never even smoked pot a single time in my life I'm opposed to workplace drug tests unless you operate heavy machinery or something. I'm as upset as anybody that Hobby Lobby gets to exert some ethical control over its employees personal health choices by not offering insurance that covers abortions or birth control. If it's not your employer's business when you choose to not have children (birth control/abortions), why is it their business when you do choose to have children?
It's not that people who want that stuff are wrong. I just honestly can't relate to wanting my employer to be involved in my personal decisions.
> There are very few, if any, non-breeding employees* at my company that out perform me, even with all my family related issues.
I'll just copy-paste this from another comment of mine:
don't counter with "someone really good and a parent is better than a mediocre one without children", since you'll find that I said nothing implying otherwise, because of course that's true
But also:
> I don't think there is a strong correlation between the productivity of workers with or without kids.
Do you think that still holds in countries that give a year or more in paid parental leave?
To me being away for a few years will obviously make your career lag by a few years.
I never said they would be less productive--I had no real opinion about allowing employees to go hike the Appalachian trail.
I don't think employers offer Appalachian trail leave, simply because they're not mandated to. They are mandated to offer leave via FMLA. Maybe REI offers it.
Not intending to debate anything here, just framing the FMLA requirements. The mother and father are allowed 12 weeks of combined leave. If they both take off, it's 6 weeks each. And businesses are not required to pay you while you're off. They just can't fire you.
"Both or either covered parent may take 12 weeks for the birth of a newborn or the placement of an adopted or foster child. If both parents work in positions covered by the FMLA, they will both be entitled to leave for an expanding family."
In a family with an expectant mother and father, both are allowed 12 weeks of leave under FMLA.
You are correct, however, that this leave is unpaid, employers can require you to use all accrued vacation/sick leave prior to FMLA, and you aren't guaranteed your same job back, just an equivalent job.
> A husband and wife who are eligible for FMLA leave and are employed by the same covered employer may be limited to a combined total of 12 weeks of leave during any 12-month period ...
But generally, even if they're both covered, they can both only take 12 weeks if the mother is somehow incapacitated.
>The mother is entitled to FMLA leave for any period of incapacity due to pregnancy, for prenatal care or for her own serious health condition following the birth of a child. The husband is entitled to FMLA leave if needed to care for his pregnant spouse who is incapacitated or if needed to care for her during her prenatal care, or if needed to care for the spouse following the birth of a child if the spouse has a serious health condition. See Serious Health Condition for more information.
When you get bereavement leave, do you claim that the company is "subsidizing" someone's loss and that you need to get an equal amount of leave to offset that?
What if someone has a rash of deaths in their life? Should the company just fire them for having bad luck because they can't afford to give all other employees and extra X amount of days off so that "everything is equal?"
I would hope that bereavement is not a choice, and it's definitely not as time and mind consuming.
Parents often refer to it as if it's a second job. And you're not even allowed to take a second job if you have a qualified first job, in my experience.
Bereavement leave and sick leave I'm all for, but parenthood is a choice to spend your effort elsewhere.
Workplace policies aren't only in place to create an equal playing field or a meritocracy, they also exist as a recruiting tool and to make companies attractive. A company with your preferred policies may be more attractive to a certain demographic, but if I want to attract talented workers who just happen to have children and families, you bet I'll consider bending my policies to accommodate them.
My point is that for me personally I find it unattractive when my employer wants to get involved in my personal decisions. I understand I'm in the minority there, and I don't think others are "wrong" for thinking differently than me about the employer/employee relationship. I'm just extremely wary about any time an employer wants to influence my personal decisions in some way. I don't like that my employer gets to decide what my retirement plan looks like. I don't like that my employer gets to decide what types of health care I have access to. I don't like that my employer could potentially limit my access to birth control. I don't like it that my employer wants to tell me whether or not I'm allowed to do drugs when I'm off the clock. And I don't like it that my employer wants to incentivize me to have more children. The best thing to hear from my employer about those things is silence. Again, it's not that I think people who want their employer to be involved in the decision of whether or not they have birth control or have kids or use drugs are "wrong." It's just foreign to me to want my employer to influence those things.
As a consultant (freelancer) myself, I was going to recommend that as the best way to gain maximum control over your terms of engagement, but based on your username, it seems like you've already figured that out :)
Human beings aren't programs evaluating objective rules to come to an objective determination about raises and promotions.
Your comment carries the implicit assertion that folks with kids are given special treatment. But what you fail to show is that it actually is "special," except in the context where it is defined to be so.
The context to which I was responding to was that in the article the women were suggesting that people who have children should be given special treatment. Things like, if you choose to work less because you have a child you should still get the same raises and promotions as someone who didn't choose to work less (regardless of whether they reproduced). Things like your employer arranging for emergency daycare for you if your kid is sick, or otherwise allocating company resources (space) for kids to hang out in when they're out sick from school.
In what way is expecting the same pay and promotions as someone who works more than you not asking for special treatment? I really don't understand what you could be missing there.
I completely agree. All of this nonsense is related to the fact that health insurance and retirement accounts are unnecessarily wired into employment to our detriment.
Perhaps companies shouldn't care at all what people do with their lives outside of work. Perhaps. But, given that we have to hitch ourselves to one to make a living, they damn well better allow people lives outside of work. Let's all be allowed 3 months off each year to do whatever we wish with.
Why should people who break for lunch get special treatment? We need to go back to the good ol' days when workers lived in company towns and got paid in company scrip. Who do you think you are, living outside of the company's property and using your own money?
Any benefit a company offers should be available to everyone equally. And if that benefit can't be provided to some for whatever reason, those people should be able to opt to get a cash payout for the cost of providing the benefit. If you offer babysitting services and I choose not to use them, I should be able to spend that money elsewhere regardless of whether I have a kid. Same goes for your health insurance plan, your retirement savings, etc. The less involved my employer is in my personal life the better.
Yeah I am another female here who doesn't get it either. I would much rather read "Ask an Engineer" posts that highlight women and men. When they do highlight women, make it about their engineering talents not this stuff. I feel these types of posts actually do a dis-service to female engineers and don't highlight their skills & talents. But what do I know?
As a man I can say that there are lots of problems in my life that women don't deal with, so I can only assume it is the same for women.
There are of course shared problems that both men and women face (obviously!) but getting something from a women's perspective is something that people could find useful.
I'm all for more exposure for female engineers. I think more visibility for women will help to make the industry more accessible and more inviting to women. And there are tons of useful questions you could ask, ranging from non-gender specific technical questions to sexism in the workplace. But starting specifically with kids and relationships seems a bit too sticking to the "women are about kids and relationships" stereotype, whereas men should be every bit as much about kids and relationships.
This is actually the fourth article in the series, and the first that really touched on anything that was "women are about kids and relationships" stereotype. The last question in the first article was about sexism in the workplace and how people could improve it.
As someone dating a fellow engineer coworker, I'm definitely curious to see further input on this sort of thing. She's incredibly smart and competent, but has received comments basically accusing her of sleeping with me to get ahead, or that she's only done so well because she's had my help and favor. (I don't have reports or any managerial power, but I am one of the most senior engineers on the team)
I've definitely spent a fair amount of time teaching her things, but it's been in no way her taking advantage of me, and I don't use any of my influence to help her more than I would anyone else. She's earned every accolade and piece of praise she's received, and it's heartbreaking to me to see these kinds of comments directed at her. Even without my help, she'd be incredibly successful - she's one of the smartest people I've ever worked with.
Due to this sort of thing, we keep the relationship fairly private. Some people know, either because we've shared it with them or because neither of us are particularly great at hiding it, but it means that we have to at least attempt to keep something that brings both of us a lot of happiness a secret. Since we have lots of co-workers on facebook, etc, I even have to be extremely conscious in things like tagging us together in group activities. We have to remember to try and keep at least some distance in work related social gatherings. That stuff is hard on me - as much as I try to imagine how hard that is on her, with everything else she deals with at work, I know it's even harder.
I have to quash a desire to be overprotective of her on this sort of thing, and other inappropriate encounters she's had at work, because she's an adult woman who wants to take care of things without me stepping in. I've got to respect that - but I would find it absolutely fantastic to be able to share with her stories of people who have been in similar situations and how they handled it.
I know none of that is expressly what was discussed here, but I think it's a problem that affects females in the workplace a hell of a lot more heavily than it does men, and it's certainly not the only thing. Sexism is alive and well, and I don't see how people talking about it does anything but help.
That is a very thoughtful comment and by no means I want to accuse you personally of anything.
But is there any possibility that you may be biased and see your girlfriend in a more positive light than your coworkers? Given that "objective assessment" of a coworker is hard to define, yet alone hard to enforce, I don't find it very unusual if other colleagues cast aspersions on her motives in such case.
I'm sure there's some bias, but I think my view is overall pretty objective on her ability and intelligence. Largely because most of my impression of her intelligence was built before I had any feelings for her - and ended up being one of the largest contributions as to why I fell for her in the first place.
She's only a couple of years my junior in age, but went through the whole Bachelors -> Masters thing, so is lagging behind me by more than half a decade in the actual work experience department, so she still makes a fair amount of mistakes when it comes to office politics, and her degree, while related, isn't directly applicable to what we do, so she still has had a fair amount to learn as well. I've tried to stay objective on both sides of this, and point out things she can learn, since I figure that objectivity will help her in the long run.
There's some outside validation as well - she received her first promotion very quickly, and is on the fast track for the next one, based almost entirely on the mountain of positive feedback she's gotten from her work with outside teams and both internal and external customers.
>Given that "objective assessment" of a coworker is hard to define, yet alone hard to enforce, I don't find it very unusual if other colleagues cast aspersions on her motives in such case.
Yeah. I know it's not anything that can be enforced, I just don't think that I'd be receiving anywhere near the same attitude and comments if the tables were turned and she was the more senior engineer. It's also that I have no direct way to help her get ahead outside of feedback to the management, which admittedly carries a decent amount of weight... But it's also something that I've specifically told her I'm not able to provide since I can't guarantee I'll be 100% objective, and something she has no problem with.
Sorry for another long response, but it's something I wrestle with many days of the week, and have thought a lot about.
