# Humanities & Anthropology > History & Civilisations >  Reminder: The Spartan women were using miniskirts and/or mini dresses

## Echetlaeus

So that there was true feminism down there. At the same time in Athens, women were living mostly at the house (a place called γυναικωνίτης).

Spartan_woman.jpg

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## Fire Haired14

It depends on how ancient Greeks saw mini skirts. In many cultures women wear very revealing clothing and it isn't seen as immoral, just look at modern hunter gatherers. Based on cave paintings and figurines from Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Europe many cultures had no problem with women wearing revealing clothing, or no clothing at all. 




> At the same time in Athens, women were living mostly at the house (a place called γυναικωνίτης).


I think there is a middle road when it comes to women's rights, independence, etc. All human cultures probably throughout all of human history go and went by basic laws of human instinct, including gender roles. It's a misconception many people have that women have to be men to be equal to men, and for human society to function healthily i think we need women to take female roles(incl. staying home and taking care of children) and men to take male roles. Even though today the western world, especially Europe is more liberal than ever, men take male roles and women take female roles because it is instinctual not because they are taught to do so.

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## LeBrok

> and for human society to function healthily i think we need women to take female roles(incl. staying home and taking care of children)


 Women staying home is victorian upper class invention. During Mesolithic women were Gatherers. You can't gather food or wood at home. You stay home only to feed kids and sleep. Watch some documentary about Amazon HGs groups.
In Neolithic women were working hard in fields, kids too. There were no schools, and kids were doing chores from early age. Actually older kids were taking on matherly responsibilities and were taking care of younger siblings. Mother had to take care of animals and work in fields with husband. Mothers were always more involved with kids than fathers, but not in the romanticized or sterilized way you grow up in.

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## Fire Haired14

> Women staying home is victorian upper class invention. During Mesolithic women were Gatherers. You can't gather food or wood at home. You stay home only to feed kids and sleep. Watch some documentary about Amazon HGs groups.
> In Neolithic women were working hard in fields, kids too. There were no schools, and kids were doing chores from early age. Actually older kids were taking on matherly responsibilities and were taking care of younger siblings. Mother had to take care of animals and work in fields with husband. Mothers were always more involved with kids than fathers, but not in the romanticized or sterilized way you grow up in.


I never denied any of that, my point was that women and men are instinctively differnt and have differnt roles in society, and what they specifically do differently based on circumstances. I know that most mammals and probably most animals overall, the females take care of pre-puberty members aka children like with humans.

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## Angela

*My* point is that as you move forward into the work world and the greater adult world of the future you keep your musings about rigid male and female societal roles to yourself when dealing with the numerous women pharmacists, and doctors and bankers and business owners and cops and lawyers and prosecutors and judges whom you will encounter, and whom you might even find are your bosses, or they'll chop you off at the knees.  :Petrified:  :Petrified:  :Petrified:  I would, and I'm very traditional in my private life...but not at work! Just a word to the wise.  :Grin:

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## Fire Haired14

> *My* point is that as you move forward into the work world and the greater adult world of the future you keep your musings about rigid male and female societal roles to yourself when dealing with the numerous women pharmacists, and doctors and bankers and business owners and cops and lawyers and prosecutors and judges whom you will encounter, and whom you might even find are your bosses, or they'll chop you off at the knees.  I would, and I'm very traditional in my private life...but not at work! Just a word to the wise.


Okay, sure but politics and gender roles rarely matter in everyday life.

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## Aberdeen

> Women staying home is victorian upper class invention. During Mesolithic women were Gatherers. You can't gather food or wood at home. You stay home only to feed kids and sleep. Watch some documentary about Amazon HGs groups.
> In Neolithic women were working hard in fields, kids too. There were no schools, and kids were doing chores from early age. Actually older kids were taking on matherly responsibilities and were taking care of younger siblings. Mother had to take care of animals and work in fields with husband. Mothers were always more involved with kids than fathers, but not in the romanticized or sterilized way you grow up in.


All that is true, and for most of the world today it's still true. A huge percentage of the world's population still live a life based around subsistence farming, and while women in such societies usually do most of the cooking and childcare, they also work in the fields. Most of these families just couldn't survive without female labour being involved in agricultural production at certain crucial times, especially during the harvest. Unfortunately, a lot of women today have less social status in their culture than would likely have been the case in prehistory, and I think there's a good argument that a lot of it is down to the Middle Eastern concept of gender roles that unfortunately was adopted by the Abrahamic religions.

It seems that throughout history (and probably throughout prehistory), although women were likely to stay closer to home because they were the ones that bore children, most societies didn't have the kind of rigid gender roles that modern middle class people think of as the norm. There have been some historical societies where the roles of middle class and upper class women were quite restricted, in parts of the Middle East, in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome, but that wasn't how most people lived, even in those societies. When someone talks about how Spartan women lived, they need to remember that the Spartans were a military ruling class, and the helots they ruled over didn't have the same social structure.

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## Angela

> Okay, sure but politics and gender roles rarely matter in everyday life.


I have no idea what you mean by that statement. You said upthread that there are (or should be?) strict gender roles. Now you say that they don't matter!?

What I can tell you unequivocally is that most women in the U.S. today work outside the home. More than half the law school graduates are women. The number is also very high in medical school. Business school enrollment is high and increasing every year. The only professional schools which are still male dominated are perhaps the engineering schools. All but one of my doctors is a woman, and my lawyer is a woman. Even my estate planner is a woman. I didn't really plan it that way, but that's the way it worked out. When I was in a business field, my mentor was a woman, and the best one I ever had. All of them work outside the home, obviously. Most of them are married and have children, but the vast majority of those went back to work right after maternity leave. In some cases, they take flex time for a while, but eventually they come back. Some of them can afford to pay for some household help, but even in those cases, and certainly when the salaries aren't that high, husbands do laundry and run the vaccum, and grocery shop and cook, and change diapers and feed the kids and drive them to school. That's modern life. 

Do women, even when they're working as many hours as their husbands do, often wind up doing more of the child care and household work? Probably, I certainly did, but that was a personal decision based on the fact that I come from a much more traditional culture and married a man far more traditional than most Americans. Still, even he did the laundry and the heavy cleaning and a lot of the shopping, and he was a wonderful father to the children, even if he often shirked diaper duty. 

With the young girls coming up, it's going to be 50/50 all the way or you can forget it, my friend. You cannot educate women and expect them not to put their brains and their education to use. You cannot have a society that only pays lip service to the idea of the nobility of the role of mothers and home makers but actually only values and respects the earning of money and the accumulation of worldly power, and then expect women to settle for the lack of self-esteem that would result from not accumulating those things.

I totally take LeBrok's and Aberdeen"s point about the difference between the Victorian middle and upper class ideal of rigidly separated gender roles, and the reality for different classes of that era and for much of human history before it, and I agree with it. Farming societies were and are very different. The peasant women of my culture worked like mules on those farms. It was only the oldest woman, usually the grandmother, who was too old for field work, who could be spared to do the cooking and the cleaning, helped by some of the girls, who also did most of the child rearing. The other women and most of the children went out to work in the fields. My father always said, and his family weren't farmers, that one of his eldest sisters was the one who taught him to tie his shoes, and took him to the first day of school, and helped him with his homework. His mother was too busy helping to run the family businesses, and giving birth to eleven children while she was at it. 

Still, male and female roles are even less rigid today. My grandfather and even my father, would never have changed diapers or given us bottles, and my mother didn't work outside the house. That changed with me, and it will change even more with my daughter. That's the way it is...as should be clear to anyone living in the U.S.

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## Echetlaeus

I agree with Angela, I have seen women working that hard in my country as well. Not to say some times even harder than some men. 

Yeah, I also think that Fair Haired14 is a little bit old fashioned in this topic. For sure men and women have differences, both in terms of body and in terms of thinking, but nowadays technology made it easy even for women to work in the most difficult areas that used to be dominated by man (_e.g._ construction).

And in a pure gene aspect, women have more information than men (they have to XX chromosomes). This has to say something.

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## Echetlaeus

And in the question why women aren't that many in Engineering? Well, I believe that women, generally, choose employments that are not that "risky". What I mean is that most of them will want to graduate from easier fields and start a family soon. 

Some employment require a lot of time and effort in order to succeed, and women have a time constraint in that aspect.

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## LeBrok

> And in the question why women aren't that many in Engineering? Well, I believe that women, generally, choose employments that are not that "risky". *What I mean is that most of them will want to graduate from easier fields and start a family soon.*


 Like medicine and law? Find me a young person who thinks this way. Kids are in plans way after any school, when they are in their thirties.

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## Echetlaeus

^ Medicine and Law are way easier than Engineering, which require tremendous amount of time and Math knowledge, and above all not that much memorization, as in Law for example.

And I said most, not all. Please read very carefully what I write ...

And BTW, what is the percentage of women in Med + Law, compared to the whole population. This is what you should ask thyself.

Women above 35, when they have lost their prime, will find it way more difficult to start a family. Agents,on average, know all of this information and acting rationally make choices.

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## Aberdeen

> ^ Medicine and Law are way easier than Engineering, which require tremendous amount of time and Math knowledge, and above all not that much memorization, as in Law for example.
> 
> And I said most, not all. Please read very carefully what I write ...
> 
> And BTW, what is the percentage of women in Med + Law, compared to the whole population. This is what you should ask thyself.
> 
> Women above 35, when they have lost their prime, will find it way more difficult to start a family. Agents,on average, know all of this information and acting rationally make choices.


The only country I have statistics for is Canada, where for the last few years a slight majority of the people who graduate from law school and medicine have been women. I suspect the stats would probably be similar for most developed countries. And anyone who thinks that engineering is more difficult than law or medicine is either silly or ill-informed, IMO. They're three very different subjects that require different skills sets, and it's not easy to master engineering, law or medicine, but I'd have to say that medicine is probably quite a bit the most difficult of the three. And I suspect the reason women are under-rated in engineering and computer technology is because they feel very unwelcome in those fields.

If people put off starting families and only have one or two children, I applaud that choice in a world that is by far over-populated.

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## Echetlaeus

> The only country I have statistics for is Canada, where for the last few years a slight majority of the people who graduate from law school and medicine have been women. I suspect the stats would probably be similar for most developed countries. And anyone who thinks that engineering is more difficult than law or medicine is either silly or ill-informed, IMO. They're three very different subjects that require different skills sets, and it's not easy to master engineering, law or medicine, but I'd have to say that medicine is probably quite a bit the most difficult of the three. And I suspect the reason women are under-rated in engineering and computer technology is because they feel very unwelcome in those fields.
> 
> If people put off starting families and only have one or two children, I applaud that choice in a world that is by far over-populated.


I do not mean to start a fight here, but women outperform men in fields like education, history, liberal arts in general. 

Women are welcome in any science. The point is that they CHOOSE not to go, there must be a reason for that for sure. Nobody told them do not come. 

I hope you understand my point!

Medicine is very important, I agree with that. But sciences with heavy Math reqs. are more difficult. Believe me I have tried it.

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## Angela

> Like medicine and law? Find me a young person who thinks this way. Kids are in plans way after any school, when they are in their thirties.


I think some people are living in a time warp. They certainly aren't living in the North America of 2014. 

As for risk, I can think of few less risky professions than engineering, no disrespect to engineers, as my brother is one, and my family is littered with them.

If you want risk, try trading on the floor of the stock exchange or the commodities exchange, or try venture capitalism. Those guys, and yes, the first two are mostly men, are adrenalin junkies. Or, advertising, a field I know quite well from a prior incarnation. It's one of the remaining bastions of pure capitalism. You rise and fall by the whim of your client. People are let go the instant an account is lost. The custom is to keep copies of your current resume in your briefcase for instant access. There's a lot of women in that particular field.

Then, there are other kinds of risk...like the risk of getting sued for malpractice...that's why malpractice premiums are so high, and it's also why medicine can be so stressful. It takes nerves of steel to make calls day in and day out that can kill someone, and those decisions are made by women in more than half the cases.

Or how about cops? There are lots of women cops putting their own lives on the line day in and day out. Women prosecutors going after mob figures and big drug dealers too, or serial killers with a penchant for going after women. 

People need to get out more. :Smile:

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## Angela

> The only country I have statistics for is Canada, where for the last few years a slight majority of the people who graduate from law school and medicine have been women. I suspect the stats would probably be similar for most developed countries. And anyone who thinks that engineering is more difficult than law or medicine is either silly or ill-informed, IMO. They're three very different subjects that require different skills sets, and it's not easy to master engineering, law or medicine, but I'd have to say that medicine is probably quite a bit the most difficult of the three. And I suspect the reason women are under-rated in engineering and computer technology is because they feel very unwelcome in those fields.
> 
> If people put off starting families and only have one or two children, I applaud that choice in a world that is by far over-populated.


I don't know about Canada, but the tests you take for entrance into law school in the U.S. have nothing to do with memorization; they test logic and reasoning skills. The Bar Exams for admission to practice in a particular jurisdiction do require memorization, but once you're admitted, any law or case you need for reference can be looked up. What is then important is the quality of your *thinking,* and reasoning, and, if you're a litigator, the ability to *read* people, including jurors, the ability to think quickly on your feet, and the ability to argue in front of groups. 

I think the internship process in medicine is by far the most grueling and time intensive, but at least they're not deliberately, as a matter of custom, abused by their teachers. I think lawyers should get points for what they have to endure in law school.

As for putting off having children, getting a decent job nowadays almost demands post university education, whether it's an MBA in business, or a degree in law or medicine. To keep your certification as a teacher, you also need to get a master's degree within five years. And who can do anything with a psychology degree if they don't have a doctorate? A lot of women aren't even getting into the work force until they're at least twenty-five.

I would be dishonest if I didn't admit that this can cause issues with the ticking of that biological clock, but on the other hand, how any family can financially support and emotionally nurture and guide more than two or three children in a society like ours is beyond me, whether one of the partners is a stay at home parent or not. This isn't a subsistence farming world. You can't just pop them out and throw them outside to work in the fields as soon as they can walk; you have to guide and nurture and educate, and spend lots and lots of money! :Shocked:

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## Echetlaeus

People who go to Medicine and Law are good. The same level as engineers in terms of thinking. However, what they do in their discipline may be a level lower (in terms of brain work) than the Math heavy fields.

For example someone that does Quantum Phyisics will spend probably more time in solving a problem than a lawyer, although they nature of the problem is different. 
And do not go far away, just recall what you English say: "_It's Rocket Science to me!_"

After all the labor market pays more the Math intensive majors. Medicine and Law are excluded because they are in a category themselves, for they have been prestigious even from the ancient times.

Time constraint is a major problem for women. This must be acknowledged, just see how many of them are doing PhD.

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## Echetlaeus

Modern society will not be able to support more than two or three kids on average. It's simple Growth Theory (as it is called in Economics). There is this "steady state" phenomenon.

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## Fire Haired14

> I have no idea what you mean by that statement. You said upthread that there are (or should be?) strict gender roles. Now you say that they don't matter!?
> 
> What I can tell you unequivocally is that most women in the U.S. today work outside the home. More than half the law school graduates are women. The number is also very high in medical school. Business school enrollment is high and increasing every year. The only professional schools which are still male dominated are perhaps the engineering schools. All but one of my doctors is a woman, and my lawyer is a woman. Even my estate planner is a woman. I didn't really plan it that way, but that's the way it worked out. When I was in a business field, my mentor was a woman, and the best one I ever had. All of them work outside the home, obviously. Most of them are married and have children, but the vast majority of those went back to work right after maternity leave. In some cases, they take flex time for a while, but eventually they come back. Some of them can afford to pay for some household help, but even in those cases, and certainly when the salaries aren't that high, husbands do laundry and run the vaccum, and grocery shop and cook, and change diapers and feed the kids and drive them to school. That's modern life. 
> 
> Do women, even when they're working as many hours as their husbands do, often wind up doing more of the child care and household work? Probably, I certainly did, but that was a personal decision based on the fact that I come from a much more traditional culture and married a man far more traditional than most Americans. Still, even he did the laundry and the heavy cleaning and a lot of the shopping, and he was a wonderful father to the children, even if he often shirked diaper duty. 
> 
> With the young girls coming up, it's going to be 50/50 all the way or you can forget it, my friend. You cannot educate women and expect them not to put their brains and their education to use. You cannot have a society that only pays lip service to the idea of the nobility of the role of mothers and home makers but actually only values and respects the earning of money and the accumulation of worldly power, and then expect women to settle for the lack of self-esteem that would result from not accumulating those things.
> 
> I totally take LeBrok's and Aberdeen"s point about the difference between the Victorian middle and upper class ideal of rigidly separated gender roles, and the reality for different classes of that era and for much of human history before it, and I agree with it. Farming societies were and are very different. The peasant women of my culture worked like mules on those farms. It was only the oldest woman, usually the grandmother, who was too old for field work, who could be spared to do the cooking and the cleaning, helped by some of the girls, who also did most of the child rearing. The other women and most of the children went out to work in the fields. My father always said, and his family weren't farmers, that one of his eldest sisters was the one who taught him to tie his shoes, and took him to the first day of school, and helped him with his homework. His mother was too busy helping to run the family businesses, and giving birth to eleven children while she was at it. 
> ...


What i mean, is hardly anyone conscientiously thinks about politics and gender roles when they are making decisions in everyday life. Women and men are simply differnt, and instinctively take differnt roles in society. The whole thing where people are so worried about what's the men-women ratio in a profession or whatever, is ridicules. I am tired of people making such a big deal about gender roles.

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## Aberdeen

> I do not mean to start a fight here, but women outperform men in fields like education, history, liberal arts in general. 
> 
> Women are welcome in any science. The point is that they CHOOSE not to go, there must be a reason for that for sure. Nobody told them do not come. 
> 
> I hope you understand my point!
> 
> Medicine is very important, I agree with that. But sciences with heavy Math reqs. are more difficult. Believe me I have tried it.


If you'd ever actually tried medicine and law, as well as math and engineering, you'd know that law and more particularly medicine are more difficult than math or engineering, although to some extent it's a question of apples and oranges, since different sets of skills are required for the different occupations. Of course, engineering is a very useful occupation, and it requires a fairly specific set of skills, but knowing how to build a bridge is certainly not the same thing as rocket science. And I have a woman friend who's an engineer, and several women friends who are programmers, and from what they've told me, both those occupations are boy's clubs, here in Canada and even more so in some parts of the U.S.

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## Angela

> What i mean, is hardly anyone conscientiously thinks about politics and gender roles when they are making decisions in everyday life. Women and men are simply differnt, and instinctively take differnt roles in society. The whole thing where people are so worried about what's the men-women ratio in a profession or whatever, is ridicules. I am tired of people making such a big deal about gender roles.


*NO,* they *don't* take different roles anymore in any meaningful way...at least most of them don't, not in the U.S. anyway. Women work outside the home in overwhelming numbers, and men increasingly share the home-making and child rearing roles, and it will only increase in the future. 

And nobody said men and women are identical. We are talking about societal roles here, and the lines have blurred.

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## Echetlaeus

BTW I read an article a long time ago, stating that men who participate very actively in the raise of children lose "parts" of their manhood. This is mostly due hormone changes. So environment also matters.

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## Aberdeen

> People who go to Medicine and Law are good. The same level as engineers in terms of thinking. However, what they do in their discipline may be a level lower (in terms of brain work) than the Math heavy fields.
> 
> For example someone that does Quantum Phyisics will spend probably more time in solving a problem than a lawyer, although they nature of the problem is different. 
> And do not go far away, just recall what you English say: "_It's Rocket Science to me!_"
> 
> After all the labor market pays more the Math intensive majors. Medicine and Law are excluded because they are in a category themselves, for they have been prestigious even from the ancient times.
> 
> Time constraint is a major problem for women. This must be acknowledged, just see how many of them are doing PhD.


Here in Canada, about 45% of earned doctorates now go to women. I suspect the stats are similar in other developed countries.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-599-...c-g002-eng.htm

I like how you jumped from talking about math and engineering to talking about quantum physics and rocket science. As of they're somehow comparable. Clever technique, but not particularly accurate. Yes, quantum physics requires a really good mastery of math, but that doesn't mean that a civil engineering degree is harder to get than a degree in law or medicine. That simply isn't the case.

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## Echetlaeus

> If you'd ever actually tried medicine and law, as well as math and engineering, you'd know that law and more particularly medicine are more difficult than math or engineering, although to some extent it's a question of apples and oranges, since different sets of skills are required for the different occupations. Of course, engineering is a very useful occupation, and it requires a fairly specific set of skills, but knowing how to build a bridge is certainly not the same thing as rocket science. And I have a woman friend who's an engineer, and several women friends who are programmers, and from what they've told me, both those occupations are boy's clubs, here in Canada and even more so in some parts of the U.S.


How is law more difficult than math? To prove theorems and create your own novel ideas are FAR more difficult.

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## Echetlaeus

> Here in Canada, about 45% of earned doctorates now go to women. I suspect the stats are similar in other developed countries.
> 
> www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-599-x/2011006/c-g/c-g002-eng.htm
> 
> I like how you jumped from talking about math and engineering to talking about quantum physics and rocket science. As of they're somehow comparable. Clever technique, but not particularly accurate. Yes, quantum physics requires a really good mastery of math, but that doesn't mean that a civil engineering degree is harder to get than a degree in law or medicine. That simply isn't the case.


I also said Math heavy fields bro ... Don't get me wrong. I also said that they cannot be compared.

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## Aberdeen

> ..............
> I think the internship process in medicine is by far the most grueling and time intensive, but at least they're not deliberately, as a matter of custom, abused by their teachers. I think lawyers should get points for what they have to endure in law school.
> ...........


This is the only part of your comment I disagree with. Yes, law professors frequently seem to have a cruel streak, but interns really go through a lot of abuse in the hospitals, working incredibly long shifts and having to deal with megalomaniac doctors who have the fate of the interns in their hands.

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## Angela

Where on earth would anyone get the idea that engineers or even scientists are highly paid in the U.S.?

They're extremely badly paid, in my opinion, especially considering the amount of intelligence required. Computer people are more highly paid, but nothing compared to doctors. Specialists in the medical field can make 250,000 a year and up, way up. Where are the engineers who make that kind of money?

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## Echetlaeus

I think we are of topic here bros. Don't you think?

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## Echetlaeus

> Where on earth would anyone get the idea that engineers or even scientists are highly paid in the U.S.?
> 
> They're extremely badly paid, in my opinion, especially considering the amount of intelligence required. Computer people are more highly paid, but nothing compared to doctors. Specialists in the medical field can make 250,000 a year and up, way up. Where are the engineers who make that kind of money?


This is what that data say. Leave Doctors and Lawyers out, they are a category of their own. And BTW Doctors + Lawyers are very small in terms of participation in the whole labor market.

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## ebAmerican

> *NO,* they *don't* take different roles anymore in any meaningful way...at least most of them don't, not in the U.S. anyway. Women work outside the home in overwhelming numbers, and men increasingly share the home-making and child rearing roles, and it will only increase in the future. 
> 
> And nobody said men and women are identical. We are talking about societal roles here, and the lines have blurred.


A new study has shown that on average women score higher on all subjects, then men. This study includes math and science. The idea that males perform better on science related tests is inaccurate. Woman are better students in all fields of study on average. This should be a wake-up call for men to get up from the damn couch and quit playing call of duty. Men have an entitled attitude about superiority in academics and the data does not support the assumption. There are more females enrolling in college than males. What is interesting is the hiring trend does not match the academic and college enrollment trend. Women are stereotypically barred from higher earning jobs on average. The pay inequality is 1 to .8 with women making 20% less on average. This is due to stereotypical attitudes about women in general. What is also surprising is that women who make hiring decisions are shown to propagate the same male stereotypes in their hiring procedures. The gender role division is deeply ingrained in all of us. 

http://www.citytowninfo.com/career-a...jects-14050501

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## Echetlaeus

> A new study has shown that on average women score higher on all subjects, then men. This study includes math and science. The idea that males perform better on science related tests is inaccurate. Woman are better students in all fields of study on average. This should be a wake-up call for men to get up from the damn couch and quit playing call of duty. Men have an entitled attitude about superiority in academics and the data does not support the assumption. There are more females enrolling in college than males. What is interesting is the hiring trend does not match the academic and college enrollment trend. Women are stereotypically barred from higher earning jobs on average. The pay inequality is 1 to .8 with women making 20% less on average. This is due to stereotypical attitudes about women in general. What is also surprising is that women who make hiring decisions are shown to propagate the same male stereotypes in their hiring procedures. The gender role division is deeply ingrained in all of us. 
> 
> http://www.citytowninfo.com/career-a...jects-14050501


It's mostly Economic theory here. Women and men of the same caliber, in the same job, will get almost the same amount of money in the beginning of their careers. Later this will change, for the women will have to be absent to give birth and take care of the children. Generally they will have more absences than men.

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## Angela

> A new study has shown that on average women score higher on all subjects, then men. This study includes math and science. The idea that males perform better on science related tests is inaccurate. Woman are better students in all fields of study on average. This should be a wake-up call for men to get up from the damn couch and quit playing call of duty. Men have an entitled attitude about superiority in academics and the data does not support the assumption. There are more females enrolling in college than males. What is interesting is the hiring trend does not match the academic and college enrollment trend. Women are stereotypically barred from higher earning jobs on average. The pay inequality is 1 to .8 with women making 20% less on average. This is due to stereotypical attitudes about women in general. What is also surprising is that women who make hiring decisions are shown to propagate the same male stereotypes in their hiring procedures. The gender role division is deeply ingrained in all of us. 
> 
> http://www.citytowninfo.com/career-a...jects-14050501


I think you're right...things have changed, but not enough...it's a process that isn't yet complete.

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## ebAmerican

Echetlaeus - It has nothing to do with child rearing. Most western countries have some type of paternity leave. These variables have been tested and evaluated. When all variables are controlled women still make less money. A US congressional hearing on the matter concluded the odd results were driven by male female biases in the workforce. Even women who make the hiring decisions and pay decisions follow typical gender biases. In fields that don't require a higher education or specialized training women and men make about equal amounts through out their careers.

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## Angela

U.S. Stats

Number of lawyers: approx. 1.2 million
Number of doctors: approx. 850, 000
Number of engineers: approx. 2 million

Average salaries indicate both lawyers and doctors make more money than engineers. People in business also make a lot of money, and you don't have to be a "rocket scientist" to graduate from Business School. Included in that group are people in advertising and sales managers.

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## Echetlaeus

> Echetlaeus - It has nothing to do with child rearing. Most western countries have some type of paternity leave. These variables have been tested and evaluated. When all variables are controlled women still make less money. A US congressional hearing on the matter concluded the odd results were driven by male female biases in the workforce. Even women who make the hiring decisions and pay decisions follow typical gender biases. In fields that don't require a higher education or specialized training women and men make about equal amounts through out their careers.


You must account for child rearing as well, but bias as you said may be still a case. 

Ask thyself, why there is this bias towards women in the first place?

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## Echetlaeus

> U.S. Stats
> 
> Number of lawyers: approx. 1.2 million
> Number of doctors: approx. 850, 000
> Number of engineers: approx. 2 million
> 
> Average salaries indicate both lawyers and doctors make more money than engineers. People in business also make a lot of money, and you don't have to be a "rocket scientist" to graduate from Business School. Included in that group are people in advertising and sales managers.


How much money you make in the market is mostly related to supply and demand.

As I said before: Lawyers and Meds are different category. Try to see Engineers and Math intensive fields versus the rest.

And business is business, of course they will get more, capitalism works that way. The point is how many "big heads" in business make that much.

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## Angela

> How much money you make in the market is mostly related to supply and demand.
> 
> As I said before: Lawyers and Meds are different category. Try to see Engineers and Math intensive fields versus the rest.
> 
> And business is business, of course they will get more, capitalism works that way. The point is how many "big heads" in business make that much.


Arguments like this, where when you lose the point you change the terms would get you reduced to tears in any decent law school class.

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## Echetlaeus

> Arguments like this, where when you lose the point you change the terms would get you reduced to tears in any decent law school class.


There is no point lost here, I have the data in front of me.

The Economic discipline truly understands reality and the models predict agent's behaviour quite well. Even the simplest model of demand and supply explains why we have these phenomena. 

The same thing happens with the athletes, e.g., LeBron James, who earns a ton of money, or actors or ... or . Are these people smarter than an astrophysicist? No, yet they get more! This simple argument, which clearly shows the marginal effects proves my point. 

- Why then doctors and lawyers get that much?
- Well, because they have inelastic demand. 

- What would have happened in a society where the documentations needed are extremely low, that is not bureaucracy whatsover, without illnesses and full of peaceful citizens?
- The demand for docs and lawyers would have been extremely low. Their earnings would have plummeted.

- What would have happened if we did not have engineers and inventors?
- We would probably continue leaving in the Middle Ages and enjoy the oratoria.

Using this exaggeration, I try to make you understand the dynamics of the market.

Modern society needs more inventors than story tellers. This is something that the US government also understands, and that is why they are so favourable towards Scientists and Engineers.


Cheers

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## Aberdeen

I think that when someone tries to equate mathematical ability with overall intelligence, they've already lost the argument. Mathematics and overall cognitive ability are two separate things, which is why they're tested for separately on aptitude tests. It's true that in order to become really good at a trade, whether carpentry or writing mathematical equations, one must have some natural aptitude for the activity, in addition to training and experience, but having a skill at a trade is not the same as having the kind of intelligence and literacy necessary to write a legal brief, for example.

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## Echetlaeus

> I think that when someone tries to equate mathematical ability with overall intelligence, they've already lost the argument. Mathematics and overall cognitive ability are two separate things, which is why they're tested for separately on aptitude tests. It's true that in order to become really good at a trade, whether carpentry or writing mathematical equations, one must have some natural aptitude for the activity, in addition to training and experience, but having a skill at a trade is not the same as having the kind of intelligence and literacy necessary to write a legal brief, for example.


That's why I said before that those in Math intensive fields and those in Med and Law have more or less the same abilities (higher abilities than the average human). But what makes them different afterwards, is the knowledge they obtained in school.

There is a strong correlation between Maths and IQ. I do not say causation, for it is not my field, but I believe it's true though (people with Math skills are on average smarter, something in their brain makes them act that way naturally).

(see here)

All employments are good and important in society, however some of them are meant to make our lives better and increase our knowledge about things that surround us or those that are very small to see, while others serve humanity in a more humble way. The former will eventually get paid more and will be revered among people.

And btw, there are also financial factors that affect college attendance. Brilliant minds may be among the humblest of people, yet we do not know them, becasue they did not have the chance to get educated properly. 
Well the word we live in is tough.

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## LeBrok

> That's why I said before that those in Math intensive fields and those in Med and Law have more or less the same abilities (higher abilities than the average human). But what makes them different afterwards, is the knowledge they obtained in school.
> 
> There is a strong correlation between Maths and IQ. I do not say causation, for it is not my field, but I believe it's true though (people with Math skills are on average smarter, something in their brain makes them act that way naturally).
> 
> All employments are good and important in society, however some of them are meant to make our lives better and increase our knowledge about things that surround us or those that are very small to see, while others serve humanity in a more humble way. The former will eventually get paid more and will be revered among people.


It doesn't mean that women have lesser ability of abstract thinking. It is the case that men are single tasking and engineering or any narrow specialization requires this. One other hand women are multitasking and medicine and law require these skills, and are more suited for them. It is very genetic trait from times of hunter-gatherers. Men went hunting (single goal), but women had to pick up barriers, get water and wood, and doing this constantly keep one eye on kids (multitasking).

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## Echetlaeus

> It doesn't mean that women have lesser ability of abstract thinking. It is the case that men are single tasking and engineering or any narrow specialization requires this. One other hand women are multitasking and medicine and law require these skills, and are more suited for them. It is very genetic trait from times of hunter-gatherers. Men went hunting (single goal), but women had to pick up barriers, get water and wood, and doing this constantly keep one eye on kids (multitasking).


I did not say that. I am talking about people in general.

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## LeBrok

> I did not say that. I am talking about people in general.


 yeh, me too. What didn't you say?

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## Aberdeen

I've personally never found much connection between intelligence and mathematical ability, which is perhaps not surprising, since mathematical ability is mostly about persistence and practice. Many people who are skilled at math are rather slow in other areas and often have borderline literacy. And if you read any scientific journal that's talking about I.Q., they'll distinguish between math skills and what they call "verbal intelligence" (i.e., actual intelligence). I suppose that one could make a table showing a supposed correlation between math and intelligence by designing I.Q. tests that emphasize math skills. However, in my experience, most mathematicians and engineers are not particularly good at understanding, evaluating or summarizing intellectual concepts. Most people have either one skill or the other. The few people who have both are able to perform well in certain complex areas, such as physics, but such people are rare. Your average civil engineer is dumb as a post, in my experience.

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## Echetlaeus

> I've personally never found much connection between intelligence and mathematical ability, which is perhaps not surprising, since mathematical ability is mostly about persistence and practice. Many people who are skilled at math are rather slow in other areas and often have borderline literacy. And if you read any scientific journal that's talking about I.Q., they'll distinguish between math skills and what they call "verbal intelligence" (i.e., actual intelligence). I suppose that one could make a table showing a supposed correlation between math and intelligence by designing I.Q. tests that emphasize math skills. However, in my experience, most mathematicians and engineers are not particularly good at understanding, evaluating or summarizing intellectual concepts. Most people have either one skill or the other. The few people who have both are able to perform well in certain complex areas, such as physics, but such people are rare. Your average civil engineer is dumb as a post, in my experience.


Physics is the best, I totally agree! Imagination + math skills ---> understanding of the world.

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