<p>That is a great summary of the issue, marysidney (#155). I had seriously expected the situation to be different by now, but it is not.</p>
<p>PG: I am afraid that this is one of those situations where we do not alter the other person’s opinion. With regard to how difficult scientific research is, any arrogance that I am showing is real, I must admit. I do try to keep the arrogance corralled off into that one area.</p>
<p>Some hard things are just harder than others. They’re both hard. One is just harder. </p>
<p>It’s like infinity. You can have an infinity that is “bigger” than another infinity. They’re both large. One is just larger.</p>
<p>We’re really not gaining any ground here. Posters are just writing about how “hard” their job is. I mean…Dang, my job is hard. The time constraints are terrible. I always have to stay past my hours. Management expects things to take 5 seconds when in reality it takes 8…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Great example, sevmom (not that suicidal, homicidal or abusive patients are great things, of course).</p>
<p>QM, do you really not get that there are simply different TYPES of difficulty that draw upon different strengths? You happen to have chosen / specialize in one particular type. That’s all. It is not “easier” to deal with suicidal patients than it is to deal with whatever you do. It is not “easier” to write / score an entire musical theater production that’s going to be on Broadway than it is to do whatever you do. It’s just different. It draws on different skill sets and talents. Just because you might not have what it takes to deal with mentally ill patients or write musical theater doesn’t make those tasks “easier” than your tasks.</p>
<p>My closest friend’s daughter just got her certificate in Social Work, sevmom. There is no denying that such a job is super-hard, takes a toll on one, and requires deep commitment to service. The work is very important. It is more important than anything that I do. It also takes a considerable emotional toll on the person providing the service (which my friend’s daughter is handling very well, so far.) In addition, it involves physical danger.</p>
<p>I could not do that work successfully, nor probably the handle the positions that PG and oldfort have.</p>
<p>I have mentioned that the terms “difficult,” “intrinsically difficult,” or “hard” cover a wide range of reasons why a job might be challenging. (The issue of difficult boss and co-workers just came to mind quickly, due to experiences of friends and neighbors–I was not meaning to indicate that those were the major challenges in other positions.)</p>
<p>Actually, as I think about it, it seems to me that the problems that social workers encounter are essentially problems of Nature. They can’t be separated from human-made situations, but fundamentally, they don’t stem from human-made situations.</p>
<p>Your division between the difficulty of dealing with human-made situations vs nature-based situations is artificial and to my mind, irrelevant.</p>
<p>Well, to give one example: I think that computer hacking is easier than doing research in theoretical physics. Computer hacking requires a great deal of cleverness, and most likely it requires creativity; it’s probably pretty hard. But I think there’s a cap on the difficulty of it.</p>
<p>Well, I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker by profession but don’t have the energy right now to debate issues about problems of Nature. Just as you could not excel in social work or what PizzaGirl or oldfort are doing, I would have no clue about being a physicist (although I really liked physics in high school so maybe there is hope yet)!</p>
<p>Let me give another example, which is relevant to the recent discussion of societal attitudes toward working mothers as well.</p>
<p>First, a disclaimer: I understand that teaching at the elementary school level requires a very great deal of thinking, particularly when it comes to the issue of providing appropriate challenges for each student in a large class, and with limited resources. A lot of analysis and planning, as well as thoughtfulness, has to go into it.</p>
<p>The example: I somewhat foolishly volunteered for a end-of-year event at QMP’s elementary school. What I learned was:
QM + 4 fourth-graders = chaos</p>
<p>After getting bailed out, however, it didn’t seem to me that the solution to my problem would have been to think harder. The solution would probably have been: be different personally.</p>
<p>I think we have agreed that there are different types of difficulty in different careers. This is part of why I do not think that “work is work.”</p>
<p>Mary Sidney, I think your post oversimplifies the history of families a little. Industrialization and the money economy separated home and work in the 19th century U.S. Before that, many families worked together on the farm or homestead and noone “stayed home” versus “going to work.” Interestingly, it is conceivable that technology could bring a similar situation, with telecommuting and flex time etc., in the near future. At least, there is that potential. </p>
<p>The real problem is the modern industrial separation of home and work, and the modern industrial conception of time, beginning with clock towers, punchcards and watches taking the place of darkness and sun. The choices we are forced to make in terms of our children feel artificial in that sense. Perhaps technology can, ironically, restore the natural order.</p>
<p>Actually, I should have written that my friend’s daughter completed her Master’s degree in social work and got her license (following the NCE exam). “Certificate” was entirely the wrong word. She was working as an intern while pursuing the Master’s degree and handled a number of difficult situations.</p>
<p>Yes, the term “certificate” is unknown to me. The MSW is the standard degree.</p>
<p>Crossposted with jym. Agree, the initial post sounded condescending but will give the benefit of the doubt!</p>
<p>Unless something has changed, one does not get a “certificate” in social work. Maybe it was unintentional, but that sounds really demeaning and condescending. Maybe it’s just a sole lack of knowledge. I hope that is the case</p>
<p><em>sings</em> “Here we go again.”</p>
<p>QuantMech even said it was the wrong word. Why the beef?</p>
<p>To go specifically to the questions raised by marysidney:</p>
<p>The remaining question is, do we, as a society, have any real desire to make it possible for women to fulfill the desire both to have families and to have a career on the same footing as men? </p>
<p>Some groups do have this desire and some oppose it on the grounds that they think it is actually wrong. There are at least some men who do not understand what is involved in child-rearing and the time-commitment that it requires. I think that some people view their own childhoods through a distorted lens that de-emphasizes how much their parents actually did for them.</p>
<p>Have we made any real progress from the days when women were discouraged from even attending college, since it was a waste of resources to allocate education to women when all they were going to do was get married and raise children? </p>
<p>Yes, some–I think this question was largely rhetorical?</p>
<p>Or do we inhabit a peculiar hinterland, in which women occupy a grey area in which they are “allowed” to try to compete on the same footing as men, but are handicapped by the biological realities of childbearing?</p>
<p>I think that it is not simply the biological realities of childbearing–pregnancy did not interfere with my work to any real extent. It’s the child-rearing that makes equal commitment to work quite difficult (and drives women who are working semi-crazy). Perhaps in the future, men will be acculturated to be more nurturing than the men in the generation who are now parents of college students or about-to-be college students. I am speaking generally, here, and realize that there are numerous exceptions. </p>
<p>As long as the response to the problem is pretty much, well, if you’re serious about your job you won’t have children, then individual women will be forced to choose between being “serious” about their jobs, or “serious” about raising children well–which has dire consequences both for women and for children. Why does the current paradigm have such sway over our culture?</p>
<p>I have a mixed reaction to this. On the one hand, I was advised not to get married, on the grounds that my department had not tenured anyone who was married (male or female) in the past 10 years. On the other hand, once I was married, no one ever said that if I was serious about my job, I would not have children. So perhaps it was easier in that regard. I assume that people do still say that to women in some fields?</p>
<p>Yes, apologies again, it was a license in social work. As I understand it, my friend’s daughter had a student license while she was in the Master’s program (at least while she was working as an intern), and then got a professional license after she passed the licensure exam and completed the degree. There may be a stage of licensure beyond that, after several years of practice?</p>
<p>In this case, I did not mean to be condescending!</p>
<p>Sorry about the license/certificate mix-up. I had recently been reading another thread in which people were discussing how much it mattered whether a physician was board-certified. So I was thinking about “certificate” in parallel with being “certified.” It only occurred to me later that there are academic certificate programs at some universities that are roughly the equivalent of a minor.</p>
<p>Really, QuantMech, it was an honest mix up. There is no reason to apologize and no one should hold it against you.</p>
<p>Niquii,Doesn’t matter about the specifics of social work. It was just an example. The point is that MANY jobs are difficult (physician, teacher, laborer, etc).That is the “beef” some of us have.</p>
<p>QM, it wasn’t the use of the word certificate for social work that was condescending. What was and is condescending is the belief that your work is just intrinsically harder than other types of work people do. Doing anything with excellence, creativity and innovation is hard work. It’s arrogant to believe that STEM-ish hard work is some special super-duper level of hard. </p>
<p>Again, could you write an original score for a Broadway play or successfully help a person with mental illness become functional and happy again? If not, don’t pretend that your job is one bit harder. It’s just different. That’s all.</p>