<p>Misspoke - D talked to the Dean of Faculty, who says he will talk to the prof. But I believe it is not the first complaint or the first chat the Dean of Faculty has had on this topic with this prof…</p>
<p>@DiscipulusBonus: I’m sorry, I just know that right now there is also a huge push back against girls choosing traditionally female careers. I am judged daily for going into elementary education, and if I ever say that I really just want to be a mom, then its like I said, “Yes, I would like to destroy the futures of everyone everywhere.” I just don’t want there to be conditioning EITHER way, and I really do think that some are pushing for girls to be conditioned to feel as though they are suppressed by men, just as much as some condition girls to be only moms.</p>
<p>
I can kind of understand why people think it’s tacky to say this, because (as far as I know, but maybe I’m wrong) you have to be socioeconomically privileged to be able to just choose to stay home. Saying “I really just want to be a mom” is similar to saying “I really just want to be rich,” and doesn’t everyone? If a man said he wanted to be a stay-at-home parent, people would judge him even more harshly than they judge women for it. </p>
<p>Why does nobody care that men are only about 10% of nurses? Why does nobody seem to care that many elementary schools lack adequate numbers of male employees to be role models? The school my mother works at has 3 male faculty at the moment. Out of more than 40 faculty and educational staff, 3 are men. Why do we only care about job differences between gender when women “don’t have enough” of those jobs?</p>
<p>@halcyonheather: Actually, you don’t have to be rich. My mother stays at home and my family is on the lower end of middle class. (As in, my parents can’t afford smart phones.) My gran stays at home even though my granddad was a factory worker. Wanting to be a stay at home mom in my family is about valuing the upkeep of the home (and trust me - from the looks of many homes, most people don’t these days) and the raising of your children. My mom said that if she had worked while she had children nearly all her earnings as a nurse would have gone to childcare. She doesn’t understand why she would pay for someone else to raise her children. Besides, true housekeeping is a full time job. My mom is always doing laundry, cleaning house, shuttling kids here and there, tending the garden, running errands, or doing small repairs around the house. Also, for the record, she does want to go back to work once we’re all out the house (partly because my parents are financially unable to ever retire).</p>
<p>I just wanted to clear one of the prevalent misconceptions about stay-at-home moms which you were so kind to point out.</p>
<p>Excellent post, @runner019. I have a LOT of friends who have sacrificed to stay home with their kids. I was lucky to work part-time when my kids were little. One snarky contractor figured out that I wasn’t in the office every day and said, “Oh, you must be a MOOOOM!” very sarcastically. What the heck?? </p>
<p>When I would tell my male colleagues that staying home was harder than working as an engineer, they thought I was joking. I wasn’t.</p>
<p>I mostly hear about the disparity in all of the STEM fields, which includes physics. </p>
<p>@GMTplus7 The reason the lack of men in ECE and other such fields is that men are not pushed out of those fields in graduate school and the professional world by a social climate that tells them they are not intelligent or capable enough. More women are graduation with science undergraduate degrees than men, and yet far fewer women end up in the graduate school level. Here’s a bit on why women leave STEM fields:</p>
<p>“This leakage may be due to discrimination, both overt and covert, faced by women in STEM fields. Schiebinger claims that women are twice as likely to leave their jobs than men in science and engineering. The reasons behind these decisions to leave include not being invited to professional meetings, the use of sexually discriminating standards against women, the struggle to balance family and work, the perceived need to hide pregnancies, and inflexible working conditions.”</p>
<p>As you can imagine, these conditions do NOT exist for men looking to work in Early Childhood Education.</p>
<p>@SerenityJade It’s unfortunate but gender stereotyping works both ways. Women may feel pushed out of STEM jobs by the same stereotypes that tell men that jobs typically considered “feminine” are not an option for them.</p>
<p>For example, my parents were very supportive and wanted to make sure that I knew that I had my choice of future, regardless of gender. Unfortunately, I was surrounded by media that separated jobs by gender. Take children’s toys for example. We can see clearly that toys marketed for girls heavily emphasize child care, maintaining a household, and teaching. Toys marketed for boys emphasized careers as doctors, engineers, soldiers, and anything considered “strong”. </p>
<p>Now think of the current climate. Remember the movie Meet the Parents? It was a running joke that the main character was a male nurse. It was laughable and they had to apologize for it by making sure to mention that he had high MCAT scores and was thinking of going to med school. Why? Why couldn’t he be a nurse and love his job? Women in powerful positions are constantly undermined. The media will comment on Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe instead of what she said in a speech. I think Gamergate started when someone accused a woman of sleeping with a critic for better review. This same climate harms men as well by telling them that they have to be manly and that holding jobs considered to be for women undermines their manhood.</p>
<p>So really, we’re all talking about the same problem. Even though men tend to get a MUCH better deal out of it, it does cut both ways.</p>