oops Women

[Robert F. Smith]

4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Daniel Peterson on his blog has some thoughts on this study and how there are ways such a thing might be influenced by the way it is structured, considerations that are included, questions that are asked, ideological assumptions that are made, etc.

The criteria used should be impartial and even-handed, not designed to get even with Mormons for being Mormon.

[Storm Rider]

What a dandy little study to support a specific definition.  Political agendas never fail to find a way to justify their ongoing battle cry.  A new study could be created with an alternative subset of definitions and the results would be reversed.  Is anything proved?  Nope, but it is a great soundbite for the whatever cause is sought to sustain, support, strengthen. 

[sunstoned]

12 hours ago, stemelbow said:

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst-states-for-women-equality/5835/

Is this mostly due to the Church's influence on the state's culture and it's view of women? 

Utah coming in last.  But it's not that its last.  If you look at the index, the number for Utah is substantially lower than the 49th ranked state.  Meaning, not only is Utah last, but it's way behind. 

Maybe a little surprising to me. 

Yes, Utah is dead last and the church culture is a big contributor to this.   My doctoral research was in the area of women in stem education, and you don't have to look to deep to see the effects of church culture.   When you have current YM manuals the say marry young, stay home, don't postpone your family, and don't work outside the home, what do you expect.  The real tragedy is that over 50 recent of marriages, including temple marriages end in divorce.  So instead of a single mother with kids with a tech degree telecommuting from home for $50 an hour, you have a  single mother with no degree working in fast food services for $10 an hour.  The leaders need to move there thinking out of the 1950's.

[sunstoned]

11 hours ago, bluebell said:

If utah is not last in any of their education or health measurements except the number of women who have advanced degrees compared to men, how did it rank last in their study?  That doesn't make any sense to me which is why i'm questioning it.  Why would doing better than every other state in education except in getting masters and doctorates mean that state was dead last for education equality for women?

And why combine health and education?   

One of the main problem is that more than 40% of Utah women work in just two occupational groups: office and administrative support (https://www.uvu.edu/uwlp/docs/uws_laborforce.pdf). Both of these groups of jobs have median wages below the state average.   Another problem is that the state of Utah is governed by men, with women making up only 19.2% of the state legislature (http://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislators/womens-legislative-network/women-in-state-legislatures-for-2017.aspx).  With so many men calling the shots for so long, this whole idea of women belonging  in the home has bled over from the pulpit into the Utah workforce.  The state institution that I work at has a women workforce of abut 58%.  Woman occupy 12% of the management and leadership positions.   

Women are in the workforce in Utah. The is a fact.  The problem is they are working in lower paid jobs with little opportunity for advancement. 

[Darren10]

12 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

"

Funny you started a thread about women. One of my biggest reasons for quitting Belief altogether was that Scriptures doing horrendous job excluding women from the narrative altogether.  

Instead of editing to ad in my previous post I'll post here Matt Bowen's article which embraces the fact that women are rarely mentioned in the scriptures. It's an excellent read. 

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/father-is-a-man-the-remarkable-mention-of-the-name-abish-in-alma-1916-and-its-narrative-context/

[Robert F. Smith]

16 hours ago, sunstoned said:

One of the main problem is that more than 40% of Utah women work in just two occupational groups: office and administrative support (https://www.uvu.edu/uwlp/docs/uws_laborforce.pdf). Both of these groups of jobs have median wages below the state average.

However, the standard of living (living costs) are much lower in Utah.  The report you cite also points out:

Quote

. . . occupational segregation has been decreasing over time; for example, in 1980, around one quarter of Utah women worked in jobs in which approximately 90% of the workers in that field were women. By 2000, only 10% of Utah women worked in such occupations. Conversely, some positions, such as elementary school teachers and cosmetologists, became even more female dominated during those same years.

How did that happen?  Evil Mormon leaders again, perhaps?

Quote

  Another problem is that the state of Utah is governed by men, with women making up only 19.2% of the state legislature (http://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislators/womens-legislative-network/women-in-state-legislatures-for-2017.aspx).

That means that Utah is in about 13th place for women in the state legislature.  With a couple of state legislatures with virtually the same percentage of female members, this figure could be 1th place%, but with one female member of Congress (Mia Love).

Quote

 With so many men calling the shots for so long, this whole idea of women belonging  in the home has bled over from the pulpit into the Utah workforce.  The state institution that I work at has a women workforce of abut 58%.  Woman occupy 12% of the management and leadership positions.   

Women are in the workforce in Utah. The is a fact.  The problem is they are working in lower paid jobs with little opportunity for advancement. 

Are we certain that there are so few prospects for advancement in Utah?  Do we have any figures for perspective on the past?  In any case, I just don't hear this demand "from pulpit" that women stay in the home.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Yes, Utah is dead last and the church culture is a big contributor to this.   My doctoral research was in the area of women in stem education, and you don't have to look to deep to see the effects of church culture.   When you have current YM manuals the say marry young, stay home, don't postpone your family, and don't work outside the home, what do you expect.  The real tragedy is that over 50 recent of marriages, including temple marriages end in divorce.  So instead of a single mother with kids with a tech degree telecommuting from home for $50 an hour, you have a  single mother with no degree working in fast food services for $10 an hour.  The leaders need to move there thinking out of the 1950's.

What is your source for the assertion I bolded above that over 50 percent of temple marriages end in divorce?

Here is a blog that quotes a New York Times Article giving an oft-cited statistic that only 6 percent of Mormon temple marriages end in divorce. The blogger also quotes personal correspondence with Daniel K. Judd of BYU, one of the authors of the study.

How do you reconcile your 50 percent figure (wherever it comes from) with the 6 percent figure cited here? If you dispute it, what do you have that rebuts it?

Even for Mormon marriages outside of the temple, the >50 percent divorce rate seems high to me. Can you document it?

Also, what is your source for the statement that "YM manuals" (I presume you mean YW, or Young Women manuals) say "marry young, stay home don't postpone your family and don't work outside the home"?

Furthermore, from the time I was very young I remember that girls and young women in the Church have been encouraged to get a good education so they can be self-sufficient whether or not they have the opportunity to marry. This doesn't square with your notion that the Church is producing single mothers "with no degree working in fast food services for $10 an hour." Can you document that a substantial portion of Mormon women end up in that boat? And if they do, that the instruction they received in the Church is to blame for it?

Edited to add:

Here is FairMormon blog post on Judd's 6 percent figure. Here is snippet from it:

Quote

Recently FAIR (via Ask the Apologist feature) was queried about whether the Church’s website was knowingly misusing the popular 6% divorce from temple marriage statistic. Its main promoter has been Daniel K. Judd. He gave a BYU devotional in 2006 and defended the 6% figure. A partial transcript of Judd’s comments about his prior (2000) LA Times newspaper interview can be found here. Judd explains that divorce statistics are very dependent on how one collects and calculates the data. My co-blogger, Steven Danderson, pointed out that the high divorce rates that people are most familiar with are calculated (for example by the government) on a yearly basis by dividing the number of recorded divorces by the number of recorded marriages. As will be shown, the research that Judd refers to uses a different counting scheme, which is nevertheless well within the norms of academic journals. I think Judd and the LDS Church can continue to use the figure in good faith.

Edited further to add:

Not specifically Mormon-related, but here is a web site that debunks the common myth that 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. Turns out the rumor -- which has become conventional wisdom -- results from a misreading of statistics:
 

Quote

 

A spokesperson for the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics told me that the rumor appears to have originated from a misreading of the facts. It was true, he said, if you looked at all the marriages and divorces within a single year, you’d find that there were twice as many marriages as divorces. In 1981, for example, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. At first glance, that would seem like a 50-percent divorce rate.

Virtually none of those divorces were among the people who had married during that year, however, and the statistic failed to take into account the 54 million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see divorce.

 

Edited yet again:

Here is a link to the audio recording of Daniel K. Judd giving the BYU devotional address in which he discusses the 6 percent divorce figure for temple marriages.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[BlueDreams]

2 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Yes, Utah is dead last and the church culture is a big contributor to this.   My doctoral research was in the area of women in stem education, and you don't have to look to deep to see the effects of church culture.   When you have current YM manuals the say marry young, stay home, don't postpone your family, and don't work outside the home, what do you expect.  The real tragedy is that over 50 recent of marriages, including temple marriages end in divorce.  So instead of a single mother with kids with a tech degree telecommuting from home for $50 an hour, you have a  single mother with no degree working in fast food services for $10 an hour.  The leaders need to move there thinking out of the 1950's.

I agree that culture does play a part in it. I hesitate to call it church culture, sense a lot of that is very much filtered by family culture as well. I've heard some wonky cultural/familial ideals that individuals have assumed were "the church" that were more UT, their family, or ethnic based. But I disagree with your estimation for marriage in UT and the church particularly. Even on a general basis that stat has been shown to have holes in it. But on a UT basis, our divorce rate is generally lower, even with our rate of younger marriages. The church, state culture, and governing structures all play a part in having networks that support marriages and staying in them.   Places where, if UT followed national trends SHOULD have higher divorce rates....simply don't. One (provo/orem) even has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Even though the population fits some of the factors tied to divorce, such as young marriages. This area also has a disproportionately high number of LDS people.

 

As for the statistics, they don't tell us much about the area beyond broad depictions of the state. I do think UT has some problems with gender. I believe the beliefs you mention can definitely contribute to said disparities. I think we also have structures that tie more to a very conservative state and overarching american concerns that place LDS cultural values at odds with correcting some of these disparities. At the same time, I don't think these numbers mean as much by themselves. For example, a disparity doesn't equal active oppression. When I got my masters no one was dissuading me from doing so. No one lifted concerns about my prospects for marriage drying up because of it. You could say I could get a degree because I was single....but half of the women in my program were married. When I chose a....very odd....career path, plenty raised eyebrows. But again no one tried to dissuade or change my perspective on it. At best a couple of older women have questioned why I was still single and assumed it was because I was intimidating to guys due to, well, me (assertive, educated, and confident). Just as many, if not more, have tried to set me up, (or thought about it in the case of clients) with men they knew around my age. In communities where the disparity is actively being enforced in some way you would expect push back in these choices and social consequence that could deter prospects. 

 

I could say more, but bed awaits. This working woman has a 9 o'clock client.  

 

With luv,

BD

Edited August 25, 2017 by BlueDreams

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Yes, Utah is dead last and the church culture is a big contributor to this.   My doctoral research was in the area of women in stem education, and you don't have to look to deep to see the effects of church culture.   When you have current YM manuals the say marry young, stay home, don't postpone your family, and don't work outside the home, what do you expect.  The real tragedy is that over 50 recent of marriages, including temple marriages end in divorce.  So instead of a single mother with kids with a tech degree telecommuting from home for $50 an hour, you have a  single mother with no degree working in fast food services for $10 an hour.  The leaders need to move there thinking out of the 1950's.

I missed the YM manuals that supposedly taught me to marry young and stay home all day. I tried not working outside the home but my current job only allows me to telecommute rarely.  

[Darren10]

27 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I missed the YM manuals that supposedly taught me to marry young and stay home all day. I tried not working outside the home but my current job only allows me to telecommute rarely.  

It's obviously on page six hundred and sixty six. 

[Physics Guy]

The divorce rate per marriage is like the frequency of causes of death. Cause of death frequency is not about how likely you are to die this year, but about how likely you are to die of cancer, whenever you die, as opposed to dying from some other cause. In the same way, the chance that a marriage will end in divorce is not the chance that it will end in divorce this very year. It's the chance that, whenever this marriage ends, the way it ends will be divorce. The other options are annulment and death.

Quote

Virtually none of those divorces were among the people who had married during that year, however, and the statistic failed to take into account the 54 million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see divorce.

This is irrelevant. The meaning of the 50% divorce rate figure is not that half of the 2.4 million who marry in one year get divorced that same year. It is that half of the marriage endings that occur in one year are by divorce, rather than by death. Of course this does not take into account any marriages which do not end in that year. When you count what percentage of people die of cancer as opposed to other causes, you don't count people who haven't yet died.

Quote

A spokesperson for the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics told me that the rumor appears to have originated from a misreading of the facts. It was true, he said, if you looked at all the marriages and divorces within a single year, you’d find that there were twice as many marriages as divorces. In 1981, for example, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. At first glance, that would seem like a 50-percent divorce rate. 

I wonder about this alleged "spokesperson", because getting a 50% divorce rate from 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces is more than just a naive first glance.

Annulment is rare. So if there were 1.2 million divorces in a year, the question is how many marriages ended through death in that year. If it happened to also be 1.2 million, then the divorce rate that year was 50%. If only 0.4 million marriages ended in death that year, then the divorce rate would have been 75% (1.2M out of 1.6M total endings). If 3.6 million marriages ended in death that year, the divorce rate would have been 25% (1.2M out of 4.8M). 

So if you want to say that the divorce rate is much lower than 50%, you have to suppose that many more than 1.2 million marriages ended in death that year. Let's say for example that you want to have a 25% divorce rate. Then you need to have 4.8 million marriage endings in total. Since only 2.4 million new marriages began in that year, the 25% divorce rate would mean that twice as many marriages ended as began. With millions more old marriages ending than new marriages starting, the total number of marriages would be falling fast (down by 2.4 million each year). Marriage would be dying out.

In fact marriage is not dying out—at least not that quickly. So the divorce rate must indeed be much closer to 50%, if there is going to be a rough parity between marriage beginnings and endings. Comparing the 1.2M divorces with the 2.4M marriages and estimating a 50% divorce rate is pretty sensible, actually.

The fraction of divorces among the marriages that end in a given year is the definition of divorce rate that is easiest to determine; but it isn't necessarily the divorce rate that we would most like to know. We'd probably rather know what fraction of marriages that exist in a given year will eventually end in divorce (versus death). The problem is that the future deaths and divorces which will eventually end today's marriages will occur over many different future years. Some of today's spouses will die next year, and some will divorce twenty years from now. By now most marriages that began in 1960, say, are probably over, one way or the other. So we could probably figure out pretty well what the chance of ending by death vs divorce was for 1960 marriages. But that was two generations ago. Only historians care about that divorce rate.

We could look at marriages that began in, say, 2010, and see how the ones that have ended so far have ended. We could then take that pattern of endings up to 2017 as a guide to what to expect, in the upcoming years, for the rest of the marriages from 2010. This might well overestimate the chance of eventual divorce among the remaining marriages, though, because maybe there's an early phase of bad marriages that crash and burn within seven years, and after that the rates go down. Or maybe instead it would underestimate the chance of divorce among the remaining marriages, because maybe there's a big rush of breakups that happen after the seven-year itch. The more contemporary is the information we seek, the less confidence we can have in it. So the kind of divorce rate that we'd most like to know is very hard to determine. We're essentially stuck with statistics that are less meaningful but easier to measure.

One thing to bear in mind is that the divorce rate per marriage is inherently higher than the chance that a first marriage will end in divorce. That's because a fair number of people go through multiple marriages and divorces, and each one of their marriages and divorces counts for the divorce rate. Fewer people remarry after bereavement, because bereavement tends to happen when people are older, and nobody actually dies more than once. So divorce has a sort of inherent statistical advantage. If you look at a couple of newlyweds on their first marriage, the chance that they will stay together until death do them part is still much higher than 50%, because much of that 50% divorce rate per marriage is from second and third marriages.

 

[Rain]

13 hours ago, pogi said:

I also don't agree with the conclusion of this study that inequality = unfair treatment.  While that may certainly be the case in some instances (pay gap), I don't think that unfair treatment can explain all gender inequality.  For example, can "unfair treatment" explain why women across the country (not just Utah) seek for STEM fields less then men do?  Are colleges discriminating against women in these programs?  I doubt it.  I think they have an equal opportunity and fair treatment in that regard, but perhaps women are self-limiting to some degree because of their own misguided gender perceptions.  I believe that there is nothing holding women back but their own self-limiting beliefs in some instances.  Old cultural beliefs and perceptions can infect and limit progress, even when all of the tangible barriers of progress have been removed.  

Belief is incredibly powerful.  There were no tangible physical barriers keeping anyone from running a 4 minute mile (there were only mental barriers).  Once Roger Bannister believed that he could do it, he did it.  Once other people saw that it could be done, they believed and did it too, and now a 4 minute mile is relatively slow.  Once women start believing that they can graduate and succeed in STEM fields, then we will see gender equality in STEM fields.

So, I think the problem is multifaceted.  I think there are some cultural/religious explenations for some variables, actual discrimination for others, as well as self-limiting beliefs with tentacles reaching from old paradigms.  

I know the belief thing is true in some cases, but I do get tired of hearing about it given for why women don't choose STEM fields without question (not saying you are doing it). I was good at math. I just don't care about engineering. I even took an introduction to engineering class because it worked for my major and to get a taste of what my husband was doing, but it held no interest for me. Now a psychology class? That was facinating! How people work is endlessly more interesting for me than how a car or circuit works. 

When I was in high school a teacher encouraged me to attend to go to a conference at the university encouraging women to get into STEM fields. I didn't really care about the purpose,  but it was something to do so I went.  They spent the entire time telling us "you can do this".

And there is where some discrimination lies. If the conference was for boys they never would have done that. They would have been telling the boys WHY they wanted to do it.  Showing cool things they would learn.  You want women to get interested? Show them why these fields would interest them. Don't act as if we need help to feel good about ourselves.  It's a self fulfilling prophecy. It still won't get me,  but it will change things for many women.

 

[Nofear]

This survey didn't get quite as much media play. Utah Just Got Ranked the Happiest State in America—Here's Why (https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-states/6959/#main-findings). Survey clearly should have been titled "Happiest State in America for Men"?
For the record, I'm a Nebraskan and have no aspirations of living in Utah.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

I know the belief thing is true in some cases, but I do get tired of hearing about it given for why women don't choose STEM fields without question (not saying you are doing it). I was good at math. I just don't care about engineering. I even took an introduction to engineering class because it worked for my major and to get a taste of what my husband was doing, but it held no interest for me. Now a psychology class? That was facinating! How people work is endlessly more interesting for me than how a car or circuit works. 

When I was in high school a teacher encouraged me to attend to go to a conference at the university encouraging women to get into STEM fields. I didn't really care about the purpose,  but it was something to do so I went.  They spent the entire time telling us "you can do this".

And there is where some discrimination lies. If the conference was for boys they never would have done that. They would have been telling the boys WHY they wanted to do it.  Showing cool things they would learn.  You want women to get interested? Show them why these fields would interest them. Don't act as if we need help to feel good about ourselves.  It's a self fulfilling prophecy. It still won't get me,  but it will change things for many women.

 

I chose a non-STEM college major and career field. I guess being male and being from Utah were wasted on me.

What a failure I have been. 

[bluebell]

10 hours ago, sunstoned said:

One of the main problem is that more than 40% of Utah women work in just two occupational groups: office and administrative support (https://www.uvu.edu/uwlp/docs/uws_laborforce.pdf). Both of these groups of jobs have median wages below the state average.   Another problem is that the state of Utah is governed by men, with women making up only 19.2% of the state legislature (http://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislators/womens-legislative-network/women-in-state-legislatures-for-2017.aspx).  With so many men calling the shots for so long, this whole idea of women belonging  in the home has bled over from the pulpit into the Utah workforce.  The state institution that I work at has a women workforce of abut 58%.  Woman occupy 12% of the management and leadership positions.   

Women are in the workforce in Utah. The is a fact.  The problem is they are working in lower paid jobs with little opportunity for advancement. 

I don't think that anyone is doubting that women are in the workforce in Utah.  I like in Davis county Utah and almost all of the women in my ward work outside of the home at least a little bit. 

My question is, how does religious belief of women impact their place in the workforce?  

Do things like not wanting to work full-time, wanting to be home when the kids are out of school, not planning for a career but only going back to work later as an afterthought, entering the workforce late and leaving it frequently due to having children, etc. impact things like being able to get into management/leadership positions? 

My thinking is, how can they not impact it?  And, is it reasonable to label it gender inequality for the choices that some women make to negatively impact some parts of their life?  

(To be clear, i don't believe that all of what we call 'gender inequality' can be justified or explained away because of religious belief of women, wherever they live.  Sexism is alive and well and still exists in the workplace, even in Utah.  I'm more asking about the extent of gender equality in Utah, not it's existence.)

[rongo]

7 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don't think that anyone is doubting that women are in the workforce in Utah.  I live in Davis county Utah and almost all of the women in my ward work outside of the home at least a little bit. 

I don't know how any family can live in Utah without both parents working. It's expensive! Especially housing and utilities. There is no way we could make it in Utah without my wife working, too, and even then, things would be tight.

My family is actually increasingly an outlier with a mother who has never worked. Most active families in my wards have had both parents working. Often, this is to support a lifestyle perceived as essential rather than optional --- and I'm not talking about opulence or extravagance. Most people think the way our one-income (teacher's salary) household lives is primitive and barren, but much of what people envy about our family and our kids comes from the fact that our "fun" is the time we spend together. It's all we have. We call a lot of the problems of society (including, increasingly, families who actively attend church) "the problems of the first world." The standard of living the requires that both parents work has other trade-offs.

[Scott Lloyd]

7 minutes ago, rongo said:

I don't know how any family can live in Utah without both parents working. It's expensive! Especially housing and utilities. There is no way we could make it in Utah without my wife working, too, and even then, things would be tight.

My family is actually increasingly an outlier with a mother who has never worked. Most active families in my wards have had both parents working. Often, this is to support a lifestyle perceived as essential rather than optional --- and I'm not talking about opulence or extravagance. Most people think the way our one-income (teacher's salary) household lives is primitive and barren, but much of what people envy about our family and our kids comes from the fact that our "fun" is the time we spend together. It's all we have. We call a lot of the problems of society (including, increasingly, families who actively attend church) "the problems of the first world." The standard of living the requires that both parents work has other trade-offs.

I live in Utah, and we have part-way raised our family (one very recently returned missionary and the other three in or approaching adolescence) on one income.

It can be done, but you have to go without some things a lot of people view as necessities that aren't really necessities: expensive annual vacations, central air conditioning, new carpet every five years or so, palatial houses, frequent restaurant meals, expensive recreational equipment, time share condos, etc. 

[Physics Guy]

I do not doubt that sexism is responsible for much of the career disparity. Suppose for the sake of argument, at least, that some of the disparity represents the free choice of women to pursue callings that don't bring high income or prestige or responsibility for large groups of people. I'm still not happy about even this (hypothetically) voluntary part of the disparity.

To me feminism is the belief that women are just as inherently capable as men at all intellectual tasks. For me it then follows that equality means women stepping up and fully applying their half of the human talent pool, so that humanity does not go on facing a dangerous universe with one hand tied behind our back.

It's a big contribution to raise several children well and run a home for one family, but curing cancer would be a bigger contribution, and some woman out there might well cure cancer if she didn't spend her life tending to just her few relatives. If she'd rather be a homemaker with a part-time job in the mornings, tough luck for her. She needs to get in the lab and direct the big institute. Life isn't just about doing whatever we want.

So I'm disturbed by disparity even if it is voluntary. It means that talent is going to waste.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Physics Guy

[stemelbow]

32 minutes ago, rongo said:

I don't know how any family can live in Utah without both parents working. It's expensive! Especially housing and utilities. There is no way we could make it in Utah without my wife working, too, and even then, things would be tight.

My family is actually increasingly an outlier with a mother who has never worked. Most active families in my wards have had both parents working. Often, this is to support a lifestyle perceived as essential rather than optional --- and I'm not talking about opulence or extravagance. Most people think the way our one-income (teacher's salary) household lives is primitive and barren, but much of what people envy about our family and our kids comes from the fact that our "fun" is the time we spend together. It's all we have. We call a lot of the problems of society (including, increasingly, families who actively attend church) "the problems of the first world." The standard of living the requires that both parents work has other trade-offs.

Utah's cheap compared to other states.  Other states that have high levels of stay at home moms, like California and Washington (at least the Seattle area), far outdo Utah in cost of living.  It's not even close. 

This suggests Salt Lake is 48th in the US.

Edited August 25, 2017 by stemelbow

[Rain]

7 hours ago, rongo said:

I don't know how any family can live in Utah without both parents working. It's expensive! Especially housing and utilities. There is no way we could make it in Utah without my wife working, too, and even then, things would be tight.

My family is actually increasingly an outlier with a mother who has never worked. Most active families in my wards have had both parents working. Often, this is to support a lifestyle perceived as essential rather than optional --- and I'm not talking about opulence or extravagance. Most people think the way our one-income (teacher's salary) household lives is primitive and barren, but much of what people envy about our family and our kids comes from the fact that our "fun" is the time we spend together. It's all we have. We call a lot of the problems of society (including, increasingly, families who actively attend church) "the problems of the first world." The standard of living the requires that both parents work has other trade-offs.

When we looked at cost of living when my husband was looking for a job the calculators online always has Salt Lake area and Phoenix area coming in neck and neck. Since moving here (Phoenix) we have found it slightly more expensive than there (Salt Lake). Housing was a little more expensive here. Electric and phone/internet were. Food was quite a bit more here. Water was much less there. Gas is less.  Oranges and grapefoot and lemon are cheap here during the season! kind of like zucchini there, but the citrus is more abundant in my area than zucchini ever was there. The kids could do concurrent enrollment classes at the time for $50 there (2012), but have to pay the full price here. 

I think most stay-at-home-mom families need to give up something no matter where they live. It's just a matter of how much.  

I knew several teachers up there who had SAHM wives. I have no doubts you could do it up there with the home skils/practices you have talked about.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Rain

[bluebell]

12 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Yes, Utah is dead last and the church culture is a big contributor to this.   My doctoral research was in the area of women in stem education, and you don't have to look to deep to see the effects of church culture.   When you have current YM manuals the say marry young, stay home, don't postpone your family, and don't work outside the home, what do you expect.  The real tragedy is that over 50 recent of marriages, including temple marriages end in divorce.  So instead of a single mother with kids with a tech degree telecommuting from home for $50 an hour, you have a  single mother with no degree working in fast food services for $10 an hour.  The leaders need to move there thinking out of the 1950's.

Can I see your references for the bolded statements?  They differ a lot from what i've read in the past.  

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I don't know how any family can live in Utah without both parents working. It's expensive! Especially housing and utilities. There is no way we could make it in Utah without my wife working, too, and even then, things would be tight.

My family is actually increasingly an outlier with a mother who has never worked. Most active families in my wards have had both parents working. Often, this is to support a lifestyle perceived as essential rather than optional --- and I'm not talking about opulence or extravagance. Most people think the way our one-income (teacher's salary) household lives is primitive and barren, but much of what people envy about our family and our kids comes from the fact that our "fun" is the time we spend together. It's all we have. We call a lot of the problems of society (including, increasingly, families who actively attend church) "the problems of the first world." The standard of living the requires that both parents work has other trade-offs.

We manage it, but i understand why so many others can't.

[pogi]

3 hours ago, Rain said:

I know the belief thing is true in some cases, but I do get tired of hearing about it given for why women don't choose STEM fields without question (not saying you are doing it). I was good at math. I just don't care about engineering. I even took an introduction to engineering class because it worked for my major and to get a taste of what my husband was doing, but it held no interest for me. Now a psychology class? That was facinating! How people work is endlessly more interesting for me than how a car or circuit works. 

When I was in high school a teacher encouraged me to attend to go to a conference at the university encouraging women to get into STEM fields. I didn't really care about the purpose,  but it was something to do so I went.  They spent the entire time telling us "you can do this".

And there is where some discrimination lies. If the conference was for boys they never would have done that. They would have been telling the boys WHY they wanted to do it.  Showing cool things they would learn.  You want women to get interested? Show them why these fields would interest them. Don't act as if we need help to feel good about ourselves.  It's a self fulfilling prophecy. It still won't get me,  but it will change things for many women.

You are right, there are potentially lots of reasons why women may not choose STEM fields.  Perhaps I worded it poorly to appear as if that is the only reason.  My main point is that inequality is not always due to unfair treatment.  There is absolutely nothing holding women back from pursuing STEM fields.  Perhaps women are naturally generally more inclined to other fields (that is one possibility), and there is nothing wrong with that.  However, some people will view that natural inequality as "unfair treatment".  That is what irks me.  Men and women are not the same and we should celebrate our unique and different strengths, interests, and qualities instead of trying to make everything "equal".  We scream "unfair treatment" when women, like you, are simply inclined to other fields and are choosing their own paths. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that.  

You make an interesting point about helping women see "why" these fields would interest them.  I don't think that can fully explain the gap as women can, and do, receive the "why" information through other courses and means which explore different college options.   I wonder, however, if the conference you attended was a result of trying to answer the question, "why are more women not choosing STEM fields despite equal opportunity?"  It sounds like they are trying to combat cultural perceptions of old norms and the roles of women in society.  I, like you, don't think that approach is terribly effective.  I don't think that colleges should be trying to increase the number of women in these fields through special conferences etc., that will inevitably come off as special treatment/discrimination of either, or both, women and men.  They need to treat men and women equally and let them choose their own path.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Physics Guy said:

I do not doubt that sexism is responsible for much of the career disparity. Suppose for the sake of argument, at least, that some of the disparity represents the free choice of women to pursue callings that don't bring high income or prestige or responsibility for large groups of people. I'm still not happy about even this (hypothetically) voluntary part of the disparity.

To me feminism is the belief that women are just as inherently capable as men at all intellectual tasks. For me it then follows that equality means women stepping up and fully applying their half of the human talent pool, so that humanity does not go on facing a dangerous universe with one hand tied behind our back.

It's a big contribution to raise several children well and run a home for one family, but curing cancer would be a bigger contribution, and some woman out there might well cure cancer if she didn't spend her life tending to just her few relatives. If she'd rather be a homemaker with a part-time job in the mornings, tough luck for her. She needs to get in the lab and direct the big institute. Life isn't just about doing whatever we want.

So I'm disturbed by disparity even if it is voluntary. It means that talent is going to waste.

So you don't believe women should have the choice on how they use their talents?

[Kenngo1969]

27 minutes ago, bluebell said:

So you don't believe women should have the choice on how they use their talents?

Apparently not.  Discovering the cure for cancer is where it's at.  Rearing the child, imbuing that child with a sense of curiosity about the natural world and with a capacity for resourcefulness (and nurturing these qualities to the extent that they are inborn), nurturing that child's analytical capacity and its interest in and aptitude for science and medicine so that the child eventually grows up to discover the cure for cancer?  Meh!  Big deal!