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by missizii 1575 days ago
Part time work for developers would also help women who don’t want to work full time when they have small children. If I had a part time option when my children were small, I would have embraced it. My career was thriving, but there was no “step back” option for me. If you want more women in tech, recognize that the first shift of daycare & school prep, the second shift of work, and the third shift of cooking, cleaning, and caring, is exhausting and unpleasant, even when both parents try to share the burden.
2 comments
Scarblac 1575 days ago
> Part time work for developers would also help women who don’t want to work full time when they have small children.

And men with the same wish.

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dudul 1575 days ago
> Part time work for developers would also help women who don’t want to work full time when they have small children.

How about "parent" instead of "women"?

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missizii 1575 days ago
1. Tech has small percentage of women. The ridiculous under representation of female coders is widely recognized as a problem and something that should be fixed. There are programs for recruiting women into CS Majors. But the imbalance will remain when women have babies and are given only the choices of the third shift or leaving their careers. 2. Women who choose breastfeeding, which can be 3-4 hours a day total, are then in place to be the primary infant caregivers.
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dudul 1575 days ago
I still don't see how this is an argument to say that it would benefit "women" instead of "parents" in general.
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berkes 1574 days ago
In the Netherlands almost all women work parttime. Which is a major reason the country has such a high rate of parttimers. Men work more fulltime.

This is both a serious problem and a solution to social imbalance. Again and again, polls show many of the women would stop working alltogether¹ if their only option is fulltime.

This does give men some unfair advantage in career options or pay raises, though. It is cited as an important reason for payment inequality between men and women.

¹ The irony is that this would change the parttime ratio: one reason why it is this high in the Netherlands, is because those mothers in many other European countries, simply don't have a job at all. The Nordics being a positive, exception, by the way.

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