I’ve been reading the comments on this post. The context is in the graph, that after a massive loss of jobs in the US over the last two years, hiring is starting. Great.

But they are hiring men. Lia commented quite wisely:

I am saying that for many sectors in the workforce, women are not as competent as men. Men are better at coping with stressors and do not have the same ties to maintaining home life as women do– homemaking, childcare, etc. Men are also physically stronger, bigger, and can do things faster than women can. Women tend to excel at tasks that require manual dexterity, gentle care with precision, and empathy (nursing, teaching, caregiving fields, support positions, etc.) and tend to gravitate to those fields.

In recent years, those same fields have laid off thousands of workers, decreased pay, and demanded that one person do the job of 2-3 people. This is tough on women (and I also speak from personal experience). That could explain why more men are seeking these jobs because they are willing to do what it takes. The fields requiring more “nitty-gritty” have men flocking because they are more competent.

Why is it such a problem that I am saying women are less competent than men when it comes to these things? Men are less empathetic than women. Men are less skilled at fine motor movements than women. Men are less skilled at multitasking. Men are less skilled at administration. I don’t hear them taking offense. It is okay to point out the differences in competencies between the sexes.

But Chels came back with a classic

Lia, they’re both equally offensive. Many men would be really offended if you told them they’re less empathetic and because of that, they can’t do as good a job as a woman at raising their own children (you basically offended all fathers).

via The decline of the working woman « Traditional Christianity.

No, most men would not be offended. I’m not. And here I can speak with some authority, since I have to teach interviewing skills. In my view, women get the technique faster and build empathy better. On average. But men can do it — even men like me, who enjoy spending a day swearing at a statistics programme.

What is missing from most of these discussions is that we are talking about average differences. To make the point, I’m going to use height.

Women generally are shorter than men. The average man is around 170 cm dtall, the average woman around 160 cm. But I’m 187 cm tall, and I know a couple of women that are taller than me — and I know a couple of me who are around 155 cm. The average does not describe the extremes.

Coming back to employment — in these times, only people who are absolutely needed are hired. The talented, and those who are prepared to do antisocial & dirty jobs — I’m thinking here of a bloke I talked cars with last night (we both like Fiats) who is a civil engineer and will travel to the desert next week for his next project and will be away for weeks at a time — and the average woman is concerned about caring for her kids and won’t do that.

I won’t do that. I could increase my income if I moved to an area of need. However, I’m raising boys and I don’t want them to change schools, so I accept that I am not making the income I could. Families have always made these compromises.

Where Chels is correct, at least in the states, is that there is institutional sexism in the family court -- where men are sent to jail or have their drivers licences removed if they do not find the money for child support and women are assumed to have custody of the children. .This drives men to take that job in a horrible part of the country, where he is placing his safety and health at risk. Because… it is mainly men who die at work.