At what rate do you think women are driven into prostitution because they hit a glass ceiling in their previous line of work?

Versus, you know, never getting off the ground floor?

I have six years of college, including a Certificate in GIS. I worked at a Fortune 500 company for over 5 years. The only person at the company who knew what GIS was without me having to explain it was a senior programmer who asked me for a date, thereby making it vastly less likely that I could ever successfully get a job in his department.

I've been a member of HN for over 9 years. I spent nearly 6 of it homeless. I have been quite open about hoping to make professional connections here and thereby improve my finances. I've made damn little progress on that goal. HN has not proven to be a good means for me to network.

While homeless, there were a number of men who offered me money to sleep with them or asked if I needed a place to stay (the implication being I could stay with them in exchange for sex).

I've talked about this many times on HN. If I didn't have a serious medical condition making sex work a non starter for me, I likely would have long ago given up on finding another solution because I'm still dirt poor.

I was one of the top three students of my graduating class in high school and I won a National Merit Scholarship. I don't lack talent. But most men don't really want to talk to me in earnest unless they are looking for a sexual relationship. It has proven to be a tremendous barrier to resolving my financial problems and rejoining the middle class.

Having visited the Bay Area, I found it a ruthless place to live in.

That’s why I never left Romania. The cost of life here is manageable enough that the possibility of me becoming homeless is practically zero. And it’s not SF, but we do have some startups and software companies here and I can work remotely too.

Given the trouble you’re facing, as an unsolicited advice, wouldn’t it be better for you if you moved someplace where the cost of life is lower?

Personally I find it incredible how highly skilled people in the US, especially in California, can become homeless.

I've known many more or less unemployable people who started contributing to significant open source projects, and based on that got hired to well paid positions.

Thank you. That's both encouraging and a useful tidbit to help me find a path forward.

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Overlooking the horrendous message that no one should have any sympathy for a (formerly) homeless American because there are people who have it worse, are you telling me you see zero connection between my difficulties and these women who are treated worse? Are you saying we shouldn't work on removing barriers to advancement for women as part of the solution to this problem?

I mean, other than just taking some kind of shot at me like I'm just a whiner who doesn't appreciate how good I have it, what exactly is the point you are trying to make?

It's not clear to me how having more women CEOs will help solve the horrors of prostutution, perhaps you could explain further.

Women frequently turn to prostitution, stripping et al because it's the only well paid work they can readily get.

If career success in other fields were easier to access for women, it would be easier to make other choices.

This has become a trope.

Women frequently turn to prostitution because it pays extremely well, too.

Unemployment is 3.7%. Anyone remotely employable can get a job today, but especially women.

Women made up ~47% of the workforce in 2017 and are on track to hold more jobs than men in a few years, even with a lower participation rate.

Female unemployment rate trended significantly lower than male unemployment rate during the last recession.

Women are the majority on college campuses, and earn a majority of bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.

Women are paid the same for the same work, when they choose to focus on their careers as much as men are expected to. And women hold special legal status to take leave to have children (there is no Federal paternity leave in the US, however some states offer it).

Career success has never been more achievable for women in particular. Inside and outside the specific field of prostitution.

>And women hold special legal status to take leave to have children (there is no Federal paternity leave in the US, however some states offer it).

Are you talking about the FMLA? It covers fathers and mothers. It's also unpaid and only lasts 12 weeks.

Wow, Wikipedia needs help on this one.

Ctrl-F 'paternity' and look at the table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

Yep, the table listed there is wrong. The text before the table also makes it sound like it's referencing paid parental leave, which is still wrong becauase the US doesn't require paid maternal leave either.

Streetwalkers do this because they are poor and lack the skill to do something else. Some people simply don't have the skill to do things.

I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting which dose not pay as much as under C-level manager or where the glass ceiling is.

I'm currently poor. I don't lack the skill to do something else. I've been offered money for sex. I've always turned it down.

Homeless men with no skills sometimes find day labor jobs. They are much less often offered money or a place to stay in exchange for sex.

I used Glass Ceiling as shorthand for removing barriers generally. Given the response here, I don't think it's worth the time and effort to try to "clarify." I don't think most people here actually want to understand the point. They are too busy shooting the idea down to wonder if there's any merit to the idea.

> Homeless men with no skills sometimes find day labor jobs. They are much less often offered money or a place to stay in exchange for sex.

This actually is not true. Some time ago I had opportune to speak with a homeless man about his situation, and his options. It turns out that he is offered money for sex quite often, perhaps daily. By his telling, he has never done it either.

The proposals are from gay men.

I was on the street with my two adult sons. They each got such an offer once from a much older man. I had a lot more such offers.

There may be the occasional statistical outlier. But, on average, you are going to see homeless women offered money for sex a great deal more often than homeless men.

If you want to rebut that, please cite sources, not anecdata. I've had a class on homelessness and public policy. I spent nearly six years homeless. I still blog about the topic. Your sample of one doesn't remotely convince me that my assertion is inaccurate.

I didn't say it never happens. I said it is much less common.

Their anecdata is "I know one guy..." My statement is that I have had a college class on the subject, I have years of personal firsthand experience as part of a mixed gender family and I still write about the topic, which means I still talk to homeless people and read up on the topic on a regular basis.

Your casual dismissal of my knowledge as mere anecdata on par with theirs isn't in the least bit "interesting".

> I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting

The glass ceiling is something of a poor metaphor, because what it really refers to is a series of progressively more burdensome barriers to advancement, not a single level beyond which no women progress and below which advancement is egalitarian.

And it becomes very palpable at very low levels in many industries.

The way I see it, the problem is that people think women need skills to qualify for jobs in the first place.

As a man, many of my first jobs I got simply because the boss thought I was a promising PFY and was convinced I'd learn everything I needed within the first few days. It's a double standard.