Jerry A. Jacobs states in his article that the incline of women entering male dominated work has been slowing, and seems to have come to a halt in 1990’s. Although this is happening, women are not giving up. They are instead attending secondary higher education institutes; in addition, the author states that women may be attending these institutes at an astronomical number because of the roadblocks they are encountering when attempting to enter male dominated professions. According to the article, in 1998 56% of bachelor’s degrees that were earned were by women. It is also believed that in the near future, the ratio of college degrees earned by women to men will be 60:40. If this is the case why are women experiencing this and what may be contributing to it?
There is a major trend in segregation between male dominated work fields and women dominated work fields. To show, women dominate the fields of secretaries, administrative assistants, child care workers, or registered nurses. Males tend to dominate in construction trades such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, mechanics and repair, and engineers. This is interesting because I feel that these trades have been taught to males and females from an early age in life through gender stereotypes. Even more interesting, among high-status professions there seems to be an increase in the rate of women. The areas of medicine, law, and management are considered to be among the high-status professions. Although these professions are occupied by both men and women, women are still working in areas of these fields that are associated with the family. Moreover, women are being paid less even when they have the same work time, qualifications, and experience as men.
Why could a trend such as this career segregation occurring? The article discusses items such as a trend of growing up with gender stereotypes, burnout, and limits to parenting. These items seem obvious, but why is it then that women are entering male dominated fields and men are not interested in entering female dominate fields? The answer is masculinity. I believe that women are not necessarily afraid to be viewed as having masculine characteristics because it comes with power, but men do not want to demote their masculinity. I think this is bogus because men and women bring different traits and should want to contribute those to different areas of work.
Near the end of Jacob’s article, he goes in to great detail regarding the decline of integration in the work field. When examining the “index of dissimilarity,” there is a drastic decline between the years of 1970 and 2000. These can be explained by booms and depressions of the economy, the feminist movement, affirmative action, and other elements and changes in the functioning of society. Unfortunately with the way that the economy and society are going nowadays, the article predicted that by the year 2020 there will not be much change; furthermore, the conditions will resemble the current patterns. This is truly a shame because women should have just as much opportunity in life as men do; especially in a “free” America.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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Brittany Kirlin did a great job, in my opinion pointing out key evidence in the chapter with the reagard of segregation and equality and inequality in the job force between men and women. We are obvioulsy coming into an era where women seem to be graduating with just as high, if not higer success in jobs that were once male dominated, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, ect. We do not live in an era where the male is the breadwinnner, and the females of hte home stay home and do "women" qualities such as clean, cook, take care of the children, ect. I liked where Brittany pointed out that in the near future, the ratio of college degrees earned by women to men will be 60:40. Why are women still seeing discrimination and segregation Brittany asks? In my opinio, we see women as inferior to us. Gender stereotypes is a huge problem in the workforce in the United States, and why would someone want to hire a women when they could potetionally have to leave to either take care of their chidren, or have to leave because of a pregnancy. The people who hold these powers do not want to invest there time and money to a women who may have to take a leave of absence.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this article when Brittany suggests the reason men do not go into the work force or study nursing,for an example, is they do not want to be seen as non "masculine." in my opinion, men are so self conciouss about their identity, and the identity there job puts on them. Women, in my opinion are stuch when it comes to this. For an example, a masculine women athlete is seen as a homosexual, and our society looks down upon these women, but a feminem athelete, such as Maria Sharapova, is praised for her athletic ability and is seen in magazines and on ESPN as the face of the sport.
i believe women are stronger then men, mentally and physically. The holders of the power are not giving women a fair shot, as the author pointed out their is still a decline of integration in the work force from 1970-2000, and is still happening today. Affirmitive Action has helped a tiny bit, but really has only helped out white women, not minority women. In America, everyone has "equal" opportunity to succed at whatever they do, black, white, asian, yellow, red, and it is still not showing up because of the social barriers for women, in the work forice, and in our society.
Both comments did a great job going into the details of this chapter, all of which I agree with. I do think though that there are some jobs that women are naturally better at, along with jobs that men are naturally better at. Of course this is because they are socialized for this starting at birth, but it is still true. Boys take things apart and put things back together, are taught to be physical and strong, which explains why a lot of men go into physically demanding jobs. Women can do this too of course, but generally most do not grow up with those activities encouraged. Just as little girls play house and are taught to be soft and nurturing. So, it fits that they outnumber men in childcare jobs. I work in childcare, and in the 3 years, there has only been one male worker. Even so, he wasn’t a nurturer, he was the one who joked around and rough housed with the children. (of course, I am not saying this is true for all men).
ReplyDeleteThis can also be related to the comment about women being at a disadvantage in higher level professions because of her family responsibilities such as taking maternity leave, having to call in when her children are sick, and so on. Of course, men cannot give birth, so there is no blame in that, but men can also take time off from work for these life events. There is paternity leave when a baby is born. The male can be the one to stay home with the sick child. It all goes back to socialization and gender role expectations. There is no reason the woman should be at a disadvantage in her career when it comes to taking care of family duties if the roles were more egalitarian. But, gender expectations stick and this is a big part of the inequality in the workplace. Another example is a strong, confident, and assertive woman in a position of power will sometimes be thought of as a bitch, and the opposite for a man. This is because that is not how a woman is taught to act. Another thing that doesn’t make sense to me, is that women do not get hired into some male dominant roles because of this, that, or the other, but it is proven that women get paid less that men, so why wouldn’t she be hired to save money?