Gender And Subject Choice Flashcards
Male/Female dominated subjects
History has the closest gender balance: 52% female, 48% male.
Computer science is overwhelmingly male dominated: 97% male, 3% female.
Institute of physics (IOP) - 2013
Found that 49% of state schools unintentionally reinforce traditional subject choices with just 20% actively countering them. Schools are better at encouraging girls to challenge stereotypes in subject choices compared to boys.
Explaining gender differences in subject choice
- early socialisation
- gender domains
- peer pressure
- gendered careers
- gendered subject images
Early socialisation
From and early age, boys and girls recieve different socialisation. Ann Oakly uses the term ‘canalisation’ to refer how children are steered to play with different toys from the opposite sex. Boys are given toys that require doing/making things, girls are given toys to express themselves or to take care of something. Gender stereotypes begin at an early age.
Early socialisation - criticms
Toys are marketed to be more gender neutral now. Pepople grow up and change interests. Children with siblings can share toys, therefore giving a broader option to play with. At nursery, children are exposed to all sorts of toys. Some parents try to avoid gendered toys altogether.
Gender domains
Tasks and activities boys and girls see as male/female ‘territory’. Male ‘territory’ often involves mechanics, whereas female involves taking care of others. Gender domains influeence subject choices.
Peer Pressure - Mac an Ghail
‘Macho lads’ police other boy’s subject choices - reinforcing traditional subject stereotypes. Students can be pressured by their peers to not take subjects that aren’t traditionally male/female for fear of being labelled as ‘gay’, ‘butch’ or ‘lesbian’.
Peer Pressure - critisms
Would older students be affected by this peer pressure? It explains subject choices in younger students, but as you get older, you become more self-assured. There are also more role models for everyone in the public eye; times have changes, mindsets have changed.
Gendered careers
The gener-divid in the workforce can have a knock-on-effect in subject choices. Subject choices may be affected by what students see themselves doing in the future, explaing why boys may choose subjects like physics or maths, and girls subjects like health and social care or english.
Gendered careers - criticisms
Sex and gender is a lot more fluid now. People are stepping out of traditional gender norms.
Gendered subject images - Anne Colley
The way subjects market themselves influence who chooses them. Computer studies are male-dominated because it involves working with machines and few opportuinities for group work, possibly putting girls off. Science is more practicle, thereofr emore attractive to boys.
Gendered subject images - criticisms
Schools are trying hard to rebrand subjects and challenge typical stereotypes to make everything gender-neutral. An American study in 2018 found that when (1960s) children were asked to draw a scientist, 1% drew a woman. But (2018) later on, 28% drew a woman when asked to draw a scientist.
Sociology review - April 2018 - Why don’t men want to be nurses?
- the changing labour market
- jobs for genders and genders for jobs
- lower pay
- employers
- customers
The changing labour market
- Many jobs traditionally filled by men are dissapearing, particularly in the maufacuring and heavy-industry sectors, whilst jobs traditionally filled by women are increasing; healthcare, education, administration, ect.
- USA May 2017, the labour force participation rate had fallen to below 63%. 20 million men between the ages of 20-65 had no paid work in 2015, and 7 million men had simply dropped out of the labour force.
- This helped Donald Trump win the election since they eagerly responded to his promise of bringing back well-paid manufacuring jobs.
- At the same time, many jobs in high demand like nurses, nursing assistants, home healthcare aides, occupational and physical therapists were left unfilled despite campaigns to persuade men to train for these jobs.
Jobs for genders and genders for jobs
- Gender stereotypes, particularly on masculinity, die hard. Some men may feel like work traditionally done by women can be emasculating or demeaning, or they won’t have the temperament for those jobs.
- Ofer Sharone, assistant professor of sociology at the university of Massachusetts, studied middle aged, white collar men who recently lost their jobs. He found that some men who may have been willing to take on ‘feminine’ jobs were discouraged by their wives.
- Some argue that women and minority ethnic groups are more willing to enter lower-paid occupations due to the lower expectations and because they have fewer options open to them.
- American men who are home healthcare assistants are more often from ethnic minorities.
Lower pay
- The gender gap in earnings, despite equal pay legislation, remains high in the USA and the UK. For many men, taking on a ‘women’s job’ means basically accepting a pay gap.
- Ironically, for various reasons including employers’ desire for bigger profit and prejudice, rates of pay in female dominated areas of employment remain low. One way for this to change would be to have a higher proportion of men doing such jobs.
Employers
- As part of Sharone’s research, he interviewed employers for female dominated jobs, where there were a large number of vacancies, such as administration, and found that they were quite outspoken on their preference to recruit women. He said: ‘their rationale was that men are going to be bored in this job.’ They believed any male applicants would be desperate and leave as soon as another opportunity came by.
- Janette Dill, assistant professor of sociology at the university of Akron, who has studied gender and the healthcare industry, said: ‘healthcare organisations don’t want men to come into these jobs because they’ll demand higher wages. They’re happy to have a workforce of women they can pay $8 or $9 an hour.’
Customers
- So ingrained are our perceptions of certain jobs being suitable only for women, that it is often very difficult for men to break into, even if they wish to.
- Sherwin Sheik, president and chief executive of the American firm Carel.inx, which matches families with caregivers, says that many clients remain suspicious of male home healthcare aides, fearing abuse or predation, often remaining convinced that female staff will be more caring. This is quite a sad sentiment, due to how physically demanding this job is, and how many patients may benefit from male healthcare aides.
- Jason Mott, assistant professor of nursing at the university of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, said that some of his male students were teased by their female counterparts, and felt the need to emphasise their masculinity.
Any extra info on the article
- Nursing: 2016 = 11.4% of registered nurses in the UK were male, just a small increase from 5 years prior (11%). Those training to be nurses being male were only 11.6% in 2016, compared to 11.5% just a decade earlier.
- Midwifery: men have been allowed to train as midwives for the last 40 years, however, in March 2017, only 0.4% of midwives were male. Men weren’t allowed to train to be midwives due to the 1952 Midwives Act, but that was lifted in the 1976 Sex Discrimination Act, and further lifted and legally allowed in 1983, through the Sex Discrimination (Midwives) Order.
