Trends of the Decade: Changing Gender Roles - Assignment Example

Trends of the Decade: Changing Gender Roles Men and women entering certain fields that were traditionally limited to a certain gender The notion of gender-being a woman or a man, whether feminine or masculine, behaving like a lady or gentleman are just some of the phrases that are used all the time to define and delineate the different sexes and their roles in the society. Gender is a phenomenon that is engrained in all spheres of life. It influences the roles people play on life, how they communicate and interact with others, the type of products they use, how they dress and much more. When a child is born, even prior to the determination of his/her psychological or health stability, people are more interested in asking about the gender. If it is a girl, a pick cap is placed on her while a blue one is placed if it is a boy. After this moment, everything else the child will become, the future, education and even the career, will be based on this one quantifier (Leaper & Friedman, 2007). The division of labor based on gender has been a defining aspect of many people’s careers. However, the significance of gender in determining the career path and economic advancement is slowly but surely declining globally. Does this trend imply that men and women’s career roles in life are converging? The traditional division of labor had women taking care of the domestic part of the household while the man working professionally to handle the financial part. Traditionally, the family was supposed to be the primary priority of women and they could not dream about having it all- the family responsibilities and a career. As such, most of the careers were dominated by men. The 21st century has gone through a revolution of gender roles which can be traced from the 70’s and 80’s women’s movement. The women movement during this time was an initial mark into gender crossing in careers as women were able to make great strides in politics, social economics and most importantly, in the workforce. The height of the civil rights movements to eliminate gender segregation led to enforcement of equal employment laws and affirmative action with the hope of not only promoting women to make progressive career choices, but also to prevent employers from discriminating against women either in terms of employment or disparity on wages (Kmec, McDonald, & Trimble, 2010). As a result of the affirmative action policy, many women were able to enter the corporate world which had been traditionally dominated by men. Furthermore, many employers encouraged gender equality in the workplace by putting measures such as incentives to promote, hire, and even train women. However, such large organization started by putting women in roles that were based on stereotypical evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses. Such roles include service-based, technical skills and communication skills (Aldoory & Toth, 2002). This trend can be applied to the tenets of the expectations states theory that imply that the behavior of an individual will be shaped by their perception and the societal stereotypes. However, the economy shifts have created many avenues and expanded the existing ones for women to shine in their professional careers. For instance, there are major complicated technical and service jobs which are being revolutionized by globalization and technology, but are handled by women and require advanced education to be successfully accomplished (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). Due to such changes, more men are under the perception that women are believed to be more likely to be hired for such complex technical jobs than men especially in the future (Aldoory & Toth, 2002). While more women continue to enter and become successful in the corporate world, gender stereotypes continue to be shun by men who decide to engage in careers that were traditionally viewed as feminine such as teaching, nursing and culinary among others. West and Zimmerman (2002) challenges the proposition of gender being a feminine/masculine thing by making a proposition that gender is denoted by accomplishment. His position can be explored by reviewing the division of labor in the teaching, culinary and nursing profession. Since the last century, there has been an influx of men in the teaching, culinary and nursing careers and they have added their texture in the daily practices of these industries. Though the contribution of women in these careers has achieved worldwide recognition and acceptance, their male counterparts have made strides into the industries by applying significant roles that has shaped the modern landscape. As women are mostly in the kitchen for domestic purposes, the professional chef has become a preserve for the men. Cooking has transformed from the domestic feminine chore to a professional job which is perceived as competitive, busy, aggressive and male-dominated (Bourdain, 2000, p. 62). Like the culinary profession, the nursing profession was historically deemed as appropriate only for women prior to 1970’s. The revolution of gender roles opened doors that had been closed for both genders. More women were able to move into male-dominated roles easily as compared to men. Many doors opened for women as a result of affirmative action, which was not the case for men who made slow strides into the traditionally female-dominated fields. As such, men entering the nursing schools didn’t go as smooth, as they were not protected by the anti-discrimination laws that sought to promote women’s careers (O’Lynn, 2004). Many men, however, did enter the nursing profession but not without a myriad of challenges, stereotypes, and doubts about their moral character, masculinity, intellectual abilities as well as their sexual orientation (O’Lynn, 2004). Due to the suffering of the nursing profession as a result of shortage of nurses, the perception of nursing being a female-dominated career is being shifted with a view of attracting more male nurses into nursing schools (Yurkovich, 2006). According to Bergmann (2005), more women who were previously in charge of the household are seeking employment due to the strong incentive to seek paid employment especially following the failure of most states to recognize child rearing as a public good. This change is asymmetrical in relation to changes in efforts of men and employment changes. While women employment has increased, men’s employment has declined in less than the proportionate change of employed women. This can be attributed to the fact that men lack the incentive to leave employment while women have an incentive to seek employment. There is no case where, for one women who gets employed, a man leave the workforce to become a full time homemaker, nor did men take on household chores to the extent to which women undertook to add their working hours in employment. The incentives of women to seek employment varies depending on the education level of the women. Women with less education are likely to be living the middle class life mostly married to a man who earns less than the husband of more educated woman. As such, her incentive to seek employment is based on ‘need for income’ effect. On the other hand, a highly educated woman’s need to seek employment is based on the ‘opportunity cost’ factor. Such women seek employment because they have the potential to earn more than when they stay at home. In this case, while the high earnings of the husband discourage her to seek employment, her education encourages her to work (England, Garcia-Beaulieu, and Ross 2004). The move by women to choose ‘male’ jobs over ‘female’ jobs can be attributed to the underpayment and devaluation of occupations that have been predominantly though to belong to the females. Money is a great motivation when making career choices. However, according to research, occupations that are predominantly for females are reported to pay much less than those offered to men. This variable is attributed to the widening gap as sex composition is still a statistical model that is used to regulate educational requirement alongside unionization, skill requirement and the amount of skills. When employees see a job that is predominantly female, they set lower wages than they would if the male composition for the same position was higher than that of the females. Women pride more on male-dominated jobs since it bridges the sex-gap in relation to pay. While it is illegal to discriminate women on the same job with a man by paying her less, it is not illegal to set lower wages for occupations that are traditionally female-oriented. Given this trend, it is therefore no surprise to see both women and men continue to have a pecuniary incentive towards venturing into predominantly male occupations. However, this incentive will not be a motivation for men to seek employment in female-dominated career fields. Women have also revolutionized their career fields by increasing their representation in most of the historically male dominates professional degrees, masters degrees, MBAs, law degrees and reaching Doctoral levels of education in huge numbers. The number of women getting MDs have increased over the years. In 1960, they were 6%, in 1980, they were 23%, by 2000, they had increased to 43% and in 2007, the number stood at 49%. This trend has been reflected in almost of spheres of male-dominated professions (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). Men have also increased in the female-dominated industries, although not for the pecuniary incentive motive. Nevertheless, the increase of men in profession such as nursing, social work, and library science have received much less increase in men as compared to the number of women who have ventured in male-dominated careers. After training in male-dominated fields, women are at liberty to integrate such training into their traditional role in management and in large corporations thereby making them more skillful than most of their male counterparts. This makes them very powerful and risk facing coworker resistance and discrimination from their male peers for attempting to integrate the two roles. However, the change has become inevitable as pecuniary incentive for the same is stronger than the desire to submit to pressure. Women are more successful when they choose to switch their careers in favor of male-dominated ones than men are when they choose the reverse due to the many challenges faced. Other than the fact that the discrimination protection law does not protect men who chose to venture into female-dominated careers, the incentive is also very low and not motivating at all. The social pressure and traditional behaviors, beliefs, attitudes and stereotypes has damaging impacts on men. Tradition dictates to men to adhere to their gender roles and conform to social pressures in order to retain their acceptance and value of their masculinity. As such, those in preference on undertaking predominantly female careers are faced with conflict due to the restricted gender roles imposed on the careers of their choice. In this case, men in careers that are perceived to be more traditionally-male may experience much conflict and therefore may not be able to switch their careers as easy as those who are in careers that are considered to be nontraditional. It is therefore imperative to note that men who chose to transgress gender boundaries career-wise suffer societal and cultural disapproval and it is worse when they end up losing money. Talking about incentives, the difficulty in changing gender roles in men can also be attributed to the fact that female activities are engraved in the culture of a society. The devaluation of the economic role of women, both at home and in the work force is inscribed in the values and norms, such that for men to go back to engage in home keeping would be seen as dehumanizing. However, for a woman, seeking to perform male-dominated tasks that are seek as a sign of respect and upward movement is seeking to be empowered economically, socially and politically. This is because such careers place women in the realm of high employment, military, religious, political and cooperate leadership. Although the constant reminder and notion that such jobs and responsibilities are the preserve of the men may deter women, coupled with the continued conspiracy of men to prevent women leadership, women are motivated to succeed by the rewards of respect which keeps encouraging them to move further in the same direction (O’Lynn, 2004). With the changing trends of diminishing gender roles, educators and parents need to be involved in stressing to the students during career choices that there are no careers that are for women or those that are for men as both are equally fitting. Awareness should be raised that career opportunities for both genders exist beyond the perspective of gender and societal norms. Encouraging this type of perception will go a long way in helping the students deal with the conflict arising as a result of conflict tween cultural expectations and the career opportunities. College too have a role to play in demystifying gender stereotypes as they are aware of the existence of societal attributed and the cultural norms that place pressure of students to conform. The perception of both genders being equal career-wise should be advocated. This can be led by example by schools, colleges and universities increasing their male administrators so that the male students can see that administration, service jobs and secretariat roles are not a preserve of the females. As gender roles are changing and more women are pursuing male-dominated careers, the enrolment of male students into universities and college is on a declining trend and it may continue to be so unless effective and positive communication is enhanced especially in high school and middle school levels. The students should be sensitized about the growing career segments and their placement into the field. This is because by the time students get to college, their mentality seem to have already formed based on the career gender stereotypes. On the broader picture, there has been a significant cultural shift in college and university level students as they acknowledge the need to maintain equality in the career choices and in the workplace. Both genders appear to have made great strides towards getting intellectually comfortable with the notion of making career choices in fields which are other male or female dominated. Although barriers to entry into female careers exist for male students just like for the men who are already working, the society is changing and the male students are more open to venturing into female-dominated careers although more of them continue to gravitate towards traditionally male careers (McLaughlin et al., 2010). The change in gender system has changed the career lives of both men and women, but women have experienced more transformation and upward movement than men. As such, this trend has is noted to be uneven in favor of women. However, this is no surprise as most governments across the globe have resorted to enforcement of equal employment laws and affirmative action as a strategy of encouraging female empowerment. Men are discouraged to pursue female-dominated career paths due to the reverse of incentives associated with the move. Such a move will see them get ridiculed, questioned by the society and badly paid. On the other hand, female who venture into male-dominated careers earn respect, more incentives in terms of money, rise in class and stature and therefore become more powerful. While it is very difficult for men to shift to female-dominated careers, it does not need to be so. Schools can demystify the gender division and encourage students to choose careers equally as both genders are equal and respectable. References Aldoory, L., & Toth, E. (2002). ‘Gender discrepancies in a gendered profession: A developing theory for public relations.’ Journal of Public Relations Research, 14, 103-126. doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr1402_2 Bergmann, B., (2005). The economic emergence of women. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books. Bourdain, A. (2000).Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Updated Edition. New York: Harper. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010). Employment projections. United States Department of Labor, England, Paula, Carmen Garcia-Beaulieu, and Mary Ross. (2004). ‘Women’s employment among Blacks, whites, and three groups of Latinas: Do more privileged women have higher employment?’ Gender & Society 18 (4): 494-509. Leaper, C., & Friedmen, C. K. (2007). The socialization of gender. In J. E. Grusec & P. D. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research (pp.561-587). New York, NY: GuilfordPress. Kmec, J.A., McDonald, S., & Trimble, L.B. (2010). ‘Making gender fit and “correcting” gender misfits: Sex segregated employment and the non-search process.’ Gender& Society, 24,213-235. doi: 10.1177/0891243209360531 McLaughlin, K., Muldoon, O.T., & Moutray, M. (2010). ‘Gender, gender roles and completion of nursing education: A longitudinal study.’ Nurse Education Today, 30, 303-307. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2009.08.005 O’Lynn, C. E. (2004). ‘Gender-based barriers for male students in nursing education programs: Prevalence and perceived importance. ‘Journal of Nursing Education, (43)5, 229-236. Yurkovich, D. (2006, August-September). ‘Where the boys aren’t: Gender disparity and the nursing profession.’ MODRN Nurse Magazine, pp. 26-31. Read More