"No, there's no one here by that name."
"No, I'm not Dr. Crafton -- that's my wife."
"No, she is not Mrs. Crafton, her name is Dr. Crafton"
"No, that's not me, it's my wife.
I could tell by the silences and the way he was talking that he was just having a good time with t the charity person on the phone. He laughed when he got off: "She just couldn't get her head around the idea that I wasn't the doctor -- she was totally frustrated, like someone had turned her world upside down now that there were female doctors.
THE FOLLOWING IS FROM MICHAELEMOUSE blog:
The gender division of professional work in the next few decades
Perhaps you've noticed that some jobs are seen as women'S work and that many men avoid them. For example, secretaries, nurses, dental hygienists and paralegals are overwhelmingly women and few men enroll in such programs. Those are all jobs where someone assists someone else. That someone else used to predominantly be a man in the case of an executive, a doctor, a dentist or a lawyer, respectively.
The job of secretary used to be filled with men but as more women moved into that occupation, men deserted it. I don't know if the same thing happened with dental hygienists and paralegals.
Some time from now, the majority of doctors, dentists and lawyers will be women. Will we see men desert those professions as well? Will those professions see a reduction in income and status?
Will bright men looking for a professional career pretty much only go into engineering, computers and business?
The charity person on the phone with my husband was clearly making an assumption about gender and professions that she simply could not rethink. Assumptions drive our perceptions and our consciousness and are often extremely difficult to name, reflect on, examine, and change. In her book, The Power of Mindful Learning, Ellen Langer notes that most girls in our society are taught to be "good" in terms of behavior and how they respond to authority. Boys, on the other hand, are usually taught to take more risks, and be more independent from authority. Consequently, if we are "told" through many forms of communication that girls/women should go into particular professions but not others, we learn the lesson very well because we want to be good girls, good learners, obedient to authority. Langer says the more rigidly we learn information (in terms of absolutes -- we only see male doctors on TV shows, everyone refers to doctors automatically as "he", etc.) the harder it may be to open up those closed packages to accommodate the new information. If, on the other hand, we learn that there are always
Sometimes we (male and female) can just be trapped by what we have learned (here, how to be a girl, how to be a boy) and, because change takes effort and time, many people will decide "that's just the way it is".
I wonder what kinds of interactions and forms of communication that parents and preschool teachers can put into place so what children learn that being a boy or being girl is not a fixed role or performance?
I cannot believe the women from the charity organization could not understand that your husband was not the doctor in the household. I say this because I would have never thought twice about a woman having a doctorate or any other kind of higher level career position. I also find it strange that she as a woman could not wrap her head around the idea that women can be doctors and hold a position equal to a man. Looking further into your post and reading your questions referring women taking on career positions that were once dominated by man. I found this to be interesting because I never thought man would actually leave their career because women have entered into equal positions, as them. I find this to be ridiculous but I am sorry to say I do believe women entering into a male dominated job will result in lower pay for women and males will move on to a different career.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that you don't think twice about a woman having a doctorate? Doesn't that have some gender stereotypes as well, that women are more fit for school then men? (Just playing devil's advocate, I think everyone, man or woman, is entitled to higher education.)
DeleteThis honestly doesn't surprise me and I'll tell you why. One day my grandma and I were having a conversation about doctors and I was telling her how now that I am older and appreciate the struggles and beauty of being a woman that I do not want to go to a male anything (doctor, lawyer, counselor, etc) not because I hate men but because I appreciate and respect the women who continue to make history for upcoming generations. My grandma responded with, "I'll never go to a woman doctor!" Basically saying women don't make good doctors and yes that is how she meant it. I responded with, "Grandma! I am going to be a doctor and I am a woman!!!" She just looked at me and said, "so." My jaw dropped and I thought to myself this is a woman from a generation where women were always told NO they cant do, shouldn't do, and will never do but here she was continuing this trend. I figured she would fight this and have the same stance but she did not. Im sure she did not mean any offense to it because in her time that was the way things were but times are different. I know that being a woman there is going to many things I do that will be frowned upon simply because I am a woman but that is why I want and WILL do those things. Your blog also reminded me of our toy store assignment because in the toys society says are for BOYS or for GIRLS. Why do boys get the doctor's outfits and the girls get the nurse? I wonder what was instilled in my childhood or what I will instill in my children. How will things change? Will things change?
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard you talk about this I was pretty appalled, but I couldn't help but laugh. Yes, I see that jobs are very gendered, but I also see a lot of people breaking the molds. For me that is making is almost impossible for me to see jobs being gendered anymore. Honestly, for me, they are just non existent anymore.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised by this either. Like Kimberly, I also have experienced something similar in conversations I had with my grandmother when I was younger. I use to always tell her I wanted to be a police officer like my father and she would always say, "that's a man's job. You don't want to do that!" Though times have changed, there are still people that have these beliefs. I think the woman from the charity organization only based her assumptions off of what she has viewed in society. If all this woman mostly sees in different forms of media are male doctors, her views will be based off of this.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone can think of an instance where this has happened to them or someone they know. When my mom was in beauty school, working to become a cosmetologist, essentially everyone in her graduating class was female except for one male, and everyone thought he had to be gay or something because why else on Earth would he want to be a hairstylist, but in reality he had a wife and two kids. It's obviously just an effect of the media.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem rather shocking that someone would be so taken back by a woman having a doctorate in the 21st century. However, there are people out there that react according to what they've been taught, or exposed to. It sounds as if the charity person may have been extremely sheltered for whatever reason, and obviously very confused. Children as young as pre-school age should be exposed to books with pictures showing adults of either gender engaged in all types of occupations. For instance, there could be a books about female airline pilots, architects and astronauts, or books about men that are chefs, nurses, and hairstylists. Essentially, education starts in the home. But when children begin to learn how to read in pre-school and are exposed to the outside world regularly, they should have the tools available to them when questions and concerns arise.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking of this a lot recently, about society and gender roles. It's really silly and crazy that there's this rule that certain genders work certain professions. It isn't just naturally so of course; society has invented those rules and ideas. It could so easily be changed if society just felt differently. At the same time, it isn't easy because changing the values of an entire society isn't a quick process. But still, I just find it funny to think of how fragile our value system is.
ReplyDeleteI am not a parent or a teacher, but I like to be around my nieces and nephews and observe what societal values they've been influenced by. Whenever they say something about a color, job, show, game, or movie belonging to girls or boys, I always make a point to tell them that, "boys can like that too," or "girls can do that too." There's always a strange silence whenever that happens. Even though they are young (four-six), I think they are starting to understand that they don't have to obey those rules. I'm glad that they are starting to express more interests that aren't 'exclusive' to their gender, but I also wonder if this is an individual feat for them or if they are also opening up to others being able to express gender in unexpected ways.
After reading your personal story and blog about gender roles in occupations, it quickly made me think of the movie, Meet the Parents. Ben Stiller plays a Jewish male nurse who plans to ask his live-in girlfriend to marry him. However, he learns that her strict father expects to be asked for his daughter's hand before she can accept. Thus begins the visit from Hell as the two travel to meet Mom and Dad, who turns out to be former CIA with a lie detector in the basement. Coincidentally, a sister also has announced her wedding to a young doctor. Of course everything that can go wrong, does.
ReplyDeleteI never really took this movie into gender occupation consideration. On one hand, the movie plays a part of a Jewish male nurse which is not very common in society and then the movie displays a typical male doctor. Do you think the producers did this on purpose? What were they trying to get at?
I do not think that men will flee the positions of doctors, lawyers, etc.. because those are still roles that are important to society and carry prestige and a good salary. I think that when women first entered the workforce and started to take the supportive positions (nurses, paralegals,etc...) it motivated the men to achieve the higher status to have someone assist them. They had room to run from the women, advance, and still be in a position of power above them. Now that women have obtained careers in so many positions that used to be exclusively a man's position, they have no where to run. They are now forced to compete with women for and in those positions.
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