Jobs in which you directly care for other people, like teachers and nurses, have traditionally been dominated by women. However, several parts of the world seem to experience a shortage of workers in these areas.
The usual left wing answer to this problem is to argue for better wages and working conditions. I was thinking that we could brainstorm solutions for the gendered aspects as well.
Since the majority of people working in these fields are women, it stands to reason that men are a potentially untapped source of labor. In addition, the successful push for more women in STEM has shown that it is possible to make certain fields more attractive for a specific gender through political means.
Getting more men into these fields would obviously be good for society, as these are critical areas that need to be staffed properly. It would potentially be good for men as well:
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These are the kinds of jobs that provide people with a sense of meaning and purpose in their life, something I believe is an increasing problem for many men.
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Men have an increasingly hard time finding success in classical education. This could serve as an alternative career path for those whose strengths do not lie in academia.
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Young boys struggle a lot in school, and male teachers might have a different perspective on this that female ones.
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It would provide children with more male role models, showing them the breath of what men are capable off.
Now, I know that this is a small space without much political pull, consisting of people from different parts of the world. But if we want to differentiate ourselves from menslib on reddit and mensliberation on here, I think it would be prudent to not only address inequalities, but also brainstorm solutions.
So imagine for a moment that you have a seat in your government, or are an advisor for someone with political power. What would you suggest in order to convince men to join women dominated fields?
What would you suggest in order to convince men to join women dominated fields?
Better wages and working conditions. There’s a reason why women faught to become engineers, doctors, and lawyers but don’t talk about roofing, logging, and crab fishing. The former jobs pay well and won’t get you killed.
Men can often be motivated by money. I’m sure there’d be a heck of a lot more kindergarten teachers if it payed well. I don’t think anyone scoffs at the idea of a man becoming a nurse anymore. It’s a high paying job that’s in demand.
Conditions and money is for sure a big part of it, but even with things as they are, way fewer men than women still choose these career paths. Surely there is a reason for that?
@thestrugglingstudent, I think it’s not just that these jobs aren’t high-paying, but rather that they tend to pay poverty wages. As men, we are conditioned from an early age that we are meant to be providers, and as we grow up, women continuously reinforce this belief by favoring men who are better providers. In such an environment, it’s no surprise that the vast majority of men won’t touch the slave labor jobs that are presently dominated by women. (I call any job that pays less than a living wage a slave labor job because that’s essentially what it is).
That is a fair point. If the wages are that bad, I wouldn’t want anyone to work those jobs. Maybe we should look towards therapists or psychologists then… Better wages, dominated by women, and clearly in high demand.
As a man that chose to seek therapy, the hegemony of bad therapy and spectacularly bad advice for men being offered by therapists is almost impenetrable. I’ve been through 7 therapists, 4 of them caused much more harm than good because of their own (and their field’s) bias against men. Of them, only 2 were better than not going, and only one of those two really had the right skillset to help.
While I do think more men should pursue psychology as a career, it’s important to remember that there are significant barriers for men. Barriers that feminists generally refuse to discuss in good faith.
Were your therapists men or women?
A mix, 2 men and 5 women. That isn’t a large enough pool to draw conclusions from, but the older women were much better than the younger women. The best has been a middle aged man, the second best was a 60 year old woman.
My current psychologist is a man. My previous therapist was a woman. She ghosted me without explanation. She wasn’t a psychologist.
To start, I think that there is a certain feeling if you are a boy/man that somehow, these jobs are not for you. Inviting guest speakers, for example male kindergarten teachers, to high schools where they would speak about their experiences and why they chose that job could be a first step in making it sound more approachable.
Part of the problem is also how men in those positions are treated by society. My wife went through a teaching degree, and the number of things men (they teach everyone this, but it’s clearly more for the men) have to do in order to protect themselves from accusations (or even just rumors and suspicion. Always keeping a door open, finding other adults to be present if a kid wants to talk to you in private, etc. And many guys who had been thinking of teaching earlier years ended up switching to high school, since it’s apparently seen as less ‘creepy’.
I have no idea how we start to fix that…
Part of the problem is also how men in those positions are treated by society. My wife went through a teaching degree, and the number of things men have to do in order to protect themselves from accusations
This is very important. There certainly are men who would love to become teachers, but many are discouraged by the very real problems of false accusations and a societal mistrust of the motivations of men who want to become teachers.
Guarantees need to be put into place that men will be treated fairly, and robust policies for handling accusations, based on the legal principle of innocent until proven guilty.
At least in most Western countries we’re still in the position that one rumor can kill someone’s career (especially after MeToo), and I can imagine most men deciding they do not want to risk that.
Inviting guest speakers, for example male kindergarten teachers, to high schools where they would speak about their experiences and why they chose that job could be a first step in making it sound more approachable.
Contrarian view, men speaking honestly about the barriers men face in those field is not likely to improved the situation. It might make the existing discrepancy worse.
If the problem is structural barriers, then people need to speak up about it. Otherwise nothing will change.
If men express that they are being penalized due being men, they won’t be allowed to talk to students.
This largely ignores the massively increased personal risk any man going into these fields would face through false allegations and other forms of proxy and social violence.
Those fields won’t get more men until that risk is removed (or at least attempts made to mitigate it, which we don’t even do now)
