Paula England Looks at the Stalled Gender Revolution
At Stanford's Clayman Institute, sociology professor Paula England recently spoke about the stalled gender revolution very insightfully. You can view her on YouTube by clicking here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-CDx-OfZ3Y), or read a synopsis of her talk by clicking here (http://www.stanford.edu/group/gender/cgi-bin/wordpressblog/2011/03/funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-gender-equality/ ). First she summarized the good news about changes since the 1960's. Women's employment has made huge progress, discrimination against women in education and employment has become illegal, and now more women graduate from college than men. And many more women have graduated in formerly male-dominated fields such as marketing, business, accounting, and many sciences. More women are receiving MBAs, law degrees, and MDs. In fact, in 2007, women received 49% of the MD degrees granted in the USA. And of course, as we have noted on this forum, there are more women PhD's than men being produced in the USA as well.
Now the bad news. This part is very interesting to me. While women have increasingly moved into formerly male bastion fields, men have not done the reverse in anywhere near as large numbers-not many men have moved into English, education, sociology, or nursing. So these traditionally female positions have remained underpaid and undervalued in a vicious circle: men avoid them because of low pay and status, and that helps perpetuate their low pay and status. England's analysis compares pay of people with equal education and status, and shows that people who enter these traditionally female-dominated fields do not receive the same rewards even when they have the same resources to offer. She also points out that children's play options reflect the same value system: giving a girl LEGO blocks is a lot more common than giving a boy a doll, even today. All of these findings add up to this bottom line: women's lives have changed far more than men's lives in the so-called gender revolution since the 1960's. England does not expect this asymmetry to change unless women organize to make it change, thus re-activating the stalled revolution.
What do you think?
I've known quite a few male nurses, and they are just as caring as the women. Probably just as poorly paid as well. Men and women are in spectra of characteristics, and there are men who care more about people and women who care more about ideas and things. We need to stop trying to fit us into these idealized boxes that won't fit everyone. But I agree we need pay fairness and being paid for something that takes care of, helps to grow, or encourages people seems to be alien to those deciding upon salaries.
Well, women are less motivated by money than men. So I would never expect many men to go into low paying female-dominated fields unless somehow their pay scales were raised. Or they paid men a bounty, which I'd certainly resist. I understand a lot of Deans hiring in CS or Econ pay a bounty. I'm Ok with that if it is the only way to get the faculty, but not if its gender-based.
Hi Alan,
Sue Rosser will guest post on the Forum soon, and she is deep into the issue of the dearth of women interested in patenting their work. It's very interesting to hear that a similar dearth exists in the patent lawyer ranks. You could be right about moving men into professions formerly dominated by women, particularly if the formerly male professions and positions are not fully open to women.
best,
Laura
I heard an interesting take on this from a friend who is a patent lawyer, and like me over 60 years old.
Law schools are pumping out lawyers, at a higher rate than their actual need, except in patent law. An area of law that is still dominated by men. The ABA recognizes this practice as Patent, Trademark and Copyright, but he is speaking only about patents.
Patent lawyers must have a STEM degree.
Patent lawyers are still in demand, even recent graduates.
His theory:
1. Law schools need to reduce their size; not likely as they make lots of money for their universities.
2. As women moved into law they increased the pool of students by 50%; which would have been acceptable except for #1 above.
3. Professions that are dominated by women tend to have lower rates of renumeration and law seems to be going that route, although it is just as likely to be supply far exceeding demand.
4. Finally:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html
So I'm not sure if adding men to a profession currently dominated by women will have the desired effect; it may have a very undesired effect.
I had not thought about the dearth of men in these fields, but yes, elementary school teachers are rarely men, and I've only had a few male nurses. I am not sure about Social Workers. This whole thing might relate to women's versus men's empathy and focus on the human qualities of the position. We've discussed here how that can lead to more women in biology than in physics and engineering.
