I think there are considerable problems with the social structures that equate "professions with more women" and "lower status professions." When there are only a few women in a profession, each of them might face any number of nasty barriers, but the profession as a whole has the status of a masculine profession, and they get to borrow that. When there are "enough" women doing something, it gradually transforms into "women's work," and everyone doing it loses status. It happened with high school teaching in the last century. It happened with nursing after the US Civil War. In my lifetime, it's already happened with gynecology and pediatrics.
It's all worrying. But excluding women doesn't make it any less worrying.
Oh wow, I'm so glad I'm not the only one that's noticed that!
It's also happened to clerical work - "secretary" used to be a respectable middle class (male) job title, but has become so devalued that it's had to be replaced with "PA" or "admin".
To my mind the thinking goes something like "it's too hard for women to do" --> "women are doing it therefore it can't be that hard" --> "it's easy enough for women to do so it must be an unchallenging occupation" --> "it's an unchallenging occupation that requires few skills, so it doesn't need paying as highly as other occupations".
By the time you get to te last step of the reasoning, gender has been taken out of the loop and the situation has become a "just is" - so it's easy to claim that women "bring it on themselves" with regard to the pay gap when they "choose" low-paying occupations such as teaching, nursing etc.
A male gynecologist recently told me that gynecology is despised by surgeons and that the pay is very low compared to other medical professions. "I go to conferences and the surgeons are all, oh, don't get up, it's just a gynecologist," he said. "My brother's cat needed a C-section, and the vet got paid more to do a C-section than I get paid to do one on a human patient!"
Then his office billed me $600 for an exam that my insurance was supposed to cover 100%, and it took several irate phone calls to get it all sorted out, so I don't feel terribly much sympathy for him specifically, but I can well believe that the profession is increasingly deprecated as more women become OB/GYNs.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-04 05:50 pm (UTC)It's all worrying. But excluding women doesn't make it any less worrying.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-04 07:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-04 07:20 pm (UTC)It's also happened to clerical work - "secretary" used to be a respectable middle class (male) job title, but has become so devalued that it's had to be replaced with "PA" or "admin".
To my mind the thinking goes something like "it's too hard for women to do" --> "women are doing it therefore it can't be that hard" --> "it's easy enough for women to do so it must be an unchallenging occupation" --> "it's an unchallenging occupation that requires few skills, so it doesn't need paying as highly as other occupations".
By the time you get to te last step of the reasoning, gender has been taken out of the loop and the situation has become a "just is" - so it's easy to claim that women "bring it on themselves" with regard to the pay gap when they "choose" low-paying occupations such as teaching, nursing etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-04 08:31 pm (UTC)Then his office billed me $600 for an exam that my insurance was supposed to cover 100%, and it took several irate phone calls to get it all sorted out, so I don't feel terribly much sympathy for him specifically, but I can well believe that the profession is increasingly deprecated as more women become OB/GYNs.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-07 05:52 am (UTC)