How we’re gendering jobs, and what we can do about it
Imagine a nurse. If you immediately pictured a woman, you’re not alone, and there’s good reason. More than 90% of nurses in America are women. When you think of a male nurse, you might think of comic portrayals, such as one memorable scene from the 2000 film Meet the Parents, in which Jack Byrnes (played by Robert De Niro) interrogates his soon-to-be son-in-law (played by Ben Stiller), who is a nurse.
This idea that nursing is a “woman’s job” is so ingrained in the American psyche that it is the source of many jokes in pop culture, and means that even out-of-work men aren’t interested in filling one of the many nursing jobs available.
Many jobs are dominated by one gender, and breaking into these fields can be difficult for someone who doesn’t match the expected gender of that profession. There are gendered aspects to how we think about these jobs and what traits we think would make someone good at them.
People tend to believe that women are inherently more nurturing, caring, and emotional, while men are more analytical, impartial, and aggressive, despite evidence that there is no biological or psychological foundation for this. It’s not a coincidence that women are more likely to be teachers or nurses — our social gender norms tell us that these are nurturing, care-giving professions, so women will be better suited to them. Boys are more likely to be encouraged in the fields of math and technology so it’s no surprise that tech and finance are dominated by men.
Not only are we keeping potentially well-qualified people from their professional calling by gendering professional fields, we’re valuing professional fields according to the same hierarchy with which we think of gender. Jobs dominated by men are the best paid and often considered highly skilled, while fields dominated by women tend to be more poorly paid and considered less skilled. As more women enter a field traditionally dominated by men, the pay drops. Education and experience alone can’t explain this differential: women are now the majority of those earning bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees.
Instead, the way we value skills is, in itself, gendered, as is what we consider to be a skill in the first place. We tend to see things like coding, math, and analysis (traditionally considered to be masculine) to be more valuable than communication, emotional intelligence, and community-building (traditionally considered to be feminine). And we pay accordingly. Teachers, the majority of whom are women, are paid on average $200 less per week than software developers and those working in applications and systems software, the majority of whom are men. That’s more than $10,000 over the course of the year — despite these jobs typically requiring the same level of education.
Women and LGBT+ people in fields traditionally dominated by men receive disproportionately poor pay, harassment, stereotypes, and high levels of stress; they may also see fewer promotions (“the glass ceiling”). People seen as “too feminine” (regardless of gender identity) may not even make it to the field; they’re much more likely to drop out of STEM fields in college. At the same time, men in fields traditionally dominated by women may be quickly promoted and given good opportunities (“the glass escalator”), but many are also reluctant to enter these fields in the first place — not only because these jobs tend to pay less, but also due to stigma and fear of emasculation. Those who do may not stay in these fields for long.
These professional spaces can be particularly difficult for people who are un-gendered or non-binary. There may be employee resource groups for women in tech, but imagine the experience of someone who most people would assume is a man based on physical appearance, but who doesn’t identify as a man. They may not consider themself to be “one of the guys,” but they also don’t feel they belong in women’s resource groups.
Improving equity will mean not just focusing on getting more men in nursing or more women in tech, but completely doing away with the gendered ideas that some traits are inherently more feminine or masculine. We also need to recognize that many people have fluid or non-binary genders — this is particularly true among Gen-Z. We need to support people across the gender spectrum to find the work they love.