this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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It's quite simple, gender equality should stand for equal opportunity for both genders, but it's not. I only see women being pushed into places with traditionally male majority, but not men being pushed into places with traditional female majority. And worst of all, equal opportunity should not mean we will hire a less competent woman that a more competent men, to fill out some 50/50 quota.
This is exactly the result of abusing gender equality.
Genuinely curious, got any examples of “traditional female majority places” that masculine individuals cannot enter/participate in?
Not OP, but positions like nurses or teachers are very female dominated. It's not like males cannot reach those positions, but there are social obstacles to that. To make an example from my country, in Italy primary school teachers are > 90% female. I believe in kindergarten they reach 97 or 98%. This is also partially the result of strict gender roles than discriminate both men and women in terms of caring for children (I.e., women are de facto forced to do that, men are pushed away), which then reinforces the social practice of women doing all the caring jobs.
This is IMHO a problem for both men and women, but probably it's not from the same perspective as what OP meant...
The difference is that, typically, the lack of women in male-dominated fields is due to them being actively pushed away from things they want to do, while the lack of men in female-dominated fields is due to those fields being less prestigious/well-paid (often due to being traditionally female) and them not wanting to pick them in the first place. But when they do decide to enter those fields, nobody's actively trying to stop/discourage them.
Superficially there may seem to be similarities in circumstance, but the amount of agency men and women have to enter opposite-gender-dominated careers is vastly different.
It's the same in female fields, it's not just prestige. Men face increased scrutiny when working with children. Male nurses are expected to perform the more physical parts of the job almost exclusively.
There are 2 issues here that are being mixed.
One is women not being allowed to positions of power. The other is with women being underrepresented in certain fields (e.g., stem).
The second issue is what I am talking about and I don't think at all that men "choose" not to try certain careers in the same way women don't "choose" not to study stem and pursue stem careers. For both, social pressure and expectations, an existing field dominated by the other sex with all its implications are factors of discrimination. Strict gender roles are damaging for both men and women, and this is a perfect example.
I think it's fair to mix them, to an extent, because I think the degree of underrepresentation is often directly proportional to the prestige/pay/power of the field. Both are symptoms of the same underlying issue, which is bigots discounting women's competency and refusing to entrust them with things of importance.
But, whats the difference from a male that also wants to get to the same position, and is also not entrusted with the thing of importance? I see plenty of this scenarios play on a daily basis by males who want to get on top but are blocked by fellow males. Its the same situation, why would we need to provide help for the women but not for the men? Would you say that properly competent person would overcome this issue, regardless of their gender?
And how are women pushed out of "man jobs"?
And how are we fixing that?
Is it bosses that aim to have male coworkers turning down women? How is that different than bosses wanting artificially 50/50 turning down men?
Is it not being represented in advertising? How is that different than what happens now. Where most advertising displays just women? Or if there is both a man and a woman, the woman is usually centered in the picture or doing a more important/powerful role.
By "encouraging" women in the workplace, what you see is things being done to men that you complain was done to women.
Better paid jobs are usually more risky, competitive and harsh with short deadlines, that why the are paid more than jobs where you can just do your shift and happily go home like daycare or teaching. It happens that men simply naturally want the adrenaline and excitement that comes with the first because they want to prove themselves.
If you look into history, men where those that went hunting which can be dangerous, while women were those who collected berries and nursed children, not much danger there.
As a man, I actually thing women are crazy for not wanting to keep being a houswife a thing. It's like being the CEO of the house. WFH guaranteed, you are the one making plans and deadlines, minimal stress, and you have probably enough spare time to do whatever you want as a hobby on the side (unless you have small children). I truly don't see the downside, I would thrive in home improvement and gardening....
The extreme depression and anxiety exhibited by women in the 1950s contradicts your claim.
True, if we are talking as if today was 1950 and the socioeconomic situation were the same. But it's not. There's almost 80 years of progress and the socioeconomic situation is not even comparable. So, although true it was a problem 80 years ago, its a bit shortsigthed to claim same applies today.
The 1950s was when women were relegated to the role of housewife. You are asking why women don't want to be relegated to that role.
There was nothing wrong with that role then, and there is nothing wrong with the role now. The main difference is that in 1950 women had no choice but to be a housewife, and today women have choices, and when comparing them, being a housewife doesn't look half as bad.
The lack of income independent from your spouse is a huge argument against being a housewife.
I’m sure it varies from country to country, but in the US women could not study medicine until the late 1800’s and the US Army did not allow female physicians until 1940.
It’s not unlikely to think we have many people today who were alive before women practicing as physicians was common place.
I’m convinced it’s less of a matter of a group “dominating” a space but rather being pigeonholed/forced into it due to a lack of options, and these circumstances have impact that are still felt to this day.
I’m not sure about Italy but in a lot of the US becoming a school teacher requires a college degree and has wages that do not keep up with the cost of living.
You can look up articles of teachers losing their jobs for doing sex work or provocative modeling to earn extra income because their job does not pay enough.
Doesn’t seem like that big of a win? Unless I’m missing something?
Edit: re-read your reply and realized I did not read it properly the first time. That’ll teach me to comment in the wee hours LOL. I greatly appreciate your response! Leaving the original reply in place for the sake of context.
Like another comment stated about Germany, even in Italy medicine faculties have a majority of women today as well.
I agree that in general teacher jobs are not glamorous or high-paying, but it's still a very important role in society and we can still discuss how it's a problem that there is an effective (social, mostly) barrier for males accessing (lower level) education jobs.
I do believe that this is essentially another symptom of a wider problem related to gender roles.
Certainly agree with you there and I really appreciate your nuanced take.
I think many miss the greater overarching message that forcing gender roles only serves to hold us back as a human race.
In Germany at the moment around two thirds of medicine students are women and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the similar in most western countries.
It's a little over 50% in the US, and is largely due to women out performing men in school.