why are some careers so popular with women

mariaalice

Talking to my 17 year old daughter got me thinking about this..

why are careers in the media/journalism ( something that a lot of her female friends are interested in ) so popular with woman..the other career that woman seem to be very interested in is veterinary nursing or anything to do with animals( usually an extremely badly paid career unless you are a vet )....but if you talk to a woman with children they all say teaching..because of the short days and long holidays make it a family friendly career..i know a few woman who retrained as primary school teachers with Hibernia because they had children...they were being completely pragmatic about there decision to retrain...

Tiddlers

mariaalice wrote: »

Talking to my 17 year old daughter got me thinking about this..

why are careers in the media/journalism ( something that a lot of her female friends are interested in ) so popular with woman..the other career that woman seem to be very interested in is veterinary nursing or anything to do with animals( usually an extremely badly paid career unless you are a vet )....but if you talk to a woman with children they all say teaching..because of the short days and long holidays make it a family friendly career..i know a few woman who retrained as primary school teachers with Hibernia because they had children...they were being completely pragmatic about there decision to retrain...

When I was a teenage girl all I wanted to be was a journalist or a writer and I have no answer for you as to why that was! In college I studied media and English and most women in my class had similar aspirations as me. However, over the course of the four years and since we've graduated many if not most have changed their minds about where they want their careers to go. College knocks out any romantic or idealistic notions about journalsim a person might have, IMO.It's difficult to get a leg up but it helps if you know someone already in the business. And what have many women I know decided is the next best career path? Teaching!
Personally I do not get the appeal of teaching and with teachers speaking out so much lately about poor pay etc and the lack of teaching jobs available, I don't know why it's so popular.I guess the holidays aren't enough to sway me when I think about the bigger picture.

billybigunz

Women tend to be more aspirational than men and that is reflected in their career choices which are destined to fail. Thats why you see so many working at low level admin who never wanted to be there but wanted to be a tv presenter, fashion writer, event organiser etc.

epgc3fyqirnbsx

It's a trait of the sexes I'd presume, you see a lot more nurses and carers that are women because of a meternal/caring instinct
You don't see many female farmers or tradespeople because physical work is gerally more suitable and preferred by males

When it comes to professional jobs like lawyers, accountants etc its a mixed bag because they don't demand strong masculine or feminine traits

Whether this is due to conditioning by society, perhaps to an extent but mainly it is what it is imo

Teddy Chips

Thea Rotten Account wrote: »

It's a trait of the sexes I'd presume, you see a lot more nurses and carers that are women because of a meternal/caring instinct

In fairness there are just as many women with cold hearts. You can't generalise with these sort of things. Things are definitely changing, a lot more women are involved in business for example then there was twenty years ago.
Media does continue to have a strong female presence as there is a high demand for fluffy feature rubbish in today's tabloid obsessed culture. Mores the pity.

Blush_01

Heya! I'm a post-MA frustrated lower level admin worker. At one stage I entertained the idea of doing journalism, but my interest in writing was more fiction based, and at least as a lower level admin worker I have some form of job.

I considered all sorts of things when I was filling in the CAO. Psychology, law... there were plenty of contenders. Still, I chose English because I loved it, and I continue to love it. My aspiration was never to be famous, but to do something I know I love, and be happy doing it.

Media, journalism, languages - they're all about communication, to look at it in a more positive light than billybigunz. Yes, some people do want more aspirational careers, but most people understand that those careers are never as glamorous as they appear to those who look on them from the outside, and they involve a lot of hard work for the rare moments of fleeting glory or glamour that you get.

Tiddlers

Teddy Chips wrote: »

In fairness there are just as many women with cold hearts. You can't generalise with these sort of things. Things are definitely changing, a lot more women are involved in business for example then there was twenty years ago.
Media does continue to have a strong female presence as there is a high demand for fluffy feature rubbish in today's tabloid obsessed culture. Mores the pity.

Wow, what a sentence to end your comment with after saying you can't generalise these things!Maybe I misunderstand it but there are plenty of female journalists writing and presenting the harder news too and very few women want a career in the media in order to create fluff.

Eviledna

As an engineer (and self confessed nerd :pac:) I never believed in the gender stereotyping of jobs. I was raised by two parents that taught me I could do anything I put my mind to, and both myself and my sister are engineers, eventually working in areas that are predominantly male-dominated.

Growing up and going to an all-girls convent made it easy to see how young women are pre-conditioned to seek out "girly jobs". In school I excelled in both science and the arts, but when leaving cert came my choice to enter engineering was met by most of my teachers with confusion and doubt, with one even saying to me "would you not enjoy something in the humanities more that just oul computers?". I did not take this on board, but I was always made to feel a little out of the ordinary in my school when I showed an extra interest in all things technological. It was far from encouraged, and I saw many of my peers with a less determined interest fall by the wayside and accept the template jobs that were suggested to them.
And those template jobs? Well lets just say when I did my FAS aptitude test, journalism, nursing and teaching were suggested as my best options! As they were to most of my friends. I almost felt by clicking on "Female" at the start the set of answers were predetermined!

To clarify, I think it takes people of great skill, intelligence and determination to be either a nurse, a teacher or work in the media. A close male friend of mine left the engineering field to become a kick-ass journalist, because he felt he wasn't being challenged in engineering. It was the best choice for him, after probably meeting with a similar gender bias when he was filling out the CAO form. Boys=engineer, dontyaknow?
Choosing your career should never be a matter of gender, but I feel as a society we often greatly underestimate the bias our young women are meeting in education and in the home. OP, I believe the reason why you're daughters friends are "choosing" these paths are more to do with external influences than their internal talents and gifts.

Teddy Chips

Tiddlers wrote: »

Wow, what a sentence to end your comment with after saying you can't generalise these things!Maybe I misunderstand it but there are plenty of female journalists writing and presenting the harder news too and very few women want a career in the media in order to create fluff.

I never said there wasn't. Honestly though have you seen many guys writing this sideline rubbish?

Orla K

OpenBake wrote: »

As an engineer (and self confessed nerd :pac:) I never believed in the gender stereotyping of jobs. I was raised by two parents that taught me I could do anything I put my mind to, and both myself and my sister are engineers, eventually working in areas that are predominantly male-dominated.

Growing up and going to an all-girls convent made it easy to see how young women are pre-conditioned to seek out "girly jobs". In school I excelled in both science and the arts, but when leaving cert came my choice to enter engineering was met by most of my teachers with confusion and doubt, with one even saying to me "would you not enjoy something in the humanities more that just oul computers?". I did not take this on board, but I was always made to feel a little out of the ordinary in my school when I showed an extra interest in all things technological. It was far from encouraged, and I saw many of my peers with a less determined interest fall by the wayside and accept the template jobs that were suggested to them.
And those template jobs? Well lets just say when I did my FAS aptitude test, journalism, nursing and teaching were suggested as my best options! As they were to most of my friends. I almost felt by clicking on "Female" at the start the set of answers were predetermined!

To clarify, I think it takes people of great skill, intelligence and determination to be either a nurse, a teacher or work in the media. A close male friend of mine left the engineering field to become a kick-ass journalist, because he felt he wasn't being challenged in engineering. It was the best choice for him, after probably meeting with a similar gender bias when he was filling out the CAO form. Boys=engineer, dontyaknow?
Choosing your career should never be a matter of gender, but I feel as a society we often greatly underestimate the bias our young women are meeting in education and in the home. OP, I believe the reason why you're daughters friends are "choosing" these paths are more to do with external influences than their internal talents and gifts.

I think your spot on, I remembered growing up people asking me when I was small what did I want to be, at the time I didn't want to be anything other than a child. I told them I didn't know, they then proceded to ask me if I wanted to be a nurse/teacher I just agreed with them to get them to go away and leave me to whatever I was doing. For years they were convinced that this is what I wanted to do but if they had of asked me if I wanted to be a neurosurgen/solicitor I would have also agreed with them.


At the moment I'm trying to get back into college to do a job with animals:o but, I'm aiming for veterinarian.

RacoonQueen

Career guidance in schools is very poor. In general, students are not encouraged to apply for courses that they're interested in or would have natural skills and talents in. They're also not given anywhere near enough info on what is available. We filled in about 20 online surveys telling us what we'd be 'suited' too, that was our career guidance.

What I mean by this is, students who are looking like they'll be getting 500 points plus in the Leaving are encouraged to apply for the likes of Medicine, Engineering etc because they are 'clever' and it makes the school look 'good' to have students go onto high level courses, when in reality the student who is practically brainwashed into believing that they want to study medicine would make an excellent interior designer. This pushes up the points for medicine aswell then the students who would make excellent doctors end up missing out just because they don't have the same abilities at say languages.

When we were in sixth year a couple of the guys in my year were really into their music and wanted to study sound production in Ballyfermot College and were practically chastised for wanting to do a PLC(I went to a fee paying school in Dublin 4). One of these guys ended up not going to college at all as he didn't want to do any of the CAO courses on offer, the other ended up bumming around for a few years and then went to Ballyfermot anyway - both could have been working now and doing very well had they been encouraged to do what THEY wanted to do. There's nothing at all wrong with doing PLC's and they allow students to do a course more suited to their interests which they can either gain a career from or they can use to go onto further study but the whole concept of PLC's was never brought up in my school and we never got any information whatsoever on them. A lot of my year ended up doing 'Arts' in UCD and just went to do that so they could say they went to University as they were brainwashed into believing that they were the only courses that were worth doing, now some of them are doing work which they looked down their noses at a few years ago all because they did a course they had no interest in and now they're hitting a dead end. I got offers from CAO for arts and science, had no real interest in doing either, went and did a PLC(while it wasn't said to my face I know they were disgusted with this :rolleyes: ) enjoyed my course and now I'm in a good job earning much more than any of them and I have more qualifications, job opportunities and further study options than any of them.

pikachucheeks

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Career guidance in schools is very poor. In general, students are not encouraged to apply for courses that they're interested in or would have natural skills and talents in. They're also not given anywhere near enough info on what is available. We filled in about 20 online surveys telling us what we'd be 'suited' too, that was our career guidance.

+ 1.

The guidance councillor in my school was poor, to say the least. He allowed us do one test, of about fifty questions and printed off a list of the top 20 jobs we'd be most compatible for, based on our answers.

When I told him I wanted to work in Advertising, his advice was "you'll have to leave the country. But, if I were you, I'd go to UCC and study Engineering. There's always plenty of jobs!"

With advice like that, it's not surprising that almost 75% of people in my year in school dropped out of college, after a few months.

He had no interest in helping us succeed with what we wanted to, he just wanted to push the agenda of one particular university and one field of work where jobs were on the rise.

OpenBake wrote: »

Choosing your career should never be a matter of gender

Definitely.

I hate this attitude that certain jobs are for men and others for women. With the right talents and skills, anyone can be great at any job - it's got nothing to do with sex.

I think it's sad that people like male nurses and female IT professionals often get treated with a lack of respect because of what they do. It's just social conditioning getting its claws out!

G86

pikachucheeks wrote: »

+ 1.

The guidance councillor in my school was poor, to say the least. He allowed us do one test, of about fifty questions and printed off a list of the top 20 jobs we'd be most compatible for, based on our answers.

When I told him I wanted to work in Advertising, his advice was "you'll have to leave the country. But, if I were you, I'd go to UCC and study Engineering. There's always plenty of jobs!"

With advice like that, it's not surprising that almost 75% of people in my year in school dropped out of college, after a few months.

He had no interest in helping us succeed with what we wanted to, he just wanted to push the agenda of one particular university and one field of work where jobs were on the rise.

I was lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do from day one, but the career teachers were no help at all - in fact they tried to put me off the course I wanted to do! I knew I wanted to work in Media, especially the Journalism aspect, but they were even recommending Humanities courses to me in Carlow! I mean god forbid that a level headed 16 year old girl might actually know what she wants to do for the rest of her life.

I didn't have the points to do Journalism in DCU, so I did some research myself and discovered Ballyfermot College - but when I mentioned it to my teachers they hadn't a clue it existed! It's one of the best Media colleges in Ireland but if I hadn't looked into it myself then I'd never have known about it - that doesn't say much about the guidance I was given. They even suggested Dublin Business School, in case I 'won the lotto' and could afford the fees; it was a ridiculous suggestion as they knew I had to take a year out to save even to go to a regular college!

So anyway, I applied to Ballyfermot and was interviewed for 2 courses - the HND in Journalism and in Media. Before I went I was adamant that I wanted to do the Journalism course and the Media interview was just a back up, but once I heard what each course entailed I actually decided that the general Media course would give me more scope in the future, so I went for it. The interviewer of that course was an excellent help to me too; to be honest she was more of a mentor to me than my own guidance teacher, she helped me to see what my skills were and what options I had for progression etc.

After graduating from the HND I wanted to go on to do the degree in Media which was certified by DCU - however grants weren't available for it
(a red tape issue which has yet to be sorted out) so I had to take 2 years out to sort myself out financially and get a bit of money behind me. In the end I had to take out a loan for the year, which is currently the bane of my life - but it was definitely worth it.

So, now I have a 2:1 in Media Production Management from DCU; I've worked for a publishing company in Bristol, I freelance regularly, and I currently have a permanent role in advertising with a national newspaper which I love.

...I wonder where I'd have ended up with that Humanities degree in Carlow:rolleyes:.

With regard to the battle of the sexes, my secondary school wouldn't let girls do woodwork or metalwork, so if that was something you were interested in doing in college then you were pretty screwed. In accordance with this, guys couldn't do Home Ec either. There was one guy who managed to get into the Home Ec class, but only because he was already working as a chef part-time applied for special consideration.

Things have changed there now and my little sister was given the option of doing both when she started, so at least they seem to be wising up on that score.

pikachucheeks

Weirdly, my career teacher had never heard of the college I'm in at the moment either. I had to order the prospectus myself. Once I decided to go, because it had the only course I was interested in studying in Ireland, I had to deal with constant pleading and negative opinions from the majority of teachers in my school. They tried to put me off in whatever way possible, telling me I wouldn't get on with any of the people who went to that college, telling me I wouldn't fit in because I was "privately educated" ... :rolleyes:

Three years down the line, I can safely say they were wrong ... and I didn't need the bullet-proof jacket one of them had the cheek to suggest!

I think guidance councillors tend to advise people to go for jobs and courses that are considered to be stable or reputable. However, I believe that it's far better for someone to be encouraged to follow their own dreams and ambitions, rather than the ones pushed on them by other people.

SeekUp

i was writing before I ever even thought about having a career, and I always knew that I wanted it in some part of my life. I never thought of it as a male/female thing to do, I just did it.

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Career guidance in schools is very poor. In general, students are not encouraged to apply for courses that they're interested in or would have natural skills and talents in. They're also not given anywhere near enough info on what is available.

Another +1, and I'd bet that we're not anywhere near the same school system.

Crumble Froo

had to think straight away of my own college course when i saw the thread title here. i started a course for a degree in social care, and of the 40 people in my year, 2 were male. seemingly we were the first year of the last few to actually have any guys in there.

similarly with any jobs ive worked in that general area - childcare, elderly care, the vast, vast majority of co-workers have been female.

though with regards career counselling thing, i knew from age 14 that i wanted to do something that would be helping the people less well off in society, and when i was 15, i came across the sligo IT course in social care, and just *knew* it was what i wanted. i later discovered the DIT one, which offered a full degree in 3 years, and which my guidance counsellor argued black was white over the existance of, until i showed her the course in the DIT prospectus. she continued to tell me that i was smarter than that, and should be doing something like social studies in a university, despite me telling her time and again that i preferred the hands on, work experience, elements of social care, and that a carer was more likely to be working with and building relationships iwth the same people every day, whereas a social worker will tend to be more like a case manager, and that they were very different jobs and that i didnt want the latter.

so she told me i should be a nurse.


>_<

Sin1981

I think it all comes down to the type of person you are, and your circumstances at any given time.
I personally think we should not go to college at 18, I think we should go when we're 24/25, after having experieneced a bit of life, whether it's working in a low paid job, doing some travelling or whatever. At 18, you're ushered from one big institute to another, madde sit and study for 4 years, come out with a BSc and head into the mad Real World. How many people drop out of college cos they're not suited to the chosen course, or how many come out with a degree and say "hang on, this isn't the life I want for the next 40 years"?! it might work for some (those who know what they want to do from about the age of 13). Some of these people have a plan and they will leave uni happy, and are happy 6/7 years into working.

If your'e driven enough you can do anything you want, and if you choose an obscure career and are driven, then you'll leave the country for a few years. But that's why I think personal cirumstances come in. you can have all the ambition and drive you like as a young one, but if you're attached and don't want to leave, or decide you want to settle down, (in Ireland especially), then, for women, 9 times out of 10 you have to sacrafice the prestigious career. How many female want to be working overtime, travelling, managing a team...? Very few I think. For me (PhD under my belt) on hindsight, I actually think the teaching/nursing career is nearly the best for a woman... Steady, and great hols for teaching. Better money than the majority of graduate careers out there...

I have to say I had a good career counsellor at school. She directed me to the right sector that suited my abilities/interests etc. but like I said, what you want when you're 18-26 can be completely different to what you want when your'e 30. So, that's why I think it would be no harm for teachers/parents to not force kids into uni straight away.

sorry for rambling on!!:)

SarahBeep!

pikachucheeks wrote: »

However, I believe that it's far better for someone to be encouraged to follow their own dreams and ambitions, rather than the ones pushed on them by other people.

As someone who is training to be a teacher, very well said.

Now to defend myself as a female studying education..
I'm studying to be a science teacher because I wanna help breed the next generation of great scientists, engineers and mathimaticians
I won't lie, the hours/annual calender work perfectly for me as someone who wants to have a family, but the main reason I wanna be a teacher is I wanna give kids what I didn't get! I figure if there's one more good teacher out there there's one less crap one
Im 18 now and won't have a family for a looooooooong time, I wanna use the holidays to travel the world to volunteer, do things I can dedicate a large chunk of time to.
Another thing, the hours are great if you wanna persue a masters later in life!!!

Pythia

I do believe in gender stereotyping. Men gravitate to maths and science more while woman go for the softer science and arts in my opinion. I don't think this takes away from any individual's skills in the area. I say this as someone who loves 'boy' subjects like maths, applied maths and physics and have always worked and studied in male dominated areas.

My father is a mathematician, a field which is probably one of the most 'male' and from what I've seen, women just don't take to it or tend to go into the education side rather than the really theoretical side.

I'm not saying all women are bad etc, they can still be better or more suited than men but overall certain things just suit men better.

chocgirl

I work in a profession that is predominantly female, nearly 90% of my class were female at college. However if the points for the same course were to drop by maybe 150 points or so the gender breakdown would be very different. I do think there is definitely an element of stereotyping to and pressure from family plays a big role too. At 17 or 18 a lot of people have no idea what they want to do and are easily guided, I'd be a teacher if I had listened to my mother, something I would have hated.

IzzyWizzy

SarahBeep! wrote: »

As someone who is training to be a teacher, very well said.

Now to defend myself as a female studying education..
I'm studying to be a science teacher because I wanna help breed the next generation of great scientists, engineers and mathimaticians
I won't lie, the hours/annual calender work perfectly for me as someone who wants to have a family, but the main reason I wanna be a teacher is I wanna give kids what I didn't get! I figure if there's one more good teacher out there there's one less crap one
Im 18 now and won't have a family for a looooooooong time, I wanna use the holidays to travel the world to volunteer, do things I can dedicate a large chunk of time to.
Another thing, the hours are great if you wanna persue a masters later in life!!!

No need to defend yourself. I'm a female and I'm into traditionally female areas - modern languages, linguistics, communication, writing. I am into computers but mostly web design rather than programming - I decided against studying computer science in college because I thought I'd find it boring. I'm into what I'm into - I was never going to let myself be pushed into studying maths or physics to be 'different' or fill some quota or feel obliged to study law or pharmacy because I got 550 points in the Leaving. I'll probably end up teaching, lecturing, translating or something similar. I'm not going to apologise for having gravitated towards 'girly' fields - I'm good at them and they're handy for working around a family down the line.

Daisies

I think a lot is down to your teachers and not just the career guidance ones. My science teacher for JC told my Mam at every parent teacher meeting that I should study physics for LC. Me being a 14 year old girl did not want to study a "boys" subject but after decideding I loved science gave it a go. It was my favourite subject in school and I still have such a passion for it. I always say that Mrs Diskin was my best teacher. She even asked the girls in our class to do out a list of why we thought girls didnt choose physics more often.
On the other hand my job is split fairly even with regard to male and female workers even thought our college course was made up of more females.

spurious

The hours of some careers, or the ability to set your own hours can have a big influence if a woman is a mother. Much more so than for a father (at the moment).