The goal of this blog throughout the semester is to explore why society frowns upon the sexes having equal job opportunities. The stereotypes that men thrive in the workforce while woman are supposed to be nurturers has been a long standing one. Women are encouraged to choose motherly careers like teaching and nursing. What happens when these women shy away from the norm, and become construction workers or business woman? They are harassed or not taken seriously. The stereotype hurts men just as much, if not more so. Men are encouraged to be lawyers or politicians, but deemed emasculated or even a pervert for choosing a profession like teaching kindergarten. These repercussions make it impossible for men and women to feel comfortable in their vocational decisions.
As a new intern at an Early Intervention center for children from birth to three years old, I noticed quickly that only women work at these types of centers. Everyone from the swim instructors to the bus drivers that drop off the young children, were women. Because I was curious about this topic, I searched on the internet to see if I could find a logical explanation as to why men are not involved with early education. Many mothers believed that a job with young children would be better suited for a woman, because a woman is supposedly less aggressive than a man is. They concluded that teaching is a mother like quality because a teacher spends a large majority of their day looking after or “babysitting” children. To me it seemed that this type of thinking breeds ignorance on the importance of equality with all jobs, thus leading to sexism. In my research I hope to analyze the dynamic of this stereotype, and find a reasonable solution to encourage men and women to find jobs that identify to their knowledge and motivation, not their gender.
