I know I am am expecting a kicking but really I have to let this out

[Ormirian]

Open evening at college. It's an excellent college, one of the top in the UK. Loads of opportunities. We had a look around and then listened to a talk from the principal. At one point she was showing a presentation of the facilities and asking if there was anyone here interested in this or that subject area.

"Auto engineering, who's thinking of that when they leave school?"

About 7 hands went up. All male.

"Beauty skills, or hair-dressing. Anyone here interested in those areas?"

10 hands went up. All female.

I know there is nothing wrong with either of those professions but it would be so refreshing if that hasn't been the case.

Hi Orm!

DS has just started at the big secondary in the town a bit North of you. (You know, the school with the appalling reputation )

Anyway, I was amazed to find, amongst the list of after-school activities, a "Boys' Club" and a "Girls' Club".

Do the boys whittle and wrestle whilst the girls embroider and bake, I wonder? I asked the Deputy Head that question at a recent open evening but he didn't seem to get it.

I don't really have a problem with it, as such.

I'm more bemused, really.

Its the only choice those with no brains can choose.

Ideally college should be a stepping stone to University, sadly that is not the case for a lot of children.

ISNT it is a myth that hairdressing/beauty is for bimbos or less adcademic students you actually have to be excellent at human biology have very good people skills there is a lot more to it than you would think .
As far as mechanics go it is not an easy subject either it is extremely hard work physically and mentally
my dad is a mechanic so i could sound biased here 9but im not) he is the most intelligent man i know , i am extremely proud of how well he knows his trade and the mant many certificates and qualifications he has and how hard he worked to support us .

classydiva your post is extremely insulting , what about doing something for the love of it work to live etc
i have worked as a makeup artist/beauty therapist i also have a lot of qualifications in other subjects law and psychology being among them , I read two books a week and i will be starting a buisness degree next year . I suppose that means i magically aquire brains the second i step out of the beauty salon and into a uni lecture , weird that

isnt this a good thing? That kids/teens have the ability and freedom to choose what they want to be and work towards it in a free education system. For how many countries in the world is this the reserve of the rich! I dont care what girls/boys want to do as long as they are happy doing it.

Out of interest what do you do yourself to break the mould? I work in a mostly male environment (about 90%) and love it. But it doesnt mean i feel sad about women not doing so!

I didn't say it was for bimbos

But to deny that hair/beauty are the stereotypical careers chosen by less academic people (note this is not the same as thick, people are less successfully academically for a whole host of reasons) is incorrect I think. I went to a very high-achieving single sex school and the careers people went into were things like law/medicine/things in the city, not hairdressing. Hairdressing just isn't that lucrative for the majority of people who practice it. I am sure that the average car mechanic earns more than the average hairdresser as well, (happy to be corrected).

coraltoes there seems to be a divide in aspiration/jobs that people go into between the children of people with money and those with less. Indicating that there is a divide in this country in the opportunities available to you if you are rich or poor, and further that a gender divide is at work that is more marked the less money you have in your background.

Again got no stats, but anecdotally this sense is quite strong on this thread I think.

WSL - pharmacy and optometry can be good choices for girls who are thinking ahead to after they have had children. They both have a good range of locum jobs available for weekends, which generally pay well.

When in his 80s after he had sold his business, my gf was getting £20 dispensing prescriptions for just the Saturday. The average wage was probably £5-6/week.

The main thing to consider is flexibility and future demand. Also they are both vocational courses that lead to jobs. Not such a bad thing in the current times.

coraltoes - I work in a largely male environment too. I don't think of it as breaking the mold, simply earning a good living, in a secure position with enviable conditions of employment. Oh yes and I don't work weekends. How many hair-dressers can say that?

I have no issue with mechanics, or hair-dressers neccessarily for those who think this is some sort of academic snobbery, I just wish women didn't always seem to choose the one that tends to earn less and lead nowhere. FWIW I am actively encouraging my eldest to be an engineer and do an apprenticeship.

I think this is so sad. Seems like a lot of school, and even university, career counselling is poor to completely useless.

At my sister's school the only careers that girls could credibly (amongst their peers) say they aspired to were singer/actress/dancer or fashion design/hair/beauty, and the school didn't do much to challenge that. Luckily she has gone to a sixth form college that opens their minds a bit.

At my friend's daughter's all girls school they sent home a letter for work experience placements that were: work with children/work with animals/work outside/work in an office/fashion, beauty and retail/healthcare.

I have mixed feelings about the advice to girls on an academic track to go for careers that allow for flexibility e.g. - in medicine: optometrist, pharmacy, dentist, general practice etc...On one hand it is practical, but on the other hand it just continues the assumption that they will be the ones whose careers make way for family, whereas no one says to boys don't think of becoming a surgeon if you want to get married and have children.

Great post himalaya totally agree especially with your last point.

Himalaya, I 100% agree with you. but it goes even deeper than that - no one does say to a boy "don't become XYZ if you want children", because the sad fact is that it generally, genuinely doesn't really affect 90% of men's careers if they have children. because it's a self perpetuating cycle - women are the ones who usually go part time, they take extended parental leave because as a primary carer for the first few months/years they tend to earn less (through the choices they've made or had made for them), whilst men often "can't afford" to take 2 weeks paternity, they're the ones using their holiday allowance to take kids to the dentist - and whilst men and women SAY they're all for equality these days in terms of parenting.. the reality is that it's still almost exlusively a woman's career that's affects. I see it in 90% of my friends and family's set ups - I see it on 90% of the posters on MumsNet.

My husband's employer thought his request to go 3 days a week (whilst I also do 3 days a week) was so utterly bizarre that they wouldn't even entertain the idea. He had to move jobs. Yet my request wasn't even blinked at after having kids. And i don't think it's all down to the sector/individual bosses.

The sad fact is: if you're a woman and you want children, you can say goodbye to a career path in any way equivalent to your husband/brother/father/son. If you are a male, it doesn't really influence things a heck of a lot.

And that reality just reflects the careers advice our children are getting. At least we're being honest with them

Classydiva you are talking bollocks; wher Orm is there is only one post-16 option covering everything from A Levels for Oxbridge candidates to Btecs for wannabe HCA's, with the SN education support absed there as well.

It's excellent; as an A Level student I got to mix with some very diverse people and make friends I would never have met any other way- friends who will be mine for life. People doing exceptionally valid if not academic routes, and people who are barristers.

I moved away from there shortly after my alst course to do my degree and MA, but I still think it's a wonderful establishment and would far prefer that we had that option here, as opposed to the separate sixth form / FE college system that runs.

Of course it's a shoddy institution for people who know no better; that's why my tutor doubled up as a Lecturer at bristol eh? Shoddy Uni that, too .

frgr the reason that it's usually the woman who earns less when a couple has children is, as far as I can see, usually because the man is older. I think more couples should look at prospective earnings rather than the here and now.

Eg a friend who was a top student, top uni, graduate entrant to a lucrative professional career - she took the career break because she earned less than her DH. But she was in her early 20s - just starting out - and he was 15 years older - established and at the peak of his career. People often say "oh well he earns more" but they're not factoring in this quite basic point.

With my friends, it probably wouldn;t have made any difference to their plans - it just annoys me the way the wage differential is used to justify women packing in jobs they love, or going part-time, when the rationalisation means that most women are going to be the ones to take the break etc whatever they do. Because women tend to get togetehr with men who are older (no idea why, an eternal mystery to me TBH).

frgr - yes because the man is often older, but also because the woman has often chosen a lower risk, more mummy-trackable career path in the first place, and because of the whole impact of 2 or 3 or more cycles of maternity leave on your career, and because employers and dads don't think that having kids should impact on your work.

I see all these highly educated women (and so few men) on the playground, coffee shop, school gate circuit and I wonder why we ever bother to educate our daughters, and what we tell them about what they can be.

At my (v. academic all girl's) school almost all the teachers were old school spinsters, with no experience outside of teaching - not much good for either careers guidance or life lessons about the challenge of 'having it all'.

I do wonder if with tuition fees for university parents will be less willing to pay for their daughters to go if they think they are only really going to work 5 years and then settle down to bake cupcakes.

(i am the breadwinner in our house at the moment and DH is main carer but we have done a mix over the years)

im so cantankerous i did engineering BECAUSE i heard a teacher say (in the early '80's) it was a boys subject. ha ! pick the bones out of that Mr XXXX

Well done fireblade

Interesting thought himalaya. I never thought in terms of mummy-trackable - but then I never wanted children. And ended up in a position where I could almost dictate the terms of my employment when I did get round to babies.

Perhaps I need to encourage DD not to want kids until she's establised in her career and then start leaving adorable little baby-gros around the place to seed the idea

The mechanic who serviced my car today was a woman and one of my nieces is a butcher and another an apprentice sparky.

YANBU. My friend's daughter left school at 16 (was always very average academically) and she took an apprenticeship in an engineering firm. She is 19 now, earning money when all her counterparts are getting into loads of student debt, is gathering qualifications left right and centre, and recently won an award as their very best apprentice in the country -out of loads of boys. Her boss can't praise her highly enough. She has truly found her niche, and she will go far. She loves it.

I hope it will cheer you all to learn that this female former service manager to motor dealerships is just about to call her male, straight hairdresser. :)

fellatio i am glad she is enjoying it.

It used to make me laugh that the apprentices at GKN used to drive round in Audi TTs.

I love engineering. It is great fun and SO interesting. And the pay is very good.

DD wants to be an aircraft fitter and if she doesn't get in the RAF I will strongly encourage an apprencticeship. You then get a practial qualification like an HNC, and if you work hard and are clever the employer will sponsor you to do a BEng/MEng (that is the route I took).

You're quite right, very sad. Also sad when you hear tales from people who have gone against the tide and then been badly bullied by the opposite sex in the workplace.

I'm skimming so this might have been said but it's interesting to note that your DS is doing engineering. So you expect others to break the stereotype but not your own child?

I'm always a bit about encouraging girls into traditionaly male dominated professions simply because the sheer daily grind of sexism can be enough to put them off.

I work in IT. Not as male dominated as it once was, to be honest, and I work in a highly specialised area which tends to have more women in it. However, you have to be fairly thick skinned to deal with the daily pile of sexism, both overt and covert. If I had a quid for every raised eyebrow at the tech person in a skirt, every attempt to bamboozle me with pseudo-tech speak from men who, quite frankly, are talking complete bollocks, for the sheer amount of time wasted by men not willing to hand over something technical to a woman before being forced to realise that if they want the job done, I'm the only one there capable of doing it....ARRGGHH!!! I'd be a millionaire and not have to put up with it.

On the other hand, I worked as a teacher in FE for ages and I totally acknowledge the streaming into male and female areas. I've had more than one male student point out to me that "Girls can'T do computers, innit" At which point you invite them to take their foot out of their mount and acknowledge that their teacher, their tutor, the Head of department and even the top student in their own class is in posession of more than one X chromosome. Any girl who survives that, plus the training that comes after, and survives the constant daily questioning of their ability in the workplace has my utmost respect.