I came across this interesting Substack post the other day from a US feminist. She was talking about the lack of men entering professions like veterinary medicine, teaching, library science, etc which are now female-dominated, despite the fact that these were all originally male-only professions. She argues that men are put off female dominated jobs for fear of being seen as less masculine. She had a similar argument for why men are enrolling less in college there.
I also think a factor is that female-dominated workplaces may have on average communication styles which rely more on indirect messaging & ways of expressing conflict, whereas male-dominated workplaces tend to resolve conflict & compete more overtly. Ofc this is a stereotype & not true for many people, but I has some accuracy.
Overall, I do find it a bit of a frustrating excuse. I can understand men who prefer stereotypical male communication styles feeling less comfortable in a female-dominated workplace. Another factor is that women are more likely to promote woke stuff like TRA stuff which many, maybe most, men dislike. (Obvs many women do too, but unluckily women also promote it more). I can also understand concerns about making friends in a female-dominated workplace. (Ofc men & women can be friends, but they might understandably want more men around. Plus a lot of women might be suspicious of a man's female friends- sometimes with good reason.)
I have a lot of sympathy for things like the decline of traditional manual labour & spaces to meet & , the resultant rise in poor male mental health & suicide. But on this issue I'm more sceptical.
Women had to enter plenty of workplaces where until recently they had been legally banned. Sexual harassment is still a big problem in quite a few jobs. Generally women were told to toughen up, for a long time.
Whereas looking up other articles, we're told how men are 'intimidated' by going into a 60% female veterinary class. As I said above, I sympathise with some concerns they might have, but 'intimidated' seems a bit much. Ofc women can be bullies, but I doubt men who enter such jobs will be sexually harassed or seen as less competent due to their sex. Anecdotally, my gran always told me that the few male teachers at the school she taught at were very popular with the female staff. Surely it's similar for other jobs sometimes?
TLDR : AIBU to think it's a bit much for articles to talk about men being intimidated by female-dominated colleges & workplaces, whereas until recently (and some still say this) women were told to toughen up & adapt to male-dominated (and often sexist) ones?