To think this is a poor excuse for men not wanting to enter these jobs?

[PrincessSophieFrederike]

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?

What? Now you’re really not making any sense.

Men can do any jobs. Do you want me to list out every possible job a man can do?

Why is the under-representation of men in some professions a cause for concern?

The men who do trades aren't usually the same men who do medicine, though I'm sure there are some who have done both.

It always pays to read the link never AI summary:

In 2018 the female labour force participation rate reached a record high of 74 percent. Reliable figuresbegan in 1851, with the first census in which it is possible to discern anything like a labour force participation rate. In 1851, 43 percent of women were reported to be in ‘regular employment’. ‘Regular’ was not defined, so that figure should be taken as a minimum of those engaged in paid employment, with no indication of hours worked.
Mid-19th century concepts of full-time employmentwere very different from our own: agricultural work was from dawn (or earlier in the case of milking) to dusk, so varied seasonally; textile factory or mining or blast furnace shifts were 12 hours; shops were open in all daylight hours, six days a week. Today’s full time eight-hour day and 40-hour week would have been considered part-time for the last 500 years.
If 43 percent of adult women were in regularemployment in the mid-19th century, then women constituted nearly one third of the total labour force(not counting unpaid domestic work). Single women and widows were much more often employed than married women, only 10 percent of whom were in regular employment.
However, while the great majority of women married, and most of those who married had children whose upbringing was certainly their mother’s responsibility, nonetheless more than half of all adult women (usually counted as 15+) were not married at any given point in time.

10% in “regular employment” but what that meant was not defined.

Agree. We don't see women banging on about representation for jobs down the sewers, because they don't matter. It's only when status is involved it seemingly becomes a problem. I say let people do what they want to do, if men are put off by female dominated occupations (which can't really be determined) it means more spaces for women.

Indeed, which is why I quoted the 1901 census results in my response to you as being the more accurate.

I've looked up the stats - according to Grok 57.6% of women over 20 were married, that is 10.7M people. We know 13% of these women worked - 1.39M.
So 9.31M did not. The unmarried women in employment would likely not continue in employment once married.

It makes a stark contrast to today where 78% of married women work and 22% do not.

There are drives to get women into refuse collection, actually. The number is increasing.

https://www.biffa.co.uk/biffa-insights/biffa-women-in-waste-careers&ved=2ahUKEwjvo42475eQAxVpUkEAHXW0AQQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0Qt5R7Z5XvAd-5xlxiNGQX%3C/a%3E

A lot of trades & more physical jobs are trying to increase the number of women doing them, generally with some amount of success.

Not in regular employment is not the same as not working.

Especially when “not in regular employment” is not defined.

Erm….

Yes, they could have been doing lots of cash-in-hand work, or casual work, rather than being in service o'r in a factory o'r profession.