Why is it so awful for a man to pursue a career in fashion, and why does it seem extremely odd when one woman steps out of the “norm” and pursues a career in, let’s say construction? Each and every person on this earth has different interests and it is peculiar to me that, from a social stand point, those different various interests are demanded by everyone to be put in to a category of either only being a female or a male “thing.”
If you are a male, you are “supposed” to want to tear things up, put things back together, construct different various things, repair house hold items, or negotiate with others for a living. Just as similar as if you are a woman, you are supposed to either
A) Be a stay at home mom
B) Pursue a career making food
C) Become a teacher
D) Become a nurse
You can see how oh so different the two gendered categories for careers differ from one another. Shockingly ladies and gentlemen, we do not live in the nineteen fifties anymore, we are in the twenty-first century. A time where women can tear things up, and men can be the ones to clean up after the women. A time where one can finally pursue all of the different interests that they wish, but yet there are new and exciting stereotypes that drastically go against this.
Why can’t a woman pursue a career in both “gendered” fields such as this woman in the clip below and not be criticized for anything?
You heard that first part right? The part about living in a “man’s world?” Yes, that caught my attention as well. This whole sense of being in a man’s world is somewhat discussed in Chapter 4 of Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. She says that the reason a woman may not be more likely to go in to a field that is primarily “fit” for men is due to the fact that many women believe that men will not accept them in th position or that they will simply not fit in with whom they will be working. The old school thought of not being able to fit in, in a certain situation may deem more important than ever before when a male or female, either one, is choosing a career for themselves. She goes on to discuss how recently women have not been saying that they do not have interests in the science field (as they used to do before), but now they are taking those careers and more women are in the science field than ever before. Betty Friedan, in the Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud, talks about the term “penis envy” in which Sigmund Freud coined. This term is saying that women are almost jealous for the male part that they do not have, turning it in to more of a metaphor than actuality, and at the same time reinforcing the point that Fine makes about not fitting in to a position in the workplace.
What are new stereotypes, that seem to be more popular now? Today, if a male wants to pursue a career in fashion design because when he was in high school he excelled or found a new interest while sewing in home economics, why would he be criticized? Directly after announcing he was going to pursue a career in fashion design, the first thing people would say would not be congratulations and they know he would succeed, it is obvious that he is gay and is only pursuing the career because that what something a gay man would pursue. If a woman wants to accept a job in construction or welding because she grew up with four brothers and they all always helped their dad repair things around the house growing up, how would she be criticized for choosing this career? Again, she would not be congratulated, but she would be called “butch,” or more commonly known as a lesbian.
Why do humans have to categorize people the way they do? Why are they forced to associate the terms “lesbian” and “gay” with specific career choices in the first place, and where does all of this nonsense root from? A lot of it, I think, directly comes from the media. There are so many media choices out there from newspapers to social networking that it is hard not to get caught up in all of the madness. So called “news” in the media basically tells people what to do and what not to do, and even to judge people for what they do in certain situations. It is really unfair that individuals have to go through mistreatment at the workplace just because they are a specific gender, and it is sad that people discriminate because of that.
If you are a male, you are “supposed” to want to tear things up, put things back together, construct different various things, repair house hold items, or negotiate with others for a living. Just as similar as if you are a woman, you are supposed to either
A) Be a stay at home mom
B) Pursue a career making food
C) Become a teacher
D) Become a nurse
You can see how oh so different the two gendered categories for careers differ from one another. Shockingly ladies and gentlemen, we do not live in the nineteen fifties anymore, we are in the twenty-first century. A time where women can tear things up, and men can be the ones to clean up after the women. A time where one can finally pursue all of the different interests that they wish, but yet there are new and exciting stereotypes that drastically go against this.
Why can’t a woman pursue a career in both “gendered” fields such as this woman in the clip below and not be criticized for anything?
You heard that first part right? The part about living in a “man’s world?” Yes, that caught my attention as well. This whole sense of being in a man’s world is somewhat discussed in Chapter 4 of Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. She says that the reason a woman may not be more likely to go in to a field that is primarily “fit” for men is due to the fact that many women believe that men will not accept them in th position or that they will simply not fit in with whom they will be working. The old school thought of not being able to fit in, in a certain situation may deem more important than ever before when a male or female, either one, is choosing a career for themselves. She goes on to discuss how recently women have not been saying that they do not have interests in the science field (as they used to do before), but now they are taking those careers and more women are in the science field than ever before. Betty Friedan, in the Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud, talks about the term “penis envy” in which Sigmund Freud coined. This term is saying that women are almost jealous for the male part that they do not have, turning it in to more of a metaphor than actuality, and at the same time reinforcing the point that Fine makes about not fitting in to a position in the workplace.
What are new stereotypes, that seem to be more popular now? Today, if a male wants to pursue a career in fashion design because when he was in high school he excelled or found a new interest while sewing in home economics, why would he be criticized? Directly after announcing he was going to pursue a career in fashion design, the first thing people would say would not be congratulations and they know he would succeed, it is obvious that he is gay and is only pursuing the career because that what something a gay man would pursue. If a woman wants to accept a job in construction or welding because she grew up with four brothers and they all always helped their dad repair things around the house growing up, how would she be criticized for choosing this career? Again, she would not be congratulated, but she would be called “butch,” or more commonly known as a lesbian.
Why do humans have to categorize people the way they do? Why are they forced to associate the terms “lesbian” and “gay” with specific career choices in the first place, and where does all of this nonsense root from? A lot of it, I think, directly comes from the media. There are so many media choices out there from newspapers to social networking that it is hard not to get caught up in all of the madness. So called “news” in the media basically tells people what to do and what not to do, and even to judge people for what they do in certain situations. It is really unfair that individuals have to go through mistreatment at the workplace just because they are a specific gender, and it is sad that people discriminate because of that.
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