This is a dangerous topic. Say anything non-conformant about feminism and you'll be labelled a chauvinist. Therefore I feel the need to start with a disclaimer: For the record, without any reservation, I support equal opportunities and equal compensation for equal efforts.
Recently, I had a Heureka-moment related to the concept of "pink-collar occupations", or in Finnish, "naisvaltaiset alat", or simply, occupations where women are in a majority. The idea I had is to replace gender-words with some other identifier such as ethnicity or sexual preference. After all, given that gender-labels are legitimate descriptions of an occupation and practically all persons can be identified by both gender, ethnicity and sexual preference, then also ethnic- or sexual labels should also be legitimate. Consider therefore occupations where gays are in a majority. What thoughts and emotions does that concept induce in you? At least I feel pretty uncomfortable with the concept. "How dare you label an occupation as a "gay" occupation?" Or even better, think about occupations where /insert-your-preferred-ethnicity-here/ are in the majority, such as pool-care-takers. WTF? I get angry just be writing the sentence. "How dare you imply that pool-care-takers are mainly /insert-your-preferred-ethnicity-here/?"
How is it then somehow not-politically-incorrect (=politically accepted) to talk about pink-collar occupations?
How would I then go about discussing inequality in the work-place? Consider, for example the following ideas:
Recently, I had a Heureka-moment related to the concept of "pink-collar occupations", or in Finnish, "naisvaltaiset alat", or simply, occupations where women are in a majority. The idea I had is to replace gender-words with some other identifier such as ethnicity or sexual preference. After all, given that gender-labels are legitimate descriptions of an occupation and practically all persons can be identified by both gender, ethnicity and sexual preference, then also ethnic- or sexual labels should also be legitimate. Consider therefore occupations where gays are in a majority. What thoughts and emotions does that concept induce in you? At least I feel pretty uncomfortable with the concept. "How dare you label an occupation as a "gay" occupation?" Or even better, think about occupations where
How is it then somehow not-politically-incorrect (=politically accepted) to talk about pink-collar occupations?
How would I then go about discussing inequality in the work-place? Consider, for example the following ideas:
- I would much rather discuss the problem of companies hiring alpha-males for leading positions when they, according to evidence, are not the best ones for leadership positions. Since alpha-male characteristics are more likely to appear in males than females, then males appear more likely in leadership positions, thereby creating the appearance of gender-bias, when in fact it could just as well be a bias for the stereotypical alpha-male.
- I would also like to discuss why occupations dominated by alpha-male characters (corporate leaders, banking etc.) have higher average compensation in form of salaries and benefits? Conversely, why does care- and educational-occupations have lower wages than say, occupations within advertising, commerce and even engineering? After all, this distribution of wealth is not fair, judging by, for example (several other ways of judging also exist), utility and for the welfare of mankind.
- While engineering studies are marketed to females with success stories from other females, studies show that an average-female-story would be much more effective, since success stories create a impression that ladies need to be super-humans to be successful within engineering. So the problem is that engineering studies are not marketed in a realistic way, which should actually be worrying also from the male-perspective, because that leads to educating also such males to engineers who are not well-suited to be engineers. That is, males are tricked to become engineers even when that does not fit them.
- New studies show that young adult males nowadays have a desire to, or feel a societal pressure to "look good". That is, young adult males are pressured to exercise to get fit and invest time and money on clothing. In other words, young adult males are increasingly treated as objects of visual pleasure, similarly as ladies have been objectified for centuries. This means that females do not anymore have the monopolistic right to be victimized through objectification anymore, but it applies also to some males. That is, the problem is not objectification of females, but objectification itself.
