{"id":54840,"date":"2020-11-16T00:00:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T08:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=54840"},"modified":"2020-11-15T13:20:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T21:20:09","slug":"why-do-certain-professions-remain-so-largely-feminized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-do-certain-professions-remain-so-largely-feminized\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do certain professions remain so largely feminized?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

In France, several professions in direct contact with the coronavirus pandemic are highly feminized.\u00a0On the front line in the face of the virus, in hospitals, nursing homes, patients’ homes, pharmacies, etc. you can find: nurses (87% of women, according to\u00a0<\/span>DARES<\/span><\/a>\u00a0), nursing assistants s (91%), maintenance agents (70%), pharmacy assistants\u00a0<\/span>(89%)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, pharmacists\u00a0<\/span>(73%)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2026 Other professions, non-medical but everything also feminized, are also confronted daily with the virus: cashiers\u00a0<\/span>(79%)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, teachers (67%), home helpers (97%) …<\/span><\/p>\n

The differences in professional integration between women and men have been described for a long time, but they are highlighted in the situation we are currently experiencing.\u00a0They take the name of “glass walls” or horizontal segregation and correspond to the concentration of women in certain sectors of activity.<\/span><\/p>\n

They are therefore in the majority in the education, health and social action sectors (68.8% women), as well as in services to individuals (67.5%).\u00a0Precisely the sectors where the stability of employment is the least and where the wages are the lowest.<\/span><\/p>\n

They are also concentrated in fewer professional families than men.\u00a0Thus, in\u00a0<\/span>France<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, 12 of the 87 professional families group together more than half of the jobs held by women, while men are distributed in a much more diversified manner within these families.\u00a0The share of \u201cmixed\u201d jobs (ie jobs for which the proportion of each sex is between 40 and 60%) remains low: 16% according to the\u00a0<\/span>Economic, Social and Environmental Council<\/span><\/a>\u00a0.<\/span><\/p>\n

This diversity increases with the diploma and is more important in the public sector.\u00a0Among these mixed professions, we find, for example, administrative and financial executives, civil service executives, banking and insurance executives, commercial attach\u00e9s, or executives and higher intellectual professions and, in connection with greater academic success for girls.<\/span><\/p>\n

How to explain that this situation persists, despite numerous laws (for example, Roudy law, 1983; G\u00e9nisson law, 2001; law on equal pay of 2006; law on substantive equality between women and men of 2014) and systems (defender of rights,\u00a0<\/span>high council for gender equality<\/span><\/a>\u00a0. dedicated to making it evolve?<\/span><\/p>\n

Constructed categories<\/strong><\/h4>\n

For\u00a0<\/span>Maruani (2003)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, the sex of the person who holds a particular type of job constitutes a lasting marker of the representation of the job.\u00a0Because of this gendered division of labor, a categorization into \u201cmale occupation\u201d and \u201cfemale occupation\u201d is constructed.\u00a0According to\u00a0<\/span>Pierre Bourdieu (1998)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, while the professions of men are considered as \u201creal professions\u201d, those of women are evaluated less favorably and are perceived as professions in which women can express their \u201cnatural\u201d dispositions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, women often exercise professions whose content would be perceived as extending the activities and know-how acquired\u00a0<\/span>in the domestic sphere<\/span><\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0For\u00a0<\/span>Vouillot (2014)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, women are, according to this prism, seen as ideal candidates for jobs requiring patience and understanding, calm while men are supposed to match the jobs requiring physical strength, aggressiveness or authority.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to this representation, if the professions exercised by the majority of women are perceived only as the reproduction of what they do in the personal sphere, if it is implicitly considered that they do not need specific skills to exercise these trades, this may have an impact on the recognition of their qualifications.\u00a0This lesser recognition of their qualifications can lead to a\u00a0<\/span>lower valuation of the jobs<\/span><\/a>\u00a0they occupy and\u00a0<\/span>ultimately<\/span><\/em>\u00a0explain why\u00a0wage differences persist, inherited from the\u00a0<\/span>professional classifications<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that were constructed previously.<\/span><\/p>\n

Socially shared beliefs<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Here we touch on the link that exists between social asymmetry (professional insertions, different salaries, etc.)\u00a0<\/span>and cognitive asymmetry<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0: information is not treated in the same way depending on whether it concerns a woman or a man;\u00a0the representations we have of personality traits, qualities\u2026 of individuals are influenced by our stereotypes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stereotypes and how they work have long been studied by psychologists.\u00a0The term was introduced\u00a0<\/span>by Walter Lippmann in 1922<\/span><\/a>, to evoke images in our heads, simplified descriptive categories by which we seek to situate others or groups of individuals.\u00a0Stereotypes are thus made up of a set of beliefs about the traits that are supposed to characterize members of a social group.\u00a0They are socially shared because they are conveyed and maintained by the social environment.\u00a0They influence our relationships with others and are likely to modify our judgments towards members of a social group.\u00a0They would also have an ideological function of justifying or legitimizing the asymmetric status of groups in the social structure and are eventually integrated, assimilated by the very people who suffer the consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, the content of stereotypes is based on two fundamental dimensions, relatively independent and called\u00a0<\/span>\u201cBig Two\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0In the model\u00a0<\/span>of Abele, Uchronski, Suitner and Wojeciszke<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, the first dimension takes the name of communality and the second of agentism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Communality would be the tendency of a person to maintain his integration into a community, to establish intimate relationships with others, to put his individual needs in the background to the common needs and to take care of others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Agentism would manifest itself through differentiation, control, self-affirmation.\u00a0It would be the tendency of a person to be independent, autonomous, to control his environment, to assert, protect and extend the self.\u00a0For these authors, the agentic qualities (for example, ambition, independence, domination) would be beneficial to the individual who possesses them, while the communal qualities (like, for example, politeness, honesty, kindness, kindness ) would be for people interacting with that individual.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, for\u00a0<\/span>Bosak, Sczesny and Eagly<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, we usually attribute more communal qualities to women than to men, such as being affectionate \/ affectionate and supportive, and more agentic qualities to men than to women, such as showing off. dominant and self-confident.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, if we refer to the\u00a0<\/span>theory of social roles proposed by Eagly<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, the division of labor could be the fundamental cause of gender stereotypes.\u00a0The more frequent participation in the paid labor force and the greater occupation of command roles have given rise to the commonly accepted idea that men possess agentic characteristics, as do women’s domestic responsibilities and the fact that they occupy positions of power. employee roles in the service of others have induced the idea that women hold communal characteristics.\u00a0We are therefore in a vicious circle, in which stereotypes influence career choices, recruitments … and, in return, the image of a gendered labor market confirms and reinforces gender stereotypes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Break the vicious circle<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Several avenues could be considered and could guide political action:<\/span><\/p>\n