Noggin wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:11 am
It's probably less a lack of interest but a lack of encouragement and an active discouragement. When I showed interest in anything other than 'girl' careers I was told not to bother by school and told off by my mother (although she also discouraged me from a girl career because 'she' didn't like it!! )
Women/girls really are NOT given the same career guidance if they show interest in something different to the norm. Similar to being constantly told that "that (BB, Blade,TLs etc) is a bit big for a girl isn't it?" but random strangers!!
Definitely no laws prohibiting it but how much encouragement is given at an age where the choices are made? (I'd be happy to find out things have changed, but I'm not that sure they have!)
You are assuming all men can do exactly what they want. They all want to be plumbers, firemen, deep sea divers builders etc.
That is simply not the case. Most people end up performing a role they can demonstrate aptitude for, if they are even lucky enough to be offered the chance.
Then there is always the now controversial proposition that boys/girls and men/women have distinct physical and emotional traits. Take 1000 boys and girls, test their physical strength and you will discover two perfect gaussian distributions, offset where most boys are stronger. The same is true for virtually ANY metric you care to investigate. Statistically, you can always make inferences (a.k.a. prejudices I grant you) based on solid, statistical evidence.
That does not say anything at all about any given individual.
Good example might be Venus Williams. It is false to say she is not as good as the male tennis players. Take 1000 men at random and she would wipe the floor with all of them. Take one million and a select few might stand a chance of scoring a point. Sub select into the vanishingly small group of professional tennis players and suddenly the statistical evidence become massively skewed.
In that microscopically tiny sample of humanity, Venus would be lucky to get ranked in the top 500 of mixed sex tournament tennis, even in her heyday. The same is true for people who, say, demonstrate an aptitude for I dunno, bricklaying. It's not as highly skilled per se but it does require physical strength, endurance, difficult/dirty working conditions and a mindset which can handle the monotony. No offence to builders/brickies, it is a skill and a valuable one too.
But take 1000 men/women and see how many of each sex have the fortitude to become competent trades or have an inherent aptitude. You will find two overlapping gaussian distribution curves where out of that 1000 of each, let's say 200 boys pass a certain level, but only 2 girls. That is not the same as saying boys are 100 times better (I made the numbers up anyway) but merely that statistically, girls are not going to have the strength, the endurance or even the desire to labour under difficult/dangerous conditions.
Finally from those 1000 boys, 200 of which show some aptitude for the trade, how many of them end up doing that for a living? One or two? No. Probably closer to 0.01 of them. In a large population, very few people get to choose what they want, they end up doing what they can get.
So if your job was to encourage people to find a role, would you tell each and every one of them the same thing? Yes, you can become an astronaut, professional footballer, ballerina, popstar, <whatever>. I would say nine times out of ten you'd be wrong; doing your client a disservice but that's not even close. You'd be wrong and giving those people false hope at a rate ten million times to 1.
Boys, like girls, take whatever they can get and it's not easy for either. The grass is not always greener.
Mind you, this was in the mid 80's, and I don't think they'd got their head around what a career meant.
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