Male Versus Female Qualities - Employment Suitability

' . . . the lives of men have been taken to represent those of humans overall. When it comes to the lives of the other half of humanity, there is often nothing but silence.' ¹

So the question under consideration here is, are there certain jobs that are more suitable for men than for women? Agree or disagree, that is the question. I think at national and global levels the answer can be yes and no. For instance, back in the 80s, did we ever come across a male shorthand typist? Alternatively, how many women bricklayers would you get on a building site back then? Even today, in the year 2020, there are jobs that are specifically more befitting to the fairer sex and vice-versa. I still have never discovered the male equivalent of the ‘fairer sex.’

Back in the 80s especially, I worked overseas much of the time, flying out of Heathrow airport working as an expat, as far afield as Singapore, Indonesia and then throughout the Middle East. Looking back I cannot recall ever seeing a female pilot on any flight. Last year I flew from Aberdeen airport in Scotland to Gatwick airport in England and the first pilot and co-pilots were both women.

So looking at the question of qualities in men and women when it comes to employment; it begs the question, are the qualities of the male pilot any different from that of the female pilot? In a word, no! The only qualities that differentiate these pilots are their physical make-up. Going back to the bricklayer, would it really be any different for a woman to learn how to cement a brick in a wall? Again, in a word, no! However, possibly the female ‘bricklayer’ might feel that the mixing of cement, handling rough bricks, wearing dungarees and trying to cement the brick exactly in place, might just be a bit off the beaten track. Having to wear those latex-coated gloves could be a bit off-putting as well.  

These days much of the employment opportunities are governed by political correctness. I can use the fairer sex attitudes to female British Members of Parliament. And once again, I can turn the clock back to 1918; that year was when the first woman MP was elected, one, Nancy Astor. She was definitely a one-off in her day. Fast forward 102 years and we find today 220 women MPs sitting in the House of Commons whereas two-thirds of the seats are represented by men. It further begs the question, if we cannot get male-female equality in the highest domain in the land, what chance is there for equality at the humdrum levels of everyday employment?  

The gender equality issue also relates to pay. It emerged recently, that male and female TV and radio presenters working for the BBC were employed at different salary levels even when doing the same job. It has rightly been chronicled as the ‘gender pay gap.’ This was all brought to a head when the BBC China editor, Carrie Gracie, resigned from her post in 2018 that prompted (reluctantly) the corporation to rethink the whole gender gap pay issue.

So to answer the question about whether some jobs are suitable for men and others for women; unfortunately, not much has changed. The butcher in your local shop will nearly always be a man. Whereas the secretary to the CEO of a global energy company, for instance, is more than likely to be a woman.

1. Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women (London: Penguin Random House, 2019), page 1.