A funny thing happened on the way to gender equality

by Marianne Cooper on 03/14/11 at 9:30 am

Since the 1960s, American society has made

sweeping progress in the march towards gender
equality. Women’s employment has dramatically
increased, gender discrimination in employment
and education has became illegal, and women now
surpass men in rates of college graduation. Many
herald these massive changes as revolutionary.

However, when Stanford sociology professor Paula

England sat down to investigate this gender
revolution she discovered something puzzling. The
big changes that have occurred have gone mostly
in one direction – women moved into jobs, fields,
and activities that were previously limited to men.
But few changes have happened in the opposite
direction – few men have moved into traditionally
female jobs or domestic roles.

In her recent talk, “The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled,” sponsored by the Clayman Institute
for Gender Research at Stanford, England pointed out that since the 1970s women have increasingly
majored in previously male-dominated fields like business, marketing, and accounting. Yet, there has
been little increase in men majoring in traditionally female fields like English, education, and
sociology.

Women have also drastically increased their representation in formerly male-dominated professional
degrees, getting law degrees, MBAs and MDs in large numbers. In 2007, England noted, women
made up 49% of those receiving MD degrees. By contrast, there has been no marked increase in the
number of men pursuing degrees in traditionally female fields like library science, social work, and
nursing.

England’s explanation for this one-way kind of gender change is society’s devaluation of traditionally
female jobs and activities. Research has consistently shown, she said, that on average, female-
dominated occupations pay less than jobs with a higher proportion of men even when factors like
education and skill level are taken into account.
This devaluation also plays out in the personal realm.
As England pointed out, parents are more comfortable
giving girls “boy” toys like Legos than they are giving
dolls to their sons. And girls have dramatically
increased their participation in sports while boys have
not flocked to cheerleading or ballet.

England argued that our society’s economic and

cultural devaluation of things defined as feminine
means that “men lose money and suffer cultural
disapproval when they choose traditionally female-
dominated fields. Consequently, they have little
incentive to transgress gender boundaries.” In contrast, there are economic and social incentives that push women
to enter traditionally male-dominated fields. As a result, England said the gender revolution has meant that,
“women’s lives have changed more than men’s.”

What’s more, England pointed out, is that college educated, middle-class women have made greater strides in
entering previously male-dominated occupations than less educated, working-class women. In fact, working-class
jobs like plumbing, construction, and truck driving are almost as segregated by gender as they were in 1950, she
said.

England attributed these class differences among women to working-class women’s ability to improve their
prospects by moving from lower status, traditionally female jobs like child care worker to higher status, traditionally
female jobs like teaching. Consequently, working-class women had the option to move up, so to speak, without
needing to cross gendered boundaries and integrate blue-collar jobs. In contrast, in order for middle-class women
to make strides they had to enter higher status, male-dominated professions like law, medicine, and academia.
Thus, middle-class jobs have become significantly more integrated than working-class ones.

For England, the uneven nature of the gender revolution with women’s lives changing more than men’s points to
the uneven progress of different feminist goals. The part of the feminist message that called for women to have
equal access to jobs and education has been successful, she said, and accounts for much of what people refer to as
the gender revolution. However, the part of feminism challenging the devaluation of traditionally female activities
and characteristics has made little progress. “The result,” England said, “is persistently low rewards for women
who remain focused on mothering or in traditionally female jobs and little incentive for men to make the gender
revolution a two way street.”

“There is nothing inevitable about positive change,” England said, noting that progress towards gender equality has
stalled in some areas. For example, she explained that the rate of women’s employment stopped growing in the
1990s and that the narrowing of the gender pay gap has slowed in recent years. The desegregation of college
majors stalled by the mid-1980s, and occupational desegregation slowed after 1990. To address the uneven and
stalled nature of the gender revolution, England urged the audience to examine both institutional and cultural
roadblocks that continue to prevent gender equality. “To revitalize change,” England concluded, “renewed feminist
organizing is needed.”

England's talk is part of the Clayman Institute's strategic focus on moving "Beyond the Stalled Revolution" and is
available to view online. The paper, “The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled,” was published in Gender &
Society

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