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Six years ago. while in his 40s, Jeff Johnson was forced to make a career change after I lia employer had a Large-scale downsizing. With limited job opportunities in his field locally, he decided to retool and co back to school. Fot mei h an aircraft maintenance technician For a major airline in the midwest, JefT entered a two-year college program to become a surgical technologist. On the surface these two careej s do not appear to have anything in common. When asked out this. Job nsou replied "Both careers parallel each other in a number of ways. Orthopedic surgery and aircraft maintenance rue stmilai instruments and tools in their daily work, e.g., drills, hardware, fasteners, etc Both require the ability to interact with a variety of people on a daily basis " The most striking difference, though, is thai he transitioned from working with all males to now working with all females
The statistics are Startling In 2010, only 5.1 percent of welders in the Uniteti S ? ni es were female. And according to Male Nurse magazine out of the approximately 2.6 million registered nurses in the United Slates, approximately 7-8 percent are male. These careers fall into the category of nontraditional, i.e., ones in which 75 percent or more employed in an occupation or field arc comprised of the opposite gender. What keeps females and males from considering nomi 'ad it km ni career paths? What can career and technical education (GTE) educators and counselors do to increase enrollment and retention of students in classes and programs that prepare them for male- or femaleminateti careers?
The Great Gender Divide
Starling From an early age, girls are dressed in pink and beys in blue. Boys artgiven trucks to play with while girls are offered dolls. Growing up, girls are assigned household duties like washing the dishes and doing the laundry, while boys are relegated to mowing die lawn and taking out the trash- This socialization phenomenon continues throughout childhood, including their school experience. Ultimately, this leads to gender stereotyping in which certain attributes, opinions and roles are assigned io a specific gender.
The media is notorious for promoting gender stereotypes. Women appear in television advertisements for laundry soap and other household products. Advertisements...