In this 21st Century, We Must Honor our Experts in Care

This week, the New York Times published an article pertaining to the increase of men working in “pink collar jobs” in the US, “More Men Enter Fields Dominated by Women”, by Shaila Dewan and Robert Gebeloff.  

The article reports that, “while women continue to make inroads into prestigious, high-wage professions dominated by men, more men are reaching for the dream in female-dominated occupations that their fathers might never have considered” – pink collar jobs like nursing, school-teaching, linked to “care”.  With the shifting economy, job growth is in the care sector as these professions cannot be off-shored.  Furthermore, men’s priorities are shifting enough for them to want to benefit from job attributes such as less stress, more time at home, and personal gratification (challenge and emotional return) beyond salary.   This shift is even taking place among uneducated men, typically associated with a higher level of male chauvinism. 

What good news!  This is precisely what I was advocating in my March 8^th blog, convinced as I am that we must have men recognize the importance and value of care before we can hope for a better work-life balance in Western societies.   Thanks to this new trend, we can hope that care issues will escape the exclusive clutches of “woman’s work” and come to the fore of men’s and women’s minds while liberating each gender to also excel in other domains.

But the article also exposes an important marker in our fight for gender equality:  even in these fields where women’s expertise is recognized, and in such a short time frame,   there is a “glass escalator”.  Glass escalator is a term coined by sociologist Christine L. Williams expressing a phenomenon in which men move up more quickly to supervisory positions thanks to their gender.  Yes, while women’s career paths are truncated by the “glass ceiling” in male-dominated professions and, as I have named, working mothers are held back by a “glass cage”, men are empowered (or abetted) by the “glass escalator”.  

Is it because of their skills / qualities vs. those of women (for example, stereotypically more authoritative and therefore more likely to lead?)?  Or is it because administrators are largely male and tend to promote talents more similar to them?  Or is it because there are fewer men in these fields and therefore more visible, making administrators notice them more?  Or is it because socially we all still defer to the man? 

In 1977, Rosabeth Moss Kanter had pinpointed “Occupational Sex Segregation”, which discriminately segregated women into lower paying positions with little training, building a self-perpetuating mechanism with which the rare women promoted were lacking in experience and skills compared to the men and whose legitimacy and chances to succeed were largely diminished. 

But this is not the case here.  In pink collar jobs, it is the men, not the women, who are lacking the experience and skills (outside of skills acquired through parenting, as men become increasingly implicated in their family lives).  So, outside of gender discrimination, women should be high on the ladder, not the newly arriving men.

This is where it gets tricky.  According the studies pursued by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, it is in part because the hands-on positions within the pink color sectors require a very high level of caring and relational skills, experience, and expertise.  Reportedly, when women have moved up and men have moved into some care positions (hospitals, for example), care recipients have complained, requesting that the women come back (whether the reason be comfort with traditional roles or a real difference in care remains to be clarified). 

So, women are thwarted when considered not skilled enough and thwarted when considered well skilled.

Beyond arguments that we have not yet attained gender equality and/or that Western culture is still largely patriarchal; beyond scientific arguments that corpulence, low voice, height, and testosterone play into the dynamics of chieftains and power politics, there’s another issue here.  For me, the crux of the matter is that there is no reason for managerial roles to be paid more or valued more than expertise roles. 

Of course management is important for an organization to run well.  Talent management and creative decision-making is key to an entity’s well-being and performance.  But the actual expertise and savoir-faire is just as key… and should be valued.  Every last ambitious business person gets their MBA (good news – the number of women enrolled in MBAs is growing) so that they can be a manager.  But a manager of what?  For what?  Shouldn’t that manager be skilled in the profession in order to optimize the quality of his or her decision making? 

Our performance society is guiding us to gut our professions of their life-force, of their specificity, in the name of process and organization… and management.  And maybe that’s necessary.  But is it necessary to the point of awarding the best salaries to the managers instead of the skilled experts?  I’m not talking about the number one creative director in an advertising agency or creative expert at an innovator like Apple, who, as few as they are, are paid handsomely (and discarded as quickly when no longer performing…). 

I’m talking about skilled workers like our pink collar workers.  Men or Women.

Yes, the good news here, despite my pushing for improvements, is that men are discovering and spreading the news that “care” jobs are challenging, rewarding, enriching, even exciting.  It’s time we started honoring the jobs which have a direct impact on our well-being rather than only the superfluous and material.  It’s time we honor our experts in care.  


Let me know what you think.
In the meantime, talk to you next week for another bite from the apple,
Eve