Don’t know about other cities, but on Chicago commuter rail (Metra) conductors & trainmen are almost universally male. I recall seeing one or two female conductors in all my years of commuting. Quick googling revealed “only 26 women of the 314 conductors employed by the Metra Electric line” (one line of twelve, but one of the busier lines) in a November 2011 article.
By contrast, the CTA (L & city buses) is fairly gender-balanced and I’ve seen plenty of female bus drivers and train operators.
Electrical engineer here.
When I graduated in 1992 we had one female in our class. Since then, I have only met two or three female EEs in person. None of them were doing technical work; they appeared to be doing PM type stuff.
While I know they exist (Bonnie Baker is one such example), I have never personally met a female EE doing technical work in electrical engineering.
I have never seen a kindergarten male teacher. Wherever there is dealing with small kids its female’s job.
I wonder if this is an American thing? Here in Europe, women documentary narrators abound, and are certainly not only chosen for “woman specific” work. Of the last coople dozen documentaries I’ve seen, I recall women narrating stuff from archeology to sports science to 20th century history.
Here’s one job that USED to be almost all female, but is becoming more and more male:
Head coaches of WOMEN’S athletic teams.
Decades ago, most women’s college basketball teams were coached by women. That’s partly because women’s teams were underfunded and coaches weren’t paid very well. But today, those jobs pay well, and whereas many men would NEVER have wanted to coach a women’s team in the Seventies or Eighties, many men would now jump at the chance to coach a women’s team at a major college.
And before you ask, female phys ed majors are FUMING at this change! Women who hoped to become basketball coaches are increasingly losing out on desirable jobs to men. And they’re livid about it.
Look at the sidelines of the women’s NCAA tournamnets this week ,and you’ll see what I mean.
And currently, half the pro teams in the WNBA have male head coaches.
Going back to my OP, have you ever heard a woman horse race announcer?
You may well be right - I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.
LOL!
I’ve only heard women documentary narrators on pseudoscience documentaries, you know, the “documentaries” about ancient astronauts or Atlantis or ancient astronauts IN Atlantis. If it’s an actual documentary, the narrator always seems to be male.
And I had the opposite reaction just recently. My last project had all female electrical engineers on it–three of them. First time ever in 30 years, and they all were fantastic! Now this is a hirise building, so this might be a different type of electrical engineering than what you are doing.
In my profession (Architect) there are a fair amount of women Architects now, but not so much 20 years ago. Interior Designers are almost always women, or gay males. I have yet (30 years) to meet a straight male Interior Designer, but I am sure one exists somewhere. Probably hanging with the straight male Hair Dressers.
I think they’re on a flight with the straight male flight attendant, Jim.
Could be. Our librarian ratio is 50-50 also, unlike above.
When you say gay, I guess you mean they act fopish and flamboyantly. Most of the male hairdressers I’ve known the sexual-preference of were straight, but oh-so-very flamboyant and camp. Ditto for the one Interior Designer I knew
I think jobs that require both creativity and conversational ability attract such folk.
Well some were flamboyant, but no most weren’t over the top flamboyant, but they were/are Gay. But I suppose I could see where it might be helpful to be ‘thought’ of as gay in those professions. My observation was based (at least on the interior designers) by sitting next to them, or working with them, or knowing them personally and meeting their partners, or hearing about their weekend activities, etc. I am sure much of it is confirmation bias though.
In Spanish and Catalan TV I hear women a lot in travel and art documentaries.
I know several male, straight interior designers; some of them came by the profession as a sort of family inheritance. One is the son and grandson of two local decorating pundits (our town has a 35K population; these women have projects abroad); the family of another has an art shop (art supplies, framing services).
Working at non-profit charitable organizations, in general. From the development/fundraisers to marketing, accounting, whatever area you’re in, if it’s in a charity it’s female dominated. It may be a simple issue of pay. If you have qualifications in, say, accounting, you’ll usually get paid better at a corporation. I never cared, because I’d rather work somewhere where I supported the mission and my husband makes more money than I do anyway so the difference isn’t a huge impact on the budget. Men may not think that way, or not have the luxury to take a pay cut.
It’s already been mentioned, but I thought “daycare” when I saw the thread title. I won’t say it’s gender-specific for no reason, as it stems from a longstanding societal bias that women are the ones who take care of children.
I think the reason it came to my mind so fast is that at my son’s daycare, the other infant room has a male worker. (They call them teachers, but that has different connotations for most people.) Not only is he a dude, but he’s more on the “tough guy” side of average, so there’s a little extra cognitive dissonance. I don’t have any problem with it, but I do recognize how unusual it is for a man to change diapers and spoon-feed strained peas to other people’s kids all day
Anyone ever seen or heard of a male lactation consultant?