I’m not blaming the employer, but simply observing that the system perpetuates itself. If there is a job opening for “receptionist” many women may subtly think “Hey, that is for me” and many men will subtly think “Ah, that’s not for me because they probably want a woman” even though the man needs the paycheck.
So the employers gets a lobsided amount of female applicants, likely hires one, thereby continuing the belief that this job is reserved for women. And likely the employer is subtly thinking that when he puts out a job opening for “receptionist” he is envisioning a woman. I’m not saying that anyone should get their knuckles rapped over it, but everyone plays a part in the self-selection.
I spent a fair amount of time in food service, and generally, the servers made more per hour than the cooks, but the cooks worked more hours, so often had larger paychecks. (The fact that tips are often not properly declared further skews this.)
Few of the restaurants I’ve worked at had quite the disparity as the OP in the service staff, but it’s always been women dominated.
No, men tend to think, “No, that’s women’s work, it’s beneath me, I won’t apply.”
So, by hiring the people who apply, they are perpetuating the belief that that’s all they will hire? Even if that absurdity is true, what’s an employer supposed to do about it?
Not so likely. They may envision women being the ones who largely apply for it, but that’s just based on history, not based on whatever misogynistic motives you are applying to this hypothetical employer.
We’ve gone from multi-million dollar lawsuit to not getting knuckles rapped, so that’s a lot of progress, but I still don’t see what the employer is doing to be part of your self-selection.
Should they just not hire anyone unless they can find a man to apply?
I was going to comment that I didn’t think Polaroid cameras and Hooters overlapped, the former having declined into obscurity before the latter rose to fame, but I checked my facts first. Hooters was founded in 1983 and Polaroids (which never entirely ceased to exist, apparently) fell out of favor with the rise of digital cameras in the 1980s. So there probably aren’t a lot of folks out there with Polaroids from Hooters, but it’s not implausible that there are a few.
They may have existed, but they didn’t really “rise” until the 2000’s. It wasn’t until 2003 that digital surpassed film in sales.
They weren’t even really available to consumers till the mid 90’s, and were not very good.
And it would generally not be the customer with the camera, but someone on staff. That way, they take the picture and have it right then and there to give to the customer, rather than waiting for it to be developed.
Polaroids were used for their ability to instantly give you a physical picture until not only digital cameras, but also photo quality printers, became ubiquitous. Up until 1996, I was using a polaroid camera for our band’s fundraising. (And they probably continued after, that’s just when I graduated.)
I’m really not trying to blame anyone. I am just saying that embedded processes are hard to change.
Yeah, I wasn’t of legal drinking age until 1997 and I don’t recall Hooters being a place where one could drink underage. But, sure, they would take your picture with the waitress and she would sign it with some ridiculous statement like “Have a Hooterific Day!” with hearts and XOXOXOs on it.
The only reason I mentioned it was because that was their demographic. They get 3 beers in me, sit on my lap, write cute things on a Polaroid and my young heterosexual brain will tip them heavily. I could see an employer in that situation say that we are not going to hire a male server because he would not be what its customer base (like me) wants at all. It would be not different than Chili’s or TGIF.
I don’t think it should be illegal to have a niche market like that so long as it isn’t used for societal discrimination such as defining your “niche market” to be “doctors” and claiming that the public really wants male ones.
Quite true, I mis-wrote. I should have said with the rise of “one-hour color film processing, single-use cameras from competitors, and videotape camcorders.” Or anyway that’s what Wikipedia thinks.
We get a number of regular uniformed short-haul bigrig truck drivers and can only remember one woman. And the only time I’ve ever seen a woman in a long-haul sleeper is when she’s half of a couple and I don’t know whether she drives. I think I’ve only seen that about twice.
To expand on a point I was making above. Jobs tend to fit into three categories.
9-5, shift work, and flexible.
Flexible hours is only possible in some jobs. Medical and medical support is one of them. Jobs where continuity of a single task extends past a day don’t tend to work with flexible hours. Especially not jobs where a team is working on the task. However medicine and many services are only a stream of short term tasks. This can include receptionists as well. Such jobs are very attractive to women with families. If you talk to the staff in many such practices you will usually find that full time inflexible hours are rare. It is very common for them to work short weeks or half days.
A disparate number of women here may well not be a matter of “women’s work” so much as the cultural bias of men as breadwinner and not child raiser still being very entrenched. Men staying home or taking flexible jobs to raise the family is still quite rare. That bias skews job demographics.
My first major use of my shiny new Fuji 2.2Mp digital camera was to photograph the Macy’s parade in NYC in 2000. Up until then they’d been expensive, often monochromatic (like my friend’s Kodak 1Mp).
the thing that impressed me to this day is how sharp the resulting pictures were - I could blow them up as much as 11x14. Try that with your instamatic.
I think there’s a nasty feedback loop at work. Men avoid “women’s work” which is denoted by whatever, partly because it doesn’t appear “manly”. Similarly, women tend to avoid messy, heavy-lift, or less safe jobs. As a result, there are plenty of women applying for, eg. receptionist, wait staff, dental hygenist… and consequently there is less impetus to raise wages since there is no shortage, thus adding to the disparity.
And interesting side note is security - in some security guard settings, I see equal numbers of men and women. For other security jobs, where physical confrontation may be more likely, these tend to be men.
So for example, I may walk into an office tower and there may be a nicely dressed receptionist (female) or it may be the security staff in a nice blazer behind the desk directing visitors - in which case it is equally likely to be male. Same job, but change the title and the gender ratio changes.