Clowns on TV and also the ones who play at kids’ parties.
Circus clowns are still exclusively male, with women clowns played by smaller men.
Are you saying that clowns on TV are (or have been) exclusively women? That’s new to me.
Stewardessing. Or, Stewarding, now, I guess. It used to be dominated by women, and now you’re just as likely to find a man doing it.
Good one. I haven’t flown in a long time, so this one has slipped my attention. I think I may have heard a few jokes or stories on the theme, but I had forgotten that inroad when I wrote the OP.
And I see that elmwood mentioned this group, too.
Telephone Operators use to mostly be women.
The few times I have encountered an operator, it’s been a woman. I can’t remember hearing a man in that role.
Television programs about shopping - at least, if Queer Eye’s still on these days…
The wearing of skirts & dresses. 
Stroller pusher. Maybe it’s just my perception but it seems like in old movies and in my childhood memories, the mother was always the one to push the stroller or baby carriage. Now it seems like the only time I see a woman pushing a stroller is if she’s alone.
Also when I was in highschool I worked at several movie theaters and it was always segregated so that girls sold candy and boys were ushers. That was in the 80s and I don’t even remember anyone finding it sexist. I was automatically hired as a candy girl and didn’t think to ask to be an usher instead. Some girls would ask to be ushers but boys were just put on as ushers and they did not ask to work selling candy. I don’t know if it was that way everywhere but in the same theaters I used to work for they have an even distribution of male and female doing all the different jobs.
Really? At the school where I’m student teaching, all fourth graders are currently taught by male teachers. When I’m done student teaching, that will no longer be true, although still most of them will have a male teacher. Over and over I have folks tell me that being male will be a major advantage for me in applying for jobs, although it’s technically a violation of federal law for principals to discriminate on the basis of sex.
True, I’ve got very few male classmates in my K-6 program, but I think that’s due to the economics of teaching, not to a cultural climate–unless you’re talking about a cultural climate that devalues teachers.
Daniel
I haven’t done any research to verify that this is true, but I have heard a lot of female sports fans make this complaint:
Once upon a time, girls’ and women’s athletic teams were largely coached by women. Now that there’s actually some money to be made coaching girls’ and women’s teams, a lot of men are now getting hired as basketball and soccer coaches.
At first glance, it certainly SEEMS as if WNBA and women’s NCAA basketball teams are increasingly being coached by men- and a lot of female coaches are up in arms about that.
“My sister was studying to be the first woman to be a male nurse in the State of New York.” - Woody Allen
The trend of veterinarians being pre-dominantly women is seen by some as a bit troublesome. Many young women, with stars in their eyes and horses in their hearts beat the men into vet school. They then graduate, specialize in large animals, and realize Hey! This is Hard Hard Physical work! I dont want to work with cows/sheep/livestock, ect! Whoa, I have to work with nasty horses that might try to physically harm me!
The problem is veterinary science is a marriage between the book knowledge and the actual physical ability, moreso with large animals. However, your average Joe farm guy, who is fairly bright and works really hard, might not have the same stellar GPA as Jane “spends every saturday night in the library”.
Now obviously, Im making a huuuge generalization here, and realize that this is not true in many many cases. But there is definitely a changing tide, and its a shame…because who’s going to sew up Mr. Amish Farmer’s cow with the prolapsed uterus at 8 pm? Probably not the book smart girl who really got into large animal veterinary medicine because she competed in horse shows as a girl. (BTW I am female, and have several vets in the family, although not one myself). Please just take this as my Humble Opinion.
Haha oh, read you with the face’s post, and forgot that I misread the post too. Whoops.
Male dental assistants strike me as odd.
It’s worth noting that when women move into traditionally male fields (medicine, law, veterinary medicine) they typically earn less than the males, overall. The exception is when they move into male-dominated but physical fields such as construction and plumbing. But when men move into traditionally female fields (admin. assistant, nurse) they tend to earn 100%+ what the women make.
Disclaimer: This is from a bunch of statistics I collected for an article I wrote more than 10 years ago. The trend may have changed, and note that I am not providing exact figures because I am too lazy to dig out the file.
And now they’re mostly computers. What sex does that make them?
Don’t sweat it. You can’t discuss anything which compares males and females without ruffling SOME people’s feathers. They’re not worth bothering about.
Milking cows? Not too many milkmaids out there these days.
OK, I got nuthin.
Well, most computer voices in general seem to be modeled on a female voice. What’s up with that?