My own anecdata points out that I have spent the greatest part of my working life being subordinate to men my own age and with degrees similar to mine, that responses which are considered appropriate for a “leadership profile” in a man are viewed as “confrontational” in a woman, and that men don’t get told in their professional reviews that their work is superb and exceeds all parameters when compared with the rest of the team but they should smile more and be nicer (I’m an engineer - where in the job description does it say “must have nice smile”?).
I’ve had coworkers who had been living with their partners for several years but who didn’t plan on getting married unless and until they either decided to go for a child or were already pregnant. This is because getting married would automatically slam a lot of professional doors for them: in many companies, a single woman is considered a candidate for jobs involving travel, a man of any civil and paternity status is not expected to decline a job “only” because it involves travel, a married woman isn’t even considered for a job involving travel. Note that this is as unfair to the men as to the women but, since jobs involving travel tend to be better paid, the bias tends to mean that men and women who’ve held similar jobs will have different incomes due to travel time.
I think this is just society reinforcing old norms. Construction is a tough and physical job, sure. However, because it’s mostly men that do it, most people consider it even tougher and more manly. I’ll show an example of another very physically demanding job that, because of societal norms and stereotypes, is largely viewed as a women’s profession.
Nursing (and being a nurse tech/assistant) in a hospital setting is very physically demanding, dangerous, and downright gross.
You have to move patients, either lifting or rolling them, regularly. By regularly, I mean multiple times per shift. Patients need to be rolled or moved to change sheets. They need to be transferred out of bed and onto stretchers when changing wards or going from their room to get tests. They need to be helped to sit up or stand. They need to be picked up after falling, or caught when starting to fall. They need to be helped in and out of bed, and helped to walk to encourage their recovery. They have some help for some of these things, but not all and much of the time it just takes to long to wait for the help when nurses are dealing with five or more patients at a time.
Patients are physically confrontational by refusing medication and even assaulting nurses. Nurses get bitten by patients, struck by patients, berated by patients and families, get accidentally stuck by used needles, have to dispose of numerous biohazards like blood, urine, and excrement, and more. Depending on the nurse’s specialty, they may have to deal with violent patients and/or intoxicated (drugs and alcohol) patients. Sure, they have hospital security, but any confrontation almost always begins against the nurse and requires the nurse to deal with it while waiting for security to respond.
Nursing often requires long hours and shift work. It’s pretty typical for a hospital nurse to walk between 5,000 and 10,000 steps during a shift, which is about 2.5 to 5 miles. They virtually never get to sit and often don’t get their legally mandated breaks.
Yet because nursing is largely seen as a female job that requires someone capable of being nurturing, physically demanding or tough is not what comes to mind when most people think of the job.
I find the notion that women are encouraged to avoid adversity, discomfort, and pain pretty laughable. They’re encouraged to avoid it only if it’s stereotypically male adversity, discomfort, and pain. Similarly, men are discouraged from jobs like nursing that are seen as requiring nurturing even though the job creates a lot of adversity, discomfort, and pain.
Ask them what provisions companies have for adjusting the pay rate for childless women, and how do they handle things if the women ever get pregnant. If they’re starting out paying the women less just because the women might get pregnant some day, that’s not cool.
I concur with (and personally relate to) even sven’s post.
I guess it sometimes depends on your company and line of work, as well as the region you live. In my company the executive positions are mostly, but not all, male. However, the next few layers (VPs, Directors, Managers, Supervisors) are dominated by women. In my own department, the VP and 6 out of the 7 Directors are women. It’s an interesting question as to why the executive level is less reflective of the layers immediately below. The company in general is probably about +65% female.