[cdmcmahon]

I think nursing may be a field where certain stereotypes, etc. keep the gender balance of the working population a certain way. And I think you correctly point out that men do have _access_ to the field of nursing so it’s not ad much of a problem per se. That said, the reason I think you can say men aren’t denied access is because you don’t have hordes of men revealing patterns of regular and constant discrimination, as you do in technological fields today, so I don’t think the comparison says what you wish it did.

Furthermore I think it’s telling that you being up nursing, a not particularly lucrative field, as a female dominated one. It’s not a secret that the most scrutiny is going to those fields that are the more lucrative/powerful as discrimination in such fields serves to keep wealth/influence concentrated in whiter, maler hands.

[belorn]

A few years ago there was a nice government report here in Sweden on gender segregation for teachers, and guess what they wrote? Hordes of men revealing patterns of regular and constant discrimination, very similar to that in technological fields today, and cited research which points that any work place which is dominated by a single gender has a tendency to create a discriminating culture against the minority.

I would bet that if one looked at the drop rates of male nurse students it will look very similar to that of female programming students. If one looked at the reason cited why they decide to drop it will align to very similar answer, where the minority will cite an increase self-doubt and low support. If one looked at the rate people leave the field after working the first year, again we will likely find identical reason for programmers where many will citing clashing work culture as a top reason for leaving the profession. Looking at those staying after 3-4 year, again there is a similar pattern where the minority will move towards specialization (sub groups of the profession) where there is a higher ratio of members of the minority.

We have medical specializations which have a gender segregation that is above 99%, where for every person of the minority gender there is several hundreds of the majority. Why do such extreme segregation exist where both men and women has equal access to the same profession?

[cm2187]

Not really. In France 60% of doctors are female. 80% for new judges. Is that the self perpetuation of a stereotype? Are these low pay/low influence professions? If you measure discrimination just by the outcome provided it is a lucrative/powerful profession then these should be deemed to be discriminations. I don’t believe they are.

In the technology field, I have studied engineering in France, where the top school were only accessible through an anonymous competitive exam. There is very little room for discrimination there. Just math and physics exercises on an anonymous piece of paper. But both the candidates and the students who were selected were 80% male. Of course recruiters end up hiring 80% male engineers, how could it be not the case? But that’s not discrimination.