Work from males, work from females
That is, when gender stereotypes affect personal works and interests
There is a sort of ghost that wanders on our daily lives, which silently walks among our most atavistic beliefs, which we admit or do not admit, that we have made our own or simply discounted: the belief that the work has a type. That is, that is, work for males, exclusively and without a doubt for males, and work as females, always and forever as females. Work for women and and jobs for men. Of course, there is a shadow area, there in the middle, a vast - vast range of works for all (really the neutral genre is fitting, in this case), who perfectly dress on a woman as on a man without That no one has the opportunity to turn up the nose, nor that the worker* feels uncomfortable. The high school teacher, for example, who already in the term presupposes neutrality, or the office of office. Other jobs are not: other jobs have an absolutely well defined genre.
I pass to the first person, to the immediacy of personal experience, to express a question that is, I believe, well rooted. The general should not be inferred from the particular when we are the detail, I know, but for this time I will transgress the rule. I did the elementary teacher and the babysitter. Now I do something else, yes, a much more neutral job, but sporadically I did two crafts, in short, it must be said, from females. As for the babysitter, the shame of dressing female role was diluted by using circumstance phrases ("Yes, I look at children a few days, I know parents"), phrases that allowed not to use the term directly babysitter, so connoted towards the X chromosome. The elementary teacher was more complex to avoid: the looks of the parents towards the only man in the midst of so many women, the questions of the colleagues, the amazement, the jokes. Of course, I said it and it is also taken for granted, the same strangle is not tried if you get ages in the world of school: middle school, high school, university; Nothing strange in that case. Childhood and primary (better to use the correct ministerial terms, before someone decently) seem more open to the female universe. This is due, I believe, to the ancient and timeless conception that a woman, as such, is also a mother. Maybe it's even Before A mother, or rather: her being a woman is completed when she becomes a mother. And for this innate maternal instinct, for this natural tendency towards children (apparently it does not matter to know who children are) all those crafts that have to do with people up to a certain age group are destined for women. And if he is a male, well, there is something strange, as it is strange if he stayed at home with his son, or his daughter, is his dad, and not the mother. Dad goes to work, the mother is at home, is nothing more than the ancient dogma.
So when a man does a women's job, everything is strange. However, there is a justification, or rather a excuse: if the man in question is homosexual (or if accused of being such, given the work he does). Homosexuality - which is often associated, almost stigma, with effective tendencies - legitimizes certain works. But it is a discriminating legitimacy, as if you want to imply that that'Man is worth less as a man as homosexual, and therefore is justified to do jobs that are less implicitly considered to be inferior at a social level.
Different, almost at the antipodes, is the question of men's work. In this case we have two types: hard work and high -sided jobs. For the former, perhaps, they have taken steps forward. The work-operator, the worker, exists, is accepted-with specific differences-on a social level, because there are classes (almost all) that necessarily need a job, and the salary has a specific weight much than to a prejudice. But reaching gender equality with regard to high -high works, managerial, political or similar positions is a much harder history. In fact, if the man who does a "woman" job he gets away most of the time with some laughs and an out of place comment, the woman who tries to make his way into a career usually intended for men because of retrograde and male traditions -Centrics must be hurry, to shoulders, fight not only against a prejudice, but against an entire system that tries to keep them as far as possible from the position of power, which will be pointed out to prevent the next order, in the workplace, arrivals arrivals Not from a man, but from a woman.
It is only recently that things seem in part to improve: managerial female occupations increase - although the gap remains wide - and in recent years a series of neologisms has introduced the female gender for some works that they previously presumed - because they were doing only Men - Only the male (the mayor; the architect ...).
But precisely on a linguistic level the problems still persist, just think of theinfantization which undergo women who achieve certain objectives on a public level: if a woman is conferred an important recognition in the field of mathematics, it is not uncommon that it is nicknamed "queen of mathematics", and to many other examples could be referred. And again: the men's gap in the work was ruthlessly visible in the investigation published by Istat just over a year ago, on February 1, 2021, where it was highlighted as 101 thousand people employed less because-among other things - della Pandemia, 99 thousand were women. A scandal that evidently must be traced back to a gender problem.
In short, that they do not exist, nor do they have to exist, work for women or for men it's a fact; On the other hand, gender differences exist when it comes to work is a clear and worrying evidence. And this, we must not hesitate to say, is discrimination, and it must be fought.
Enrico Ponzio
