In the chapter eight reading by Hochschild, I found the idea of the status shield presented in class particularly interesting. I never thought of the way we (as a society) view a man or a woman in a specific career path would be due to this social/cultural perception of the career. I think a common career that represents this idea of the status shield is careers in the medical field but primarily focusing on nurses. I know we touched on this a little in class, but often we see more nurses of female gender than that of a male gender. For example, two years ago I took a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) class and out of the twenty-five students enrolled only one of them was male. I remember hearing comments from classmates such as, “I wonder
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After reading this article I initially felt extremely angry with myself. I grew up in a small conservative town and for eighteen years of life I watched women be a victim to this idea of skilled versus unskilled labor even if they were extremely qualified candidates and I did not realize it. Women in my town regardless of their prestige were often dis regarded honestly for just being women. One example I can think of directly involved an open AP Biology position at my local high school. One afternoon my aunt was sitting around discussing the two candidates from the position due to her role on the Board of Education. She began to list the pros and cons of both candidates when she got to the female candidate. She read a comment from a board member that stated: “both candidates for this position are very academically qualified however the female candidate does not have the skills to control teenaged students from the prospective of a young woman, and not one award or accolade could over power the fact that she is indeed a woman therefore I vote for the male candidate.” My family actually viewed this as a real concern to her teaching method and agreed with this board member that the male candidate was a better fit for the school team. This example refers to this idea that we classify jobs for men and women as skilled and unskilled labor
After reading this article I initially felt extremely angry with myself. I grew up in a small conservative town and for eighteen years of life I watched women be a victim to this idea of skilled versus unskilled labor even if they were extremely qualified candidates and I did not realize it. Women in my town regardless of their prestige were often dis regarded honestly for just being women. One example I can think of directly involved an open AP Biology position at my local high school. One afternoon my aunt was sitting around discussing the two candidates from the position due to her role on the Board of Education. She began to list the pros and cons of both candidates when she got to the female candidate. She read a comment from a board member that stated: “both candidates for this position are very academically qualified however the female candidate does not have the skills to control teenaged students from the prospective of a young woman, and not one award or accolade could over power the fact that she is indeed a woman therefore I vote for the male candidate.” My family actually viewed this as a real concern to her teaching method and agreed with this board member that the male candidate was a better fit for the school team. This example refers to this idea that we classify jobs for men and women as skilled and unskilled labor