this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Men are arguably being discriminated against in the childcare sector, that's basically it. If you're a man and want to work at a daycare or as an elementary school teacher, you might have a disadvantage because of your gender and experience prejudice. In that sense, structural misandry technically does exist. I guess you could make a case for women being more likely to win custody in divorce court also being structural misandry?
But that's not what people who complain about misandry tend to talk about lmao
Edit: Also I agree, even putting misandry and misogyny in the same category is laughable. The existence of the former is a technicality and calling it a "structural issue" would be silly.
that "misandry" is just patriarchy anyway
I kinda disagree. If you look at other roles that women get shoehorned into (housekeepers, cooks, nurses) you won't find the same dynamics there.
Patriarchy dictates that women are only capable of staying at home, cooking and cleaning, but even within those tasks it still considers men to be just as if not more qualified. Restaurants don't prefer female cooks over male ones and janitorial services don't prefer women either.
Childcare is (afaik) the only sector where women are genuinely believed to be more qualified and capable than men.
Childcare is also seen as lowly women's work that isn't a real job or something that deserves real pay.
I'm not sure it's discrimination if a man doesn't get to work a job that pays so low he has to sell blood plasma on the side.
Like I said in my original comment, this is little more than a technicality in the grand scheme of things. I think it is discrimination when you want to work a job in a certain field and are disadvantaged because of your gender, but I'd still laugh in the face of someone who put misandry on a list of structural issues.
I think this is Republican Motherhood and its consequences.
The role of women as educators might be traced back to this movement within early America. It is, in some ways, a contradictory ideology. Simultaneously reinforcing the existing patriarchal notions of women's work, but also demanding education for women so they might subsume the role of the educator and place that responsibility under the umbrella of the primary caretaker of the families/communities children. Its ideological framing being that of building a strong republic through building virtuous families.
I'm sure a clear line could be drawn from this movement to women being the primary demographic in grade level education. Elementary School has the highest disparity, while secondary schools have a closer distribution but still a decent gap (roughly 20%). Higher Education is the most evenly split.
The age of the student I think plays a huge role. Elementary School students are still very young. Its hard to say how exactly that has an impact on the demographic split, but it feels like it does.
Could this be a result of little kids being viewed as closer to "babies" then not, and as such closer to a mothers / women's responsibility? Or could this be a fear driven pattern of behavior, where men are viewed as predators and thus are avoided?
I personally know a young man who works in daycare with little kids, who has expressed his desire to be an Elementary teacher, but is also aware that some people are clearly more cautious of him in that role as a man. He's not the only man at the daycare, but they are a very small percentage of the staff.
I have read accounts of male daycare workers having to abide by special rules at their center, such as not being able to change a child's diaper. But now I'm heading into anecdotal territory.
Its a hard topic to pin down. I think the caution and distrust of men in these early education roles is a real phenomenon, but to what degree I'm unsure.
It's also unclear how many men have simply convinced themselves that these "realities" are real and ever present, and as such avoid these roles all together. Or what percentage of men see daycare and elementary education as "women's work" from the jump and never consider it a valid path for them.
I have no real answers here. No strong conclusions. I think this topic is one worth digging deep into though, to find where fiction ends and fact begins.
I think it's both. I think people both see women as more capable of raising and caring for young children and are also wary of predatory men.
Probably false. I am a man in a tradionally female sector of work and people instinctively treat me better. I find it embarassing mostly.
Data shows men tend to be overvalued in fields like this
Childcare workers are literally paid less than minimum wage in my country.
And it always cracks me up when men complain about not being chosen as much for jobs in elementary and high schools.
It's like, okay, first of all I see plenty of male teachers around, and second of all even if that is true, men are more likely to get a job as a University teacher or in higher education than women, you know, the only teaching jobs where you are paid more than minimum wage.
Oh yeah, absolutely. If you zoom out even a tiny bit, men still come out ahead.
Oddly in the US, its the other way around. Colleges have moved towards hiring "adjunct faculty" to be teachers, often paying around minimum wage. While lower schools (at least around here), typically pay more than double minimum wage, often more than triple (even assuming teachers work 52 weeks a year without any breaks/vacations). Researchers (if they can keep a constant flow of grants) and coaches get paid well in universities, but that's not for teaching.
But yeah... high schools seem to have no problem with male teachers. Elementary, idk. Might just be men don't seek those positions because of the assumption they won't be allowed?
This varies wildly based on state. I’m in a state where this is true because teachers’ unions still have a strong presence here. But there are states where making triple minimum wage as an elementary teacher is a pipe team or where their minimum wage is still $7.25/hour so that’s less significant
Doesn't change the comparison to adjuncts who don't even make that due to all of the unpaid hours needed to do a good job.
That doesn't make it good or acceptable pay. Especially given the training and everything that goes into it, like dealing with classrooms full of kids who often don't want to be there.
My primary school didn't have a single male teacher, and my secondary school had I think three out of fifty or so, and it's not an isolated experience in the UK (the secondary school was a little unusual. )
Apparently, 76% of teachers in the UK are women, and 25% of schools have no male teachers at all.
As a chronic pedant who avoids speaking in absolutes to the point I consider it a character flaw this makes sense to me. No issue with accurately emphasizing how it's on a massively lower scale of course