Dangerous jobs-why male dominated?

WeEatBabies · 2023-07-25T19:38:28+00:00

Easy, at the unemployment office, whenever a feminist shows up, you offer her a dangerous job.

austin101123 · 2023-07-25T19:32:18+00:00

Here's an old post on this topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/uk0k6a/worker_safety_mens_issues_chapter_7/

JJnanajuana · 2023-07-26T13:01:52+00:00

commenting as a woman who used to do a job, (that sort of, had a documentary written about it's dangers)\[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/cell-tower-deaths/] (this was only a small part of my job)

Here's some of my idea's on why dangerous jobs might be male dominated.

One of the reasons I went into the job, was a problem that is much more common for boys than it is for girls.

1 School sucked

There's a bunch of stat's about how much school is not catered to boys, how many more of them get expelled, or drop out, or just don't do well or enjoy it. I didn't learn the way school teaches, (common for boys too). I managed to finish high school, then I looked forward and thought about my options, I could go to university and experience more school, or I could get a trade.

Some of the other guys I worked with chose the job for similar reasons, lot's of them didn't finish school, school wasn't working and trades were a reasonable alternative that did work. and they got paid, unlike schoolmates who 'stayed in school'

Jobs that are 'careers' (ie not fast food or retail or unskilled), that you can do when school isn't working, skew dangerous. and skew male. (there are exceptions of course.)

There were also reasons that didn't apply to me at all but did apply to men I worked with.

2 money motivation

I think men are (on average) more motivated by money, wether that's to impress girls when entering the workforce or to be breadwinners and keep their family doing well when older.

And jobs that have noticeable downsides (like danger, or shift work, or FIFO) have to pay more to attract people to do them. This means, because a job is dangerous, it pays more, because it pays more, men are more willing to do it than women.

3 Accidently falling into it, influence by stereotypes

I don't mean people being sexist and thinking its a man's job, but none of the women I worked with got into the industry "because they didn't know what they wanted to do, just not school." or "I had no idea, and someone told me they were hiring." (similarly for male teachers) they all chose it or something similar first. a few of the men 'fell into' the job, while waiting to be old enough for the army, or because they were nearby and looking for work.

another one that did apply to me is

4 risk-taking and thrill-seeking

I'd have to look up if that's gender neutral or if it skews male. but the job is lots of fun, if your into that sort of thing.

5 male disposability

As seen in the doco, much dangerous work can be done safely, but it takes more time and costs more money. workplaces can put pressures on men to skip the safety steps (nobody ever put pressure on me, the woman in the crew, to skip safety, but I saw lots of subtle pressure put on the guys I worked with. and at least one explicit (one of them even got absolutely chewed out by the boss after refusing to let two people into the site to work because of safety concerns, further info came out proving that stopping them (which was the official safety policy) 100% saved their lives. but before that info was known I walked around a 'meeting' that was just the big boss yelling at him for half an hour because that cost money.))

I can only speak for me here (there weren't other women to compare to in that job) but I was never pressured at all (nevermind as much as the guys) to skip safety.

ArmchairDesease · 2023-07-26T10:56:24+00:00

I'm not sure I understand the way you present this problem. From your post, it looks like you wish for the same amount of men and women to die on the job, just to even out the field.

Before considering gender imbalances, I think it's important to remember that dangerous jobs don't need to be dangerous. Almost all deaths on the workplace are due to leniency on safety precautions and very likely preventable. This just to say that, as leftwing people, we shouldn't just accept as a fact of life that some people will die on the job.

That said, death on the workplace is very much a men's issue, in relationship to the lack of prevalence it has in the public discourse. A man's death on the workplace is easily seen as less serious than a woman's because of:

- Hyper-agency: people tend to judge men as fully responsible for their actions and their consequences. When a man dies on the workplace, people might believe:

a) that he personally choose to do that job, despite knowing the risk (instead he might have been forced by circumstances or strongly pushed by economic or social pressure);

b) that he himself choose not to adopt the correct safety measures (while in reality, in most job areas, strict safety measures are incompatible with the schedule required by employers).

- Empathy Gap: abled adult men are usually granted less empathy than women, children or weak-perceived males. This is a well-documented phenomenon, which obviously contributes to make death on the workplace a less urgent issue, in the public's mind, than it really is.

The way to tackle this problem, in my opinion, is not to hire more women in mines and oil platforms, so that they too can die on the job...

Instead we should change the public perception of men by challenging these biases.

az226 · 2023-07-26T07:44:32+00:00

Testosterone.

2023-07-26T14:43:27+00:00

Other people here have given really in depth and detailed answers so kudos to them but probably the biggest reason is we do it to get laid, a woman's ability to attract a partner is not affected by what job she has or if she even has a job in the first place.

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