In response to Sunday Times of London reporter John Harlow’s query regarding Women Dominating the Workplace, Jack Tuckner filed this response. Sometime next month, according to Dept. of Labor stats, there will, for the first time, be more women than men with full-time jobs in the U.S. We know the long-term cultural changes behind it, and the current economic factors that are driving it over the 50 percent mark but are there any unexpected areas where women are now growing or even dominating — the uncaring professions, law or medical or the military (entire “monstrous regiments”)? Where are the most surprising gains? And, again, to be counterintuitive, are there professions where men only make 77 cents to the woman’s dollar?
Jack Tuckner, Esq.
From our perspective, working women are growing or dominating in the same places and professions they’ve always pervaded, namely, the pink ghetto of the employment world, underpaid in the caring professions, and/or filling integral support roles in the uncaring professions, but “dominating” wouldn’t come close to capturing the trend. Even when law schools, for example, are now minting more female than male attorneys, and top firms employ more women than ever before, many firms still elevate less than 10% of its female associates to partner status, and many of those female partners ascend into a non-equity partner position, which affords them all the responsibilities commensurate with the title but none of the fruits of their labor, as enjoyed by their comparator male colleagues. While the past 50 years have marked great strides in women’s ascent back toward equality with men (and if not equal, at least revered for being women), for those of us who equate the full resurrection of respect for women (the sacred feminine principle) with nothing less than the survival of the human race, the status of women is our best barometer of health and progress toward a less mad world. And no, outside of Goddess mythology and feminist fiction, there are no professions in North America where men only make 77 cents to the woman’s dollar.