Unit2 Gender Issues

Men turn to jobs women usually do 1.HOUSTON - Over the last decade, American

men of all backgrounds have begun flocking to fields such as teaching, nursing and waiting tables that have long been the province of women.

2."The way I look at it is that anything, basically,

that a woman can do, a guy can do," said Miguel Alquicira, who graduated from high school when construction and manufacturing jobs were scarce and became a dental assistant.

3.The trend began well before the crash,and

appears to be driven by a variety of factors, including financial concerns, quality-of-life issues and a gradual erosion of g ender stereotypes.

4.In interviews, about two dozen men played down

the economic considerations, saying that the stigma associated with choosing such jobs had faded, and that the jobs were appealing not just because they offered stable employment, but because they were more satisfying.

5."I.T. is just killing viruses and clearing paper

jams all day," said Scott Kearney, 43, who tried information technology and other fields before becoming a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston.

6.An analysis of United States census data by The

New York Times shows that from 2000 to 2010, occupations that are more than 70 percent female accounted for almost a third of all job growth for men, double the share of the previous decade. 7.That does not mean that men are displacing

women - those same jobs accounted for almost two-thirds of women's job growth. But in Texas, for example, the number of men who are registered nurses nearly doubled in that time period.

8.The shift includes low-wage jobs as well.

Nationally, two-thirds more men were bank tellers, almost twice as many were receptionists and two-thirds more were waiting tables in 2010 than a decade earlier.

9.Even more striking is the type of men who are

making the shift. From 1970 to 1990, according to a study by Mary Gatta, senior scholar at Wider Opportunities for Women, an organization based in Washington, D.C., and Patricia A. Roos, a sociologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, men who took so-called pink-collar jobs tended to be foreign-born, non-English speakers with low education levels.

10.Now, though, the trend has spread among men of

nearly all races and ages, more than a third of whom have a college degree. In fact, the shift is most pronounced among young, white, college-educated men like Charles Reed, a sixth-grade math teacher at Patrick Henry Middle School in Houston.

11.Mr. Reed, 25, intended to go to law school after a