Throughout this blog I am going to argue that women are overall the harder working, more intelligent and domineering gender! There is a definite occupational divide within society, which reflects the evolutionary bias. However, socialization is enabling women to flourish in jobs that were stereotypically male dominated. So for the time being the classic saying ‘we can’t live with men, but we can’t live without them’ is applicable in the employment world, but for how much longer…!?
For certain A Level subjects, there is an evident ability divide between genders: 92% of females gained A grade in performing arts, 82.5% in psychology and 77.3% in welsh. (Interestingly Welsh was the highest scoring language, with French, Spanish and English closely following.) In contrast males dominated in computing, with 90.6% receiving an A grade, 76.2% in the sciences and 54.4% in maths (JCQ, 2011).
Such divides can be explained by the theory of evolution. Women are more emotionally expressive, hence achieve higher in languages and the arts, whilst males have better spatial abilities as these were needed for hunting and gathering food. This suggests both males and females have their own strengths and weaknesses. For society to function we therefore need both males and females because different jobs require different skill sets.
The graph (Cartwright, Edwards & Wang, 2008) below shows occupational gender differences for some sectors in 2008. It is very clear to see females, on the whole, occupy jobs requiring them to have higher language and expressive skills- such as receptionists, teachers and nurses. Males on the other hand occupy jobs involving highly tuned spatial awareness skills such as pilots, physically demanding manual work and managerial roles.
However the UK employment statistics show society is deviating from what were ‘typical’ male and female roles…
7.2% of females obtained an A* in GCSE business studies in comparison to 4.8% of males in 2010 (JCQ, 2010). This does not reflect the current gender employment divide for managerial jobs and those working in business, as seen in the above graph. At the moment 83.4% of males are Chief Executives (National Census, 2000). However with females significantly dominating school business exams, it could predict a rise in women seeking high end executive jobs in the future. Such early achievements carve strong foundations for future success to build upon. Relating back to the idea men and women have different skill sets enabling them to shine in some jobs more than others… if women are gaining a stronger business acumen they will be the most capable in the future, hence the most employable.
The same situation is also occurring in the medical world. In 2009, 43% of GP’s were women and by 2013, the Royal College of Physicians predict this will rise significantly. By 2017, hospitals will be dominated by female doctors (Boseley, 2009). Such figures conflict with the evolutionary theory, as it would appear socialisation and environment interaction is enabling women to flourish in what was once, a man’s world. Therefore there may currently be a gender based occupational divide, however if females can out score males in business and medicine- perhaps over time they will in other area’s too!?
Boseley, S. (2009). The Future is female- how women are transforming face of the health service. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/03/women-doctors-nhs-medicine-review
Cartwright, B., Edwards, P.R., & Wang, Q. (2008). Job and industry gender segregation. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/11/art3full.pdf
Joint Council for Qualifications, JCQ. (2010) GCSE Exam Qualification Results. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgdO92JOXxAOdHM4WDNTeFJScUdzVkJ0emdPaDR6Vmc&hl=en#gid=1
Joint Council for Qualifications, JCQ. (2011) A Level Exam Qualification Results. Retrieved from:
National Census. 2000. Occupational Employment by Gender. Retrieved from: http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/pdf/gender.pdf
sarric 
However much it pains me to admit it from looking at the education statistics I can only agree with you that during academic years girls are the more hard working and as result more intelligent sex. However this is not a new trend that has only just started to occur, it has been the case for as long as standardised exams have been done in schools that girls do better than boys.
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=girls+vs+boys+gcse%27s&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-Address&rlz=1I7ACAW_enGB367GB367&biw=1366&bih=641&tbm=isch&tbnid=x3cWugWSn4tK1M:&imgrefurl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11074117&docid=IIRi3GTqQEVn9M&imgurl=http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48855000/gif/_48855741_gcse_gender_464.gif&w=464&h=340&ei=pOJXT-OaGoje8QPG7JnUDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=915&vpy=185&dur=60&hovh=192&hovw=262&tx=137&ty=103&sig=110931048710602519369&page=1&tbnh=125&tbnw=171&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0
Despite this statistic currently in the U.K men are earning on average a whopping 21% more than women. How can this be true? Surely women should be holding more of the top jobs around the country after all the stats show they are the more intelligent sex. What is stopping them?
Well the first factor that can explain this are sex stereotypes that are held for males and females. Classically women are considered as being nice but incompetent whereas men are thought of as being competent and not so nice (Fiske 1998). This can explain why men tend to be more employable because employers will rather hire someone who they think is competent over someone who is a really nice.
The second factor relates to ‘glass ceiling effect’. This effect describes how women who show agentic traits that are normally associated with men, such as being forceful, independent, career orientated etc are often perceived as lacking interpersonal skills, which ultimately leads to these women being disliked more by others (Heilman 2004). This then leaves women with a choice of appearing competent but being dislikeable or appearing to be incompetent and therefore likeable.
Sadly these prejudices against females show no signs of letting up, so although girls may be outscoring males in business, and acquiring greater business acumen, it doesn’t mean they are going to get the jobs in business currently held mainly by men because as I’ve mentioned it’s just not that straightforward. If it were then females would already be the main part of the workforce.
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/heilman/
http://www.metro.co.uk/money/565958-uk-gender-pay-gap-among-europes-highest
Click to access barrett-siop-2004.pdf
I may be slightly biased when commenting on this blog as I am female and do believe that one day we will rule the world :D. When reading your blog I noticed that you commented a lot on girls doing academically better than males. Could it be that in this day and age that females are maturing a lot faster than males? therefore taking more care and interest in the work which they get set at school? I may be wrong when I say this but it has been shown that boys have a tendency to become distracted a lot quicker than females. And relating to this, research has suggested (especially with males who have special educational requirements) that the males are more likely to be held back compared to the girls with special educational requirements. (http://www.flyingcolours.org.uk).
However, on the other hand it could be due to the fact that more females are now more career orientated than career minded. Research has shown that half of the woman in “generation X” remain childless until they are 30 or 40 years of age due to the fact they are succeeding in their careers and going to University etc. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2005556/Successful-childless-The-career-women-Generation-X–family.html).
Therefore, this could be an underlying reason as to why many people think that woman are going to be the future but I think that society has changed dramatically in the fact that more woman are becoming more interested in a career that people just feel overwhelmed by the change in generation to generation. For example from being staying at home mothers, looking after the children, to independent and successful career women.
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