"would the world be a better place if 50% of the..."?

Question

A woman professor of mine not too long ago asked the question..."would the world be a better place if 50% of the plumbers were woman?"...and the class went silent.

then she continued;
"what makes you think the world will be a better place when 50% of doctors, lawyers, or engineers are woman!!"

I would like your thoughts, please.

Answer 1

What a bunch of rubbish talk.

Women are chosing to become lawyers and doctors because they want more for themselves. If men CHOOSE to become plumbers it's because they WANT to. How does a man's choice in occupation have anything to do with women???

"...and the class went silent". Lol!! Take it easy on your invented drama. Wow.

Answer 2

The cool thing is that for years now women in the US, at least, can have had the choice to do whatever the heck they want.

What more can you ask?

She can become an astronaut if she chooses -- and later drive without stopping wearing adult diapers. It's up to her!

She can become a podiatrist (though very few women do) or a pedicurist (almost all women). It's her choice.

The KEY is that choices are available. What men and women chose to do is entirely up to them.

There are a variety of reasons that men and women make the choices they do. Some of it is nature and some nurture and some circumstantial.

But, again, the key is that anyone can do anything they set their mind to. What more can you ask?

But, how many women want some guy with plumbers hands doing their pedicures?

EDIT:

BRAVA to RAIN!! True that! Finally, something we agree on.

We don't need more women plumbers or manicurists.

If more women keep choosing law over bank telling and manicuring, the wage gap will shrink.

Please keep beating that drum. Women themselves have the POWER to shrink the wage gap.

DO something about it. They ought to skip beauty school and chose law school, medical
school, or engineering school and make more money, just like the guys.

THAT is the solution, not whining. Whining is annoying and accomplishes little.

Answer 3

You are comparing apples to oranges.

Mechancial jobs (such as plumbing) don't influence the future of society. They keep things --- emphasize the word "things" --- in working order. The world wouldn't be better or worse if 50% of the mechanical jobs were held by women. Most folks with a clogged kitchen drain on Thanksgiving morning don't really care about the sex of the repair person. They just want it fixed.

I don't think a 2007 plumbing system works much differently than one from 1907.

On the other hand, doctors, lawyers, and engineers do influence the future of society. For example, breast cancer, cervical cancer, and other female medical issues were not paid much attention until about three decades ago, about the time that the first women doctors started graduating from med school. Ditto for the correlation between the increase in sex harrassment cases and the increase in female lawyers. Engineers? What type of engineer? Some autos/minivans now have built-in car seats for babies as one example.

(SIDEBAR: the sex of a doctor or lawyer does play a part when dealing with female specific issues. For example, many women will only see a female gynocologist but couldn't care less what sex their eye doctor is. )

The point is that the higher education type jobs often involve research and development of new cures, ideas, and inventions that have previously been ignored or undervalued if they had anything to do with females.

The fields of medicine, law, and engineering in 2007 aren't anything close to being like they were in 1907.

Answer 4

Well that depends... are the plumber women good looking? If so, I'd say YES to plumber crack! Otherwise it makes no difference.

Same with doctors, lawyers, whatever. As long as they get the job done the world will be the same. Not better.

Answer 5

Most chicks cringe at the gross stuff that some plumbing jobs require you to mess with. You dont want a plumber who cringes at the work at hand, you want someone to get in there and fix it. That's why the world would not be a better place w/ 50% female plumbers.
Women are more drawn to the dotor/lawyer professions. It helps that they dont cringe at their work. And here's why the world MIGHT be a better place with 50% of the positions taken by women:
They're bringing in enough money so that the husband can stay home with the kids if that's how the couple prefers it to be.
The woman is not dependant on a man. Women need to be able to get out of bad relationships and having a good job helps that happen. There might be fewer domestic violence issues if more women had better jobs.
Many clients would prefer a woman doc/lawyer over a man for whatever reason.
50% women might better serve the public.

Answer 6

Women need some presence in the top-tier professions, otherwise it dis-creates opportunities for progressive woman who want to work up.

But I think your professor has the wrong type of valuement. He's not looking at equity/equality. He's looking at utilitarianism and skips a valid counterargument, when utilitarianism itself can be attacked as a bad premise for the tool to make decisions which affect many people in many ways.

If his logic was universally unequivocable, then there would be no abortion debate!

Answer 7

Of course it would be nice if there was equal participation in everything; that way, we wouldn't be having these inane discussions. Since that's simply not possible without serious government mandates (ridiculous), the world would be a better place if women who wanted to break into a male-dominated field weren't scared away from it.

Answer 8

What does one have to do with the other?
Better is a subjective term.
All I ever wanted and continue to want is that women receive the same treatment as men. The same training, equal evaluations and equal pay. No one is suggesting splitting all careers fifty fifty. How would one go about that anyway?
Your professor made a highly fallacious statement.

Answer 9

I think it would be nice if there was an equal representation of women and men in every field because it would help reduce stereotypes, and maybe eventually get women a little more respect in the work place.

I didn't mean hiring people without proper qualifications. I don't see where you got that idea.....

Answer 10

I don't know about the world being a better place, but it's too much fun messing with a plumbers head by walking around in your underwear with drag queen friends talking about yeast infections. I don't know how they keep such a straight face. I don't do this now that I'm a mom, but back in the day, it was fun. You don't even know what I've put the pizza delivery guys through.