Ask Lemmy

I'm a social worker. I had a tough time in grad school at the peak of the Me Too movement and Trump's first term. My cohort was maybe 5% men. I sometimes felt like the target of the anger and resentment my classmates felt towards men in general. I worked hard to listen and not be defensive, but it was difficult.

I've experienced a little bit of that since graduating, but it was specific to a toxic workplace. These days I'm just so grateful to be surrounded by brilliant women. I learn so much and I never feel out of place.

Not me but I work alongside male nurses in hospital. I work in IT so traditional male role.

I think at this point a male nurses has now become enough of a common site that it no longer gets comment. But I would say the ratio is a still heavily leaning towards women.

They also seem to use AI an awful lot although God knows what for. They get very upset if it gets blocked know that.

I was once adopted by the Secretary/Typist group where I was helping out because our Friday lunch hour was at the same time. They added an “a” to the end of my name to feminise it and proceeded to treat me as one of the girls. I learnt a lot about periods, make-up, men and fashion - amongst a host of other things. Happy memories.

I wouldn't mind being a secretary. Beats being a cashier I'm sure.

Not a "job job" per say as the vast majority of us aren't paid, but this is my second year volunteering at a wildlife rehab center, which is a 90+% female job.

I think it's great! I was primarily raised by both my grandmothers who both seemed to be the boss in their households, and were both very confident and assertive in different ways, and were very positive role models to me growing up, so I never had any issues with women in charge of things.

So now besides getting to spend the weekend with amazing animals, I also get to spend it with some amazing ladies! There are 2 other guys on my shift right now, and they're both good as well. I think this being something we do without it being a breadwinning activity really cuts out a lot of ego, as there's nothing to really get ahead of anyone else in.

Everyone likes me because I'm reliable and friendly and I'm there to try and make things run better and to make the public events more fun, so I take on extra activities as well. They're all super positive and supportive, which being relatively shy and with bad self esteem, I appreciate it immensely.

Everyone is just so badass in a good way, it's one of the best things I've done, and I don't feel any staff, volunteers, or the public has treated me any different than anyone else. I've heard the senior people talk about other guys that have worked there and nothing sounded anti-male either.

The only thing they single me out for is to grab high up items, which I'm ok with ☺️

Just wanted to add that pink collar jobs also include child care, teaching, and nursing - care-oriented jobs essentially.

And for context:

Louise Kapp Howe popularized the term pink collar in her 1977 book Pink Collar Workers: Inside the World of Women’s Work.[5] She used the term to describe jobs predominantly occupied by women, such as secretarial, clerical, teaching, nursing, and other caregiving or service roles. These positions were seen as extensions of traditional domestic responsibilities and were characterized by lower pay, limited career advancement opportunities, and a lack of prestige compared to "blue-collar" or "white-collar" jobs.

Source

For me it's been very positive. But I generally like women better than men, so I fit in pretty well. I've always had more female than male friends, so I don't feel awkward or out of place at all, and people have been very welcoming.

Additionally, I've seen zero evidence of discrimination against me. In fact I feel I have unfortunately benefited to an extent from internalized misogyny. I feel like I get more respect and attention to my ideas than my female colleagues--even when we're arguing for the same things.

Now maybe some of that is my personality and competence but I'm not convinced all of it is.

It's not the pinkest of pink collar jobs, but I work in 911 dispatch, which does skew a bit more female, and sort of evolved out of a more secretarial role which are of course more female-dominated.

Side-note, generally speaking, we do still tend to be classified as clerical positions instead of protective services like first responders, which does have an effect on what kind of benefits we receive, when we can retire, etc. there's been a few attempts to reclassify us, I believe most recently at the federal level it's being called the 911 SAVES act, so if that's something you'd support maybe talk to your senators/representatives about passing that.

I don't think there's any particular bias, at least at my center, about who gets hired, promoted, etc.

You do see some difference in how we get treated by callers and field units and such. You get the occasional caller who is a real asshole to a female dispatcher but is polite and respectful when they get a man. Also some creeps who say some really inappropriate stuff to my female coworkers.

But overall there's nothing much else that really jumps out at me as being partially interesting about working here as a man.

It's been good, management is all ladies. I work as a caregiver. It seems that the environment is more forgiving and supportive than the usual job.

My ex used to tell me about the singular guy working in her intake department at a hospital. Before he showed up everyone was hyping him up because "he's a numbers guy" which was probably a line he used in the interview.

He gets there, is slow to learn, does an uneven share of work, gets other people to hold his hand for basic tasks. She hates him. He is widely acclaimed, special boy. Office favorite. The move was a great success for him, apparently last I heard.

I've always heard "pink collar" refer to service jobs: waitress, hairdresser, barista, that sort of thing.

I worked as a substitute teacher in elementary ed when I was in grad school.

In that field, it often felt like I would get work purely because of my gender.

I worked reception at a real estate office. Wow, what a bunch of sketchy types. If you think used car salesman are sharks, wait until you see these guys. Then I waitered for a few years, because there's nothing more thankless than a minimum-wage job with no tips, no joy and a dress code. At least waitering you got tips and a drinking habit.

But both would be 'pink' collar, to some. No one actually in those jobs would say anything so contrived-sounding. This was the early '90s.

I've been at my current workplace in the education field for over 5 years (so no experience with AI bias during applications), and I at least thought I was a guy at the time I started it. Recently, I mostly work with STEM subject with high school students, so not really even pink color, but when I started I was primarily doing English and I've also worked with elementary students over the years, so I think it counts.

Honestly didn't have any problem getting the job. I got like 2 other job offers at basically the same time. I've moved up in within the company since starting (I knew I wasn't a man by then, but my work didn't) which basically just adds underpaid secretary work onto the rest of my workload.