Why Are Women Drawn to the Helping Professions - Research Paper Example

Research Paper Sociology Why are women drawn to the helping professions? The research paper consists of introductory part, main body paragraphs and conclusion. The introductory part is represented the main information about helping professions and its main fields of functioning together with the steps of development. The main body section concentrates on the proper number of issues. The reasons why are women drawn to the helping professions more than men are instructed in this stage. Are men steered away from this profession? Is this caused by society? Is this laid naturally? The main body section provides the answers to these questions. Furthermore, some up-to-date statistics is adduced there. This is supported by proper data and scientific evidences which is relevant nowadays. Also some facts about women as a teachers are added, and the reasons why are the numbers of women it teaching high. After that paper contains a strong conclusion due to the topic with my assumptions. The method which is used is particularized examination of literature together with the critical summarizing and personal inferences on the topic. Key words: helping/caring professions, nursing, patience, strong feelings. It is clear that the term helping professions is aimed to endow a helping hand to people who need it. This sphere comprises the donation of assistance to people with different physical, mental, psychological or social disabilities. This occupation apprehends the practice to work with people all the time. Fulfilling of such tasks considered to be hard and provides some emotional tension. Helping professions categorized in four broad areas due to the Tretout (1999). They are: Healthcare which implements looking after the sick people; Social services which ensure reinforces to peculiar community; Demotic services provide help on a national level; International services nourish assistance on international standard level. In the sphere of helping professions a wide range of opportunities is existed. You can decide where to work, how to work, and with whom. Your work environment, salary and job actually depend from it. Helping or caring professions comprehend the main fields of functioning in due to D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo (2009). These are: Social work Nursing Medicine People who decide to deal with these professions should appreciate some aspects with which they may encounter. The first one suggests that the usage of theoretical knowledge is differs in the practice. And there should be considered that working with people all the time is not working with the computers. Therefore, there can be existed different situations and strong ability to cope with them is required (D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo, 2009). Secondly, the differences between knowledge and practice may occur, but these two sections are to be connected in the process of working. That means that a specialist cannot function on the spot (D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo, 2009). And finally, it should be mentioned that such practice is not homogeneous one. While occupying these professions, you never do the same task; you always learn and investigate new things (D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo, 2009). It is suggested and widely known that helping professions are occupied by women in a huge amount. And there are some strong reasons for such arrangement of doings. These reasons are: Historical background Psychological peculiarities Emotional perception of reality Stereotypes Facility to show your emotions Sufficiency in listening other people problems Materialistic reasons All these points are more or less essential and have an influence to the choice of profession as a nurse or helping professions in general. Firstly, let us look through the history of humanity. According to D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo (2009) women play roles of childbearing creatures. Some people need to implement the roles of helpers in this scrupulous process. Midwives occurred because of this and that affair was accomplished by women initially. The medicine was on poor level in ancient times. Only the beginnings of medical revelations were appeared. Because of that, it was conceived that woman had better understanding and apprehension on the baby-born process. Furthermore, it was prohibited to men contemplating the private parts of other woman. When the times of Hippocrates and Socrates had come midwives became a reputable class with high esteem and recognition in the society. Although, in the fourteenth and fifteenth century midwives were admitted as withes and there was a lot of cases of burning them at the main square in front of the church. In the eleventh century the first medical school was opened. The country in which it was inaugurated named Italy. Later such medical learning centers were established in Oxford and Cambridge. Still, women were prohibited to study there and people were taken from the church. Boys needed to study medicine for their means. It should be mentioned that from such early times gender division was existed in the sphere of education (D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo, 2009). Still, care about children and childbearing process fall on the heads of women up to the seventieth century. They were responsible for good health of newborn child and mother who was engendered. In 1730s the Chamberlen brothers presented the forceps with the help of which men could take part in the baby-born process. Since that time men-midwives appeared. They began to replace the midwives and such profession as obstetric was emerged. Women cloaked as men to have an opportunity to practice nursing and giving care to mothers and children (D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo, 2009). Later, with the technical development and changing of the ideologies everyone could have a potentiality to work as a nurse. But the numbers of women were prevailed because of some political takeovers. A twentieth century was rather hard for our word in general. The humanity was experienced a lot of political and economical changes. The First and the Second World wars changed our world significantly. Military force was needed in these wars. Someone had to struggle. It was a well known fact than men compose a military service sphere. Ergo, considering that it was a war someone had to provide a support for them. Woman was able to be nurses, doctors, psychologists and became to congregate a sphere of caring or helping professions. Hence, there are some historical bases due to which the field of caring professions is occupied by women with a vengeance. It is laid by history and in spite of some obstacles women always want to beset this sphere. That is why the second serious and considerable reason of why women drawn to the helping professions is their psychological principles. Matlin (2012) argues that women had a natural capacity to take care and bother about other people. Moreover, women rate themselves to this affair more than men do. That leads to the fact that women are more interested in baby caring and in helping people than men. It is inherent by nature that men should be procreator and getter while woman considered as a person who cares about others. This is rather stereotypical notion but, still it is relevant in our case. Of course, in modern feministic society some exceptions are existed. Today women want to be independent financially and sometimes are concentrated on self-development more than on caring about others. Nevertheless, the general experience provides us with the facts that every woman needs a person to care about to give its cordiality and benignancy. Let us move on to the proper peculiarities of this exact occupation and features of its daily routine. Choosing an avocation in helping professions sphere is rather serious-minded and purposeful step. Specialists of caring professions deal with people all the time. What is more, people which they deal with are acquired some mental, physical or social disability. That is why it can provoke some problems with the communication with such people. Sometimes really emotionally hart situations are existed. It is proved by specialists that women are more open and subservient in the emotional realm (Wilcox, 2008). Men are naturally less able to cope with difficult feelings and they become to close their inner world and depression comes or other emotional problems. Thus, it is more comfortable for men to stuff technical or digital kinds of work. Working with technique is more convenient for them than working with people. Monahan (2003) argues that people who are sketched to medicine, nursing and caring professions have rather dissimilar approach to life than general citizens. They need to be kind to sick people, and what is more, it is obligatory to them to show this kindness and love. The masculine gender prefers not to display their warm feelings as their task to be strong and stalwart. It can be examined as one more reason for women occupying caring professions. Turner (2011) notes the fact, that people who need help always survived some difficulties in their life. It is clear, that each person who is a victim of fate has its own story. And they tried to tell this story to people who give them care. Accordingly, nurses always involved in problems of their patients. People who chose such profession should be able to listen. It is highly important to hear the people stories, to sustain and provide a moral support to them. It is obvious, that male representatives are not disposed to listen about horror family life, emotional stress gained through some accident, inner seclusion of abandoned child, complaints on pathetic life, or what is worse listened delirium of the emotionally unstable people. Female representatives are more inclinable to this affair. One more crucial point is earning money. Helping professions are paid-up by the government mostly. So, their salaries are rather high, prospective and stable. Still, to some extend it may seem insufficient for some men. It is better for them to operate some private business of to work with computers as it is popular and well-paid nowadays. The stereotype that male representatives should earn money and maintain the family is still popular. Men thinking represents that he should be a head, and woman has to care about him. That is why it is naturally strange for them to support a custody about somebody. As it is noted, the number of mare representatives in nursing is reduced mostly by the political situation, which regards the necessity of men for the military service. Because of military politics helping professions were occupied mostly by women. That is considered to be the main factor in this statistic. The number of nurses who is male started to increase since 1970 year, designates Landivar (2013). “About 2.7 percent of registered nurses were men in 1970 compared with 9.6 percent in 2011. Men’s representation among licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses grew from 3.9 percent in 1970 to 8.1 percent in 2011” (Landivar, 2013). Year 2011 shows us that the number of male representatives as nurses stands 330,000 in the United States of America. This is about 9 percent of all nurses in this country (Landivar, 2013). The other 91 percent are occupied by women. This diversity is rather noticeable and earnest. Moreover, these statistics represented by explicit numbers and demonstrates the fact that women are intrinsically drawn to the helping professions more than men. Hence, all points which are mentioned consider being relevant and topical for our present situation. The second popular and widely-known helping profession is teaching. Educational system is highly developed nowadays, so modern society is in a high need of teaching recourses. The main amount of teachers is currently made of women. It can be mentioned, that teaching is the occupation for women mostly. Of course some reasons for that are occurred. First and foremost, teacher deals with children and, as it was mentioned above female representatives cope with this occupation easier and more effectively than male ones. It is naturally based and genetically laid in our brains. Deem (2012) points, that the aim of a woman is to built a nuclear family and provide it with care and breeding. And teaching profession is a good way to achieve this goal. It is mentioned, that career of a teacher helps women to work and be independent somehow and to construct a good and solid family. Moreover, teaching takes away only a part of the day, so another part is free and allows woman to fulfill all domestic affairs at home. At the same time male representatives are not appropriate much for this affair. This happens because of men necessity to be the generator of incomes in the family and concern about material stability of a family. Therefore, the question of earning money is rather important and essential in this case. Also, teaching is the occupation which acquires personal involvement and emotional response with the pupils or students. You always cooperate and contact straightforwardly with the pupils. They are in the process of experiencing some hurdles and emotional stresses as they grow and evolve at school or college. That is why men prefer to elude professions with a component of emotional participation. That leads to high number of female representatives in the sphere of teaching. All in all, due to the different reasons, there are a higher amount of women in the sphere of caring professions. It can be concluded, that people select profession according to its own characteristics and individualities. There no doubts that some gender allocation is existed in labor division. It caused by reasons of various natures. Therefore, nursing and teaching because of the specific peculiarities and historical remains are more convenient to female representatives of society. Still, the number of male representatives is increased in the last forty year in comparison with the previous times, so this section is in progress and may be the situation will changed somehow it future. Reference list: Abbott, P and Meerabeau, L. (2003). The Sociology of the Caring Professions. London: Routledge. DCruz, H., Jacobs, and St., Schoo, A. M. M. (2009). Knowledge-in-practice in the Caring Professions: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. England: Ashgate Publishing Company. Deem, R. (2012). Women and Schooling. 2nd edition, New York: Routledge. Landivar, L., Chr. (2013). Men in Nursing Occupations. U. S. Census Bureau. Available in: http://blogs.census.gov/2013/02/25/men-in-nursing-occupations/ Matlin, M. (2012). The Psychology of Women. USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Monahan, E. (2003). All This Hell: U.S. Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese. USA: University Press of Kentucky. Roth, W. and Briar-Lawson, K. (2011). Globalization, Social Justice, and the Helping Professions. USA: State University of New York Press. Tretout, P. (1999). Choosing a Career in the Helping Professions. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group Inc. Turner, F. J. (2011). Social Work Treatment: Interlocking Theoretical Approaches. 5th ed, Oxford: Oxford University Press. U. S. Census Bureau, 1970 Decennial Census, 1980, 1990, and 2000 Equal Employment Opportunity Tabulation, and 2006 and 2011 American Community Survey. Wilcox, E. Wh. (2008). Men, Women and Emotions. USA: BiblioBazaar LSS. Read More