As a management information systems major at the University of Illinois, Springfield, I am looking forward to volunteering with the AAUW branch program Expanding Your Horizons, which will be held in March 2012. The program allows middle school girls to learn about careers in typically male-dominated fields such as science, technology, and finance. I have long believed that men and women can be equally effective in the same fields, given the proper education, and that we should work to correct the underrepresentation of women in these fields. Programs like EYH and scholarships that are offered at universities across the country to women interested in studying in these fields are already contributing to this goal.
However, a recent conversation with a friend made me wonder if we are only doing half of the work we need to do in order to equalize the workforce. He argued that men are also underrepresented in typically female-dominated fields like nursing, human resources, and especially as teachers in kindergarten through sixth grade. Recent studies have shown that young boys in primary school benefit from having one or more male teachers. They are strong role models for young boys and are better able to design curricula suited to boys’ cognitive skills. In an era in which girls outperform boys in verbal and literacy skills, have higher GPAs in high school, and earn more bachelor’s and master’s degrees once they enter higher education, maybe what our primary school system needs is an influx of competent male teachers.
We work to bring girls into fields in which they are underrepresented; maybe we should be doing the same for boys. After all, equality is not a one-way street. Scholarships and programs that are aimed at increasing the number of men in female-dominated fields combined with the programs we already have in place for women could help ensure that the people placed in any field — from teaching and human resources to technology and finance — are those who will be the most effective in their positions regardless of their gender.
This post was written by National Student Advisory Council member Caitlin Crane.
AAUW Dialog 
More encouragement for college-age males to enter the education field at the beginning levels is a splendid idea. However, there has to be better financial incentive for anyone entering the education field these days. For too long, lower elementary levels was for women because they were the 2nd bread winner and a lower salary was all right. The male was going to make the major income. Today, most of that has changed, but the early elementary (K-6) has a stigma that no self-respecting male would take a job here because he’s not going to make enough to support a family.