Workplace/Women’s Place
Chapters 21, 23, 24 & 25

The readings in chapters twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-four and twenty-five all demonstrate how gender plays a key role in professions. It is often the characteristics or expected traits that females posses that have an overall influence on the job duties or tasks assigned to them. Throughout these chapters stereotypes have put limitations on both the opportunities for women and their ability to seek professional power. Women have had to overcome many barriers regarding their physical and emotional abilities with regards to both society and the workforce.
Chapter twenty-one seeks to demonstrate how the influence of gender affects the professionalization of teaching. Throughout the text, it is evident that men dominated the teaching profession as proposed by Hearn and Witz. Although teaching did evolve from a male occupation to a female profession, it stated that males dominated the bureaucratic structures that ultimately governed these female professions. Professionalization impacted wage levels for both sexes however men still upheld higher earnings. Abott viewed that gender had little significance in the formation of professions and acts only as a following variable. However, this can be proved otherwise; between the 18th and 19th century many female teachers were introduced to the system and significant changes occurred in the structuring and content of materials taught. As stated in the text, high moral character, disregard for material gain, limited intellectual capacity, and their natural love for children were the four innate qualities that made women in the 19th century ideal teachers. These four qualities represent that the social ideal of a professional teacher is in fact weighted by the gendered process.
Chapter twenty-three explores how gender contributes to the emotional labours of policing and