As I’ve shopped for Christmas presents for my children, I’ve thought a lot about the various presents I buy my son versus my daughter. While we could write a whole essay on the differences between boys and girls and the way society influences them, I’ve wondered if I’ve edged the other way where my daughter is going to have so many more opportunities in technology than most women. I think that’s a great thing.
With that said, there are still a lot of cultural norms that we battle when it comes to professions for women and men. We see that every day in both technology and healthcare. The numbers don’t lie when it comes to the number of men that work in technology and women that are nurses. I think the same was true when it came to more men being doctors, but it seems like that tied could be changing. Check out this chart that looks at the top 5 professions boys and girls want to be when they grow up (thanks to @KickAsana for sharing it with us):
Love. This. https://t.co/EUDDLGz2Id #SuperHero #STEM #MedEd #GirlPossible #ILookLikeASurgeon HT @WomenSurgeons pic.twitter.com/TERn3ueUEi
— Marissa Boeck (@KickAsana) December 15, 2015
Look at how many girls want to be doctors! That’s impressive. It’s also nice to see scientist so high on the list. Check out this other list that looks at the top 3 professions kids want to be when they grow up without breaking it out by gender:
I love that so many want to enter medicine. That’s a good thing since we can definitely use more people who care enough to become doctors. I do wish that more technology jobs were listed higher. However, I appreciate that the survey may not have included many tech jobs. Plus, I think it also highlights that we do a bad job informing our children of all the various jobs (technology and otherwise) that are out there in the world. Most kids only know about the jobs they see. They don’t realize there’s a whole world of other jobs in every industry that they know nothing about because they don’t see them in their life as a kid.
All in all, this data really excites me. Perceptions and expectations are changing and in a good way.