National Women's Law Center

For Immediate Release: Thursday, October 27, 2005

Contact: Ranit Schmelzer or Jenice Robinson at 202-588-5180

IT’S STILL A PINK AND BLUE WORLD:

COSMETOLOGY FOR GIRLS, CARPENTRY FOR BOYS

Girls’ Opportunities Severely Limited in High School Technical Education Programs

(Washington, D.C.)— High school career and technical education programs haven’t progressed much since the days when girls were required to take home economics and boys were required to enroll in shop, according to Tools of the Trade, a report released today by the National Women’s Law Center.

The comprehensive report – and 12 state-specific toolkits – examines girls’ participation in career and technical education (CTE) programs that are nontraditional for their gender. The report finds that, in spite of the 33-year-old Title IX law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, girls still represent the vast majority of students in traditionally female fields and boys are nearly all the students enrolled in traditionally male programs – a pattern virtually unchanged over the last three decades.

For example, a 1977 study by the federal Office for Civil Rights found that girls made up 14 percent of students in trade and industrial courses. Today, girls represent only 15 percent of students taking classes in traditionally male fields such as carpentry, automotive, masonry and welding.

“The hard truth is that most carpenters and electricians simply earn much more than health care workers and cosmetologists,” said Marcia D. Greenberger, Co-President of the National Women’s Law Center and report contributor. “Breaking down the barriers that prevent girls from enrolling in nontraditional courses is not just a fairness issue, it’s an issue of dollars and cents.”

The dollars-and-cents difference in payoff is startling: girls who take up traditionally female occupations can expect to earn half (or less) of what they could make if they went into traditionally male fields. Although child care providers play a crucial role in society, for example, they are woefully under-compensated. In 2004, the average hourly wage of a child care worker was $8.06, while the average engineer earned $22.06 per hour. In fact, the highest median wage for a traditionally female category ($14.63 for health professions) was lower than the lowest median wage in a traditionally male field ($16.63 for agricultural management).

The data, collected from schools in 12 states (Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington), show that, on average, girls represent just 4 percent of students in heating and air conditioning; 5 percent of students in welding; 6 percent of students in electrical, automotive and plumbing; 7 percent of students in masonry; and 9 percent of students in electronic equipment installation and repair. In many cases, the statistics are even more startling. In Maryland, for example, just one girl is learning electronic equipment installation. And no girls are enrolled in masonry courses in Missouri or electrician courses in Illinois.

Girls’ opportunities continue to be limited by barriers such as gender stereotyping and sexual harassment in nontraditional classes. In fact, the report finds that girls who successfully enrolled in these classes often face hostility from their peers and even their teachers.

Although powerful legal tools are available to address these barriers, their effectiveness is limited by inadequate enforcement and insufficient public awareness of the ways in which laws can be used to improve gender equity in CTE programs.

“We cannot tolerate an educational environment in which girls are put at a lifelong disadvantage and consigned to limited earning potential well before they graduate from high school,” Greenberger said. “We must use all of the tools at our disposal to ensure that the doors to a good education and high-paying jobs are open equally to our daughters and our sons.”

The report and accompanying state toolkits outline proactive steps that students, parents, teachers, gender equity professionals and others can take to better use federal and state laws that protect against gender-based discrimination. The report also suggests ways that states may expand already promising programs that expose girls to nontraditional training, and calls on states to take all steps necessary to ensure that their laws are comprehensive, effectively implemented and broadly understood by the public.

To view the report, including state-specific fact sheets, vist:

http://www.nwlc.org/details.cfm?id=2462&section=education

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