Quote from: Julia-Madrid on September 06, 2014, 03:47:34 AM
Reflections and a further challenge
Ladies and friends, thank you for taking this poll to over 100 responses. Now some reflections and questions: I can understand why healthcare would be well represented, but let's dodge the reasons for this for a moment, other than to say that the caring professions might be places where we are more accepted.
Who is missing from this poll? We cannot all be represented here. Sex workers, and the socially marginalised girls are probably not on Susan's, nor are those who feel uncomfortable with internet and self expression. How big a segment are they? When I attended a group therapy program in Madrid, almost all the girls were jobless or directionless, so maybe this is a large and unrepresented segment in our survey. But they all had smartphones, so habemos internet.
The real conundrum for me is why so many of us are in engineering and software, which are such archetypal male professions. A bit of pseudoscience (and feel free to shoot it down): in utero, before the expression of T, we are all female. It's the "natural state" for future development, and is modified by T. So, pseudo theory continuing, given that M2F strongly outnumber F2M, could we hypothesise that the expression of T has not reached all the parts it should reach? Ok, well in that case surely more of us would start life as very "girly" boys? And whether this is the case or not, if T has under-expressed in our brains, wouldn't we have a tendency to go for more "female" professions? So why are so many of us in the two aforementioned professions?? I know I have merrily gone skipping over a mass of science and biology in a way that would make large parts of the medical and scientific profession wince, but let's start with it.
What are your thoughts?
Xoxo
Julia
I don't think these results are particularly surprising, personally. Looking at the poll more generally, and not toward any specific fields, there's an overwhelming majority in disciplines of a more mental nature, and the more physical (i.e. "male") disciplines seem almost wholly unrepresented.
There's a great deal of social variables to consider that might explain that, more than I can say in a single post. One I find perhaps relevant, is that I do not think either of the fields you mention really are strictly roles filled by a masculine archetype, though they are certainly highly dominated by men. Rather, cis girls are actively
discouraged from pursuing interests like that, so I think it's more about a lack of women pursuing these careers, rather than them being "male" careers. As trans, our social conditioning is different, and we were not so discouraged in this way. Of those men who pursue these career, I notice (unscientifically, of course) a stereotypical beta-male presence. Culturally, computer guys are not exactly regarded as the manliest of men, anyway. I wonder if more women
would pick a career like this without the cultural pressure to choose a more social role/career.
Psychologically, professions like engineering or software development (and similar) are very creative careers, and creativity
is generally considered to be a mildly feminine trait. Perhaps also interesting to consider, is that these kinds of activities provide some measure of control over our environments. In applying some of yourself to these systems, you can have some measure of orderly results in your environment, especially if we feel like we have so little control over our inner nature.
I've totally glossed over these points, but it's just a few things I think might be worth considering, though there's so much more to it. I don't feel like I've done them justice, and I could be totally wrong anyway.
