Redefining Gender Roles in the Workforce

Abstract

Watching television coverage of world events, we have become accustomed to images of women as police, in the military and on rescue teams. Women in non-traditional roles have been slowly creeping into our subconscious. We are also seeing more women in our communities working in professions that were dominated by men. Gender roles are being redefined and this modifies our ideas of women's work. Public relations images of `Rosie the Riveter', used during the Second World War in the United States, purposefully recruited women into essential war-time production jobs and just as quickly reconverted to images of domestic women when the need had passed (Honey 1985). But women did stay in manufacturing jobs. Many females continued to work in industry. Today, everyone is getting the message that work roles are changing. What are society and those of us who are technical and vocational educators doing to facilitate this change?