Personally, I don’t imagine myself as a Civic agent. My experiences of being a male in a predominantly female role are just that, my experiences. My dream job is to work within a professional sports franchise in some sort of capacity. The majority of your top roles in all of the major US sports are held by rich, white, men. There aren’t a whole lot of women in those types of roles. There have been some women that have been owners such as Marge Schott who owned the Cincinnati Reds and Jeannie Buss who is the inherited owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. Are there big companies and offices that do have women in prominent roles? My answer would be I don’t know, but I would assume there are. My last job had a male CEO, and Male sales executive, but the majority of the other executives were female. So the question is, does it make a difference what type of role it is?
I remember reading a story about how a male was the President/CEO of a well known cosmetics company. The company is a fortune 500 company so it obviously does well, but because of what it sells there is a stereotype that the CEO must be a homosexual. In past posts I talked about how males in roles such as fashion design or hair styling do exist, but that also comes with a very specific stigma. That stigma is like I mentioned above, that they must be gay. In no way am I saying being gay is bad or good or that I am for or against it, but when it is used in the context regarding males in these roles it definitely has a negative connotation.
Basically, what is needed is someone of prominence to be an advocate for males in typically female dominated roles. In this day an age people take the words and actions of their favorite celebrities as gospel, so would having celebrities be the face be the change that is needed? I believe it would be a step in the right direction.