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Introducing Non-Traditional Jobs to Girls

Legal Momentum's Equality Works Program is currently working on addressing the issues of gender segregation in NYC vocational (Career and Technical Education) schools. We think it is important to open the doors of opportunity to all students, female and male. CTE schools help prepare students for the workforce. Equality Works partners with several NYC CTE schools in order to ensure that girls get the education they need that will provide access to economically sustainable jobs in the future. We have found that many teachers are unaware of their own possible biases and of the overt and hidden sexism they are passing to a new generation of students. Guidance and career counselors are also helping to facilitate many gender stereotypes. Today, girls are often 'guided' into traditional female careers such as cosmetology without being told about the opportunities in the construction and building trades. By working with the CTE schools we are correcting the current segregation in girls' school careers. Gender stereotyping equally impacts boys and girls in how they view non-traditional courses at school (boys shy away from cosmetology). Equality Works is targeting and affirmatively recruiting females for non-traditional courses and programs. As a part of this process we recognize that girls need female role models in non-traditional jobs to show them that women can do these types of jobs and maintain their many identities of womanhood. Since 2006, Equality Works with the help of the tradeswomen group Operation PunchList (OPL) have been attending career fairs throughout NYC to put a female face on a career in the trades. Although most of our work has been with the CTE schools we have been extending the conversation to the middle schools that feed these high schools. The following album is our story of tradeswomen in the schools.