Breaking down gender barrier

The 'girls can do anything' catch cry of the early 1980s, which encouraged young women to widen their career choices, has seen workplace dynamics change dramatically in the past couple of decades.
We have had women prime ministers, governor-generals and chief justices. One in three GPs are now female and, in 2010, a third of all new police recruits were women.
But breaking down those gender barriers hasn't been a huge success when it comes to men in 'women's work', with many jobs remaining overwhelmingly 'female'.
The US Government's definition of a non-traditional career is one in which 75 per cent or more of workers are of the other gender.
Among the non-traditional jobs for men are nursing, primary school teaching, hairdressing and child care and, for women, building, electrical jobs, plumbing, house painting and policing.
A survey carried out by the Library Association of NZ last year found that men make up about 17 per cent of the sector; of the 80 staff employed at Tauranga city libraries, just eight in total - one in 10 - are men.
Less than 1 per cent of staff in early-childhood centres are male, and when was the last time you spoke to a male receptionist?
Julie Jacobson talks to four men in non-traditional jobs.
GLEN HULBERT - Early childhood teacher, St Peter's Childcare Centre, Tauranga
It's 11.47am and Glen Hulbert is wiping faces and clearing away cups and plates. His young charges have just finished their lunch and the noise level is rising.
Hulbert graduated with a diploma in early childhood teaching in 1994, at the height of the controversial Peter Ellis/Christchurch creche sexual abuse allegations. Three of the other five male students in his class of 100 dropped out, partly, he says, because of the publicity surrounding the case.
"There was a lot of fear, but the case also made people aware that they had to be really transparent, and it made things safer for children and for staff."
That means there are regulations about things like changing nappies  "we don't have changing areas where they can't be seen, we all have to sign off when we change nappies, and the parents know that I do it." Taking children on walks and outings is also more considered. "You would never consider taking children somewhere by yourself, but that's not just for their safety but for yours as well."
The 40-year-old, who has looked after all three of his young sons at the centre and still has his youngest there, has the same responsibilities his female colleagues do. He works 32 hours a week, fitting it around his wife's teaching job (at Tauranga Intermediate) so he can drop the couple's oldest two boys at school each morning and pick them up three afternoons a week.
"I don't imagine there are too many men in so-called traditional men's jobs who could do that. I imagine they would be looked at as a bit strange if they asked their employer to fit their hours around their children's schooling."
He acknowledges, however, that there is still a stigma attached to being a male in a low-status, female-dominated industry. Attitudes are changing, but only slowly.
"New parents can be surprised to see a male here, but I think there's more respect now for this sort of work. People do make comments, but it's generally the people who are unfamiliar with what I do, who think all I do is babysit.
"I always wanted to do something that made a difference, that was more than just about what I earnt. I decided on this because I believe that if you get the foundations right then it will make a difference.
"I've had numerous parents saying it's wonderful having a male because it brings a different perspective.
"When I first looked in to teaching there were a lot of children who didn't have a stable dad around, or a confident male figure in their lives. I just thought if, on a daily basis, those kids had some sort of male role model it would be better for them.
While the pay is not enough to support a family Hulbert reckons he wouldn't change a thing about what he does.
"You might be having a rough day and you get to work and a child smiles at you and laughs, and says 'Hey, Glen's here', and you think, 'Yeah, it's all good'."
MIKE LEWIS - Flight attendant, Air Nelson, base supervisor Tauranga
Mike Lewis laughs. "Trolley dollies, that's what we're called." Lewis chucked his job in as a mechanic to train as a flight attendant 29 years ago. He spent his first year "on domestic", followed by stints as inflight service director on international long-haul flights, cabin crew manager with some ground crew work, and also worked with a private air charter company.
He is not, he argues, a glorified waiter. "Not at all. The training is pretty intense, especially for sole-charge positions. The tea and coffee bit you can learn in half an hour. Most of the training is around emergency and safety procedures."
But as the only male flight attendant of 12 based in Tauranga, and one of just seven of a total 100 who work for Air Nelson, he is, he admits, "a bit of a novelty. There's the curiosity factor, definitely. When I first started there was a lot of 'oh look, it's a male flight attendant', and it's still a bit unusual for some people when they get on a plane to find a male rather than a female. But then there's the age as well. I'm 49. Most recruits are around 19 or 20."
Lewis never wanted to be a pilot. "I had no ambition to fly a plane. I like the people side of it. We do five flights a day, so during that time I might see 250 different faces, but we also get a lot of frequent flyers and you get to know them by name.
"People travel for all different reasons - it can be compassionate, for business, or they could be seeing family or going on holiday. When someone gets on and they're grumpy there's usually an underlying reason - you know they might have woken up in the morning and the dog's died, but they still have to go to work. Part of our job is to try and smooth it over for them."
While his international flying career might be over, Lewis, who doesn't have a family, is happy these days to "be home at night ... more time to have a lifestyle."
And the biggest change since he started? "Security. We used to have the flight deck door open and kids could go and visit the pilots during the flight, but all those things are no-nos now. Before we take off, the flight deck door is locked and it stays locked until all the passengers are off."
JASON REID, Nurse, coordinatoradmissions and planning unit, Tauranga Hospital
Circuitous is probably the best word to describe Jason Reid's route to becoming a nurse. Originally trained in fashion design, he moved into screen printing then industrial knitting, working for Levi's in Australia. It was there, at a party, he met a woman who would inadvertently change his life.
"I was sick of the clothing industry. I got talking to this lady who was a nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital."
He returned to New Zealand, retrained, graduated and got a job in Darwin running a small surgical team at a private hospital. He had no idea what he was getting himself into. "I didn't realise how much it would change my life. You suddenly realise you're responsible for people's lives. It makes you change the way you think. I had a paradigm mind shift. Before I had been pretty lazy and easy-going. All that changed. You start thinking about your own health. You start looking after yourself a bit better."
One of only three males in his class (two graduated) Reid is now a nurse coordinator looking after a ward that sees 20 to 30 admissions every 24 hours. He's been at Tauranga Hospital - where he has a female manager - for three years, and says the culture is gradually changing.
"In ED and in the admissions and planning unit there's been quite an influx of males. There are an awful lot of men who need looking after."
Reid says shift work, bureaucracy, stress and constant change can be challenging. There are also rewards: "The job is guaranteed - nurses didn't know the recession was on - and I always know where my next dollar is coming from. In the clothing industry I used to meet a lot of people whose values were different to mine. Then I got into nursing and I could tell, within the first year of training, that I loved it. You go home every night knowing you've done some good."
 PAUL CUMING, Librarian, Tauranga City Libraries
Given the choice between catching a wave or catching up on the latest Booker prize winner, Paul Cuming will opt for the wave every time. It might seem an unusual choice, given that Cuming has been a librarian for 22 years. But then he's not one for labels.
"I enjoy being a stereotype-busting male in a predominantly female field." Ironically, it was a summer job that saw him inside rather than at the beach that got the 40-year-old hooked on libraries as a career. When most teenagers would have preferred to be out surfing, Cuming was working at Hamilton City Library.
"I was studying merchandise marketing at polytech and needed some money to tide me over between the end of study and finding a job." His boss, noting his love of music, offered him work on the audio-visual desk, where he was tasked with helping to loan out a collection of 10,000 LPs.
"There was an amazing cross section of the community that would come in. It opened your eyes to who was out there, people involved with music who that you would never otherwise have crossed paths with."
A library qualification from training college in Wellington followed, after which Cuming returned to Hamilton and became the teen section librarian.
These days, as a non-fiction buyer at Tauranga, he has an annual budget of $100,000 to spend and is also charged with keeping the 8000-plus DVD library current.
He still doesn't read much and would rather, if he could, be out surfing than at work. He "doesn't tend to introduce" himself as a librarian, and points out that he has always had to defend his choice of career: "It's often women that will bring it up. Why don't more blokes become librarians?
It's the whole macho thing. It's the same principle that had [Australian] guys not buying backpacks because they were from Fairydown. It still hinges on the image of male librarians being part of the 'freaks and geeks' clique. Libraries, for young guys, also seem to be places [associated] with homework, and therefore boring and dull. Uncoolness is [definitely] a blight upon our field."