To Thine Own Self be True.

In my last segment I wrote about a recent trip to a Kansas Job Corps training center and I would like now to take a moment to mull over the significance of one observation I made during that visit. Basically, I found that the vast majority of students at the center had chosen to pursue careers that would historically have placed them with their specific gender. In other words, at least on the day I visited, the construction trades classes were filled with male students and the health industry classes - where students trained to become Certified Nursing Assistants - were filled with women. There were exceptions. There was one man in the nursing class I visited. There was one woman in the security/law enforcement class. But, by and large, the students had headed themselves toward professions that were historically populated by their own sex.

If the Job Corps center is any indication (and I believe it is), then the sometimes frantic efforts of feminist policy makers have produced limited results. There are exceptions. I know for a fact that there are far more women doctors and lawyers than there were a generation or two ago. But, by and large, and despite liberal social pressure (also known as political correctness) and liberal policies and laws, women still gravitate toward historically female occupations, just as men tend to gravitate toward historically male occupations.

That is probably why feminists have recently concentrated on forcing employers to pay "equally" for "equivalent" jobs. To such policy makers' minds, a truck driver with three months training should be paid the same as a secretary with three months training. In other words, the market forces be damned. The fact that both the truck driver and the secretary are both free at any time to leave their respective professions and pursue the other's vocation is irrelevant.

This, of course, heralds the feminists' latest attempt at social engineering, as well as a change of tactics. They apparently believed, at one time, that the world would be a better place with more female truck drivers, cement workers and plumbers. (They didn't seem so concerned about there being more male teachers, librarians and nurses. But that is fodder for some future editorial). However, much to their collective disappointment, Rosie the Riveter proved to be largely a result of war time necessity and not a symbol for a new paradigm.

I know for a fact that many are not happy with this fact. A great deal of vocational training funds are contingent upon schools and training centers placing more and more trainees in "non-traditional" classes. The fact that when left to make their own choices, students chose not to pursue a feminist utopia, seems to be setting hard with many liberals.

In essence, choice is good. Government funded schools and training centers should be required to allow both girls and boys to pursue any profession they wish. However, when the students have made their choices, the schools should not be pressured to change the students' minds. This is basically the difference between the very American ideal of freedom and social engineering - where people are denied choice in some misguided effort to build a specific future.