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Seated behind the front desk at a New York firm, the receptionist was efficient, stylishly dressed, the firm's newest employee had a pleasant telephone voice and a natural charm that put clients at ease. The company was pleased: Clearly, this was a person who took considerable pride in personal appearance. David King, the receptionist, is unusual, but by no means unique. Just as all truck drivers and construction workers are no longer necessarily men, all secretaries and receptionists are no longer automatically women. The number of men in women-dominated fields is still small and they haven't attracted the attention that has often followed women advancing into male-dominated fields, but men are moving into more and more jobs that have traditionally been held by women.
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What kinds of men venture into these so-called women's fields? All kinds. I don't know of any define answers I'd be comfortable with, explains Joseph Pleck, Ph. D of the Wellesley College Center for Research on women. Samo Ormont, for example, a thirty-year-old nurse at Boston hospital, went into nursing because the army had trained him as a medical worker. "I found that work very interesting," he recalled, "and when I got out of the service it just seemed natural for me to go into something medical. I wasn't interested in be- coming a doctor."
Thirty-five-year-old David King, an out-of-work actor, found a job as a receptionist because he was having trouble landing roles in Broadway plays and he needed to pay the rent.
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In other words, men enter "female" jobs out of the same consideration for personal interest and economic necessity that motivate anyone looking for work. But similarities often end there. Men in female-dominated jobs are conspicuous. As a group, their work histories differ in most respects from those of their female colleagues, and they are frequently treated differently by the people with whom they are in professional con- tact.
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The question naturally arises: Why are there still approximately ninety-nine female secretaries for every one male? There is also a more and more serious issue. Most men don't want to be receptionists, nurses, secretaries, or sewing workers. To put simply, these are not generally considered very masculine jobs. To choose such a line of work is to invite ridicule.
"There was kidding in the beginning," recalls Ormont. "Kids coming from school ask what I am, and when I say 'A nurse', they laugh at me. I just smile and say, 'You know, there are female doctors, too."