Question

Summary of the artical turning up the pink collar by Claire Cain Miller

Answer 1

Claire McCaine Miller’s article, ‘ Turning up the Pink Collar’ presents an alternative view of masculinity and the sexual division of labour in the contemporary Western society. Based on interviews with secondary health professionals such as nurses, Miller argues that a real challenge to gender stereotyping in the workplace would be incomplete if one only looks at the experience of a few women who try to occupy normative ‘masculine’ jobs such as in the military, sports or corporate management. She emphasise on adding another link to the equation- that of men doing a stereotypically feminine job. While there is a surge of reports that testify how masculinity can be about power and misogyny, the nurses whom Miller interviewed offered a very different definition of masculinity. Even though there are larger gender differences in the treatment of the male and the 5he female nurses with the latter being offered a higher salary and greater privileges than their female counterparts, the presence of men in traditional women-centric roles as caregivers in the hospital allows them to challenge the gender stereotypes regarding masculinity as a position of dominance and power and femininity as a softer, caring role.