Occupational Feminization of Work
Every time a profession is gendered, it begins its quiet decline.
The decline begins in perception, then spreads into policy, then finally calcifies in pay.
In ancient India, healing was communal. The vaidya worked alongside women who brewed, crushed, soothed. The body was seen as a system in balance, and healing required both logic and touch. But as modern medicine arrived, the care part got carved out and handed to women. Nursing became a “soft” profession. Less science, more service. Less prestige, more patience.
This is how power exits a profession: by feminizing it.
Economists call it occupational feminization. History shows it again and again. When women enter an industry in large numbers, society slowly begins to discount it. Teaching. Secretarial work. Human resources. Social work. Each began as either male or neutral. Each became female. And each saw its pay stagnate while expectations soared.
Look at education.
In Nalanda and Taxila, teachers were revered. Kings sent sons to gurus. Knowledge was masculine. Intellectual. Sacred. But when teaching moved into primary schools, blackboards, crowded classrooms, it was handed over to women. The rhetoric shifted. From respect to gratitude. From profession to calling. Gratitude feels good, but gratitude doesn’t build power.
Then came typing.
The first secretaries were men. Trusted, skilled, respected. As women entered the office in the 1920s, the job was redefined. Support role. Soft skill. Temporary. Replaceable. The profession stayed. Its spine didn’t.
Because the moment something is coded as “female,” the market discounts it.
Even today, professions dominated by women are underpaid, underprotected, and over-romanticized. Teaching is framed as a gift. Nursing as devotion. HR as empathy. But none of these roles sit at the decision-making table.
Now look at the reverse.
When men enter female-coded domains, they rise quickly. A male kindergarten teacher is seen as a savior. A male nurse gets applauded for “choosing service.” But the women already there stay where they are. Overqualified. Underpromoted. The same institution rewards anomaly but punishes the structure.
This is how genderization works: it distorts the value of work by filtering it through identity.
A woman writing code is seen as progressive. A man leading a wellness workshop is seen as enlightened. But neither is seen as neutral. The gender precedes the skill. The label precedes the labor.
So the problem isn’t that women enter professions. The problem is what happens to those professions after they do.
Once gender enters, dignity begins to leave. Slowly. Through language. Through reward structures. Through quiet exclusions that never get named.
The answer doesn’t lie in balance. It lies in removal. Remove the gender lens. Remove the narrative of sacrifice. Remove the expectation of selflessness.
Because work is work. And value should come from what is done & not who does it.