Blog 6- Mary

Considering Brown, Chapter 7

Brown asserts in Chapter 7 that “women are on their way to dominating the workforce for the next 100,00 years” (Brown, 2016, p. 127).  He supports this claim with ample evidence.  I was surprised to learn that women made up nearly half of the medical school graduation classes for the last eight years, that women earn more college degrees than men, and that, across all racial and ethnic groups, women earn a higher proportion of postsecondary degrees than men (Brown, 2016, p. 129). This certainly makes a strong case for women dominating the future workforce!

Yet in the same breath, Brown cautions not to get too relaxed about the very real struggles that modern women currently face. That is, unplanned pregnancies can still be devastating to a woman’s career; women continue to earn 20% less than men; pregnancies and maternity leaves make it difficult to be promoted and obtain tenure for women in the modern workforce; and women are still prematurely eliminating viable career options, even in this day and age, because of the lowered expectations and persisting sexual stereotypes.

Brown suggests career counselors need to be especially aware and conscious of their own attitudes and values in dealing with women and “check them at the office door” (Brown, 2016, p. 128). Rather, it is the job of the counselor to help all clients, particularly women, recognize the barriers in the way of achieving their ideal careers and advocate for removing those barriers as much as possible. Brown further emphasizes the need for a holistic approach when counseling women and cautions against defining a career path based on interest inventories.  Because women may have never considered or been exposed to the possibility of a myriad of careers, they must never be limited to a single score or group of scores on interest inventories (Brown, 2016, p. 128).  And while it cause for celebration that women are populating STEM careers more and more, Brown suggests we not push our female clients in career counseling towards a particular field. Instead he indicates it is our responsibility to educate clients on the need for occupational diversity in certain fields, such as STEM, and empower them to decide if they wish to pursue that field.

This chapter has given me plenty of food for thought in my dealings with female students in the future.  Some future goals would be to first educate and make them aware of the obstacles they may face as women, and secondly advocate for removing those obstacles and breaking that glass ceiling, should they be so inspired.

Brown, D. (2016). Career information, career counseling, and career development (11thed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 978-0-13-391777-2.