Chapter 7

            In Brown’s chapter 7, the main focus is on gender as an issue in career counseling. One of the problems that women face that men do not is pregnancy, whether it is planned or unplanned. In a school that I worked in over the summer, one of my coworkers was pregnant and she knew that if she wanted to get maternity leave, she had to stay at work until a certain date. Her due date was the day before the date she had to work until. It was really important for her to get that maternity leave to make sure they were in a good financial position. She was trying everything she could to make sure that baby was not going to come out until after that date.

            I think it is also very important when identifying career options to not look past prematurely eliminated career options. In my opinion I feel as though it would be difficult to try to help the clients not eliminate career choices and to be open-minded. I know when I have something in my mind eliminated; it is very hard for someone to convince me to reconsider. I thought it was helpful that Brown said, it should also be noted that no single score or group of scores on interest inventories should be used to define a career path for any client (Brown, 2016, pg. 128). I had a feeling that you shouldn’t cancel out every option, but I would not have thought to look at careers that did not come up in the clients group of scores on interest inventories. This got to me to thinking, if someone really wants to purse a career and they are sure of this career, but that career does not come up on the career interest, would you still provide them with careers that they do have high interest scores on? I feel as though the answer would be yes, just to provide them with as many possibilities as you can.

            I find it extremely helpful that Brown keeps incorporating case studies into his chapters. In The Case of Kay, her mom wanted her to go to a school with a lot of male premed student’s so that she could have a good life like she did. At the end of the case study, Brown talked about some of the differences in the career counseling process for men and women and how important they are. As a career counselor, it is important to empower women to choose their own path, not to meet the need for STEM employees or to advocate for some predetermined ideal about how woman should approach their lives (Brown, 2016, pg. 137). I feel as though the stereotype for women in the work place is not like it used to be, however, there is still a stereotype and it is important for career counselors to find a way to lead others away from that stereotype. 

Brown, D. (2016). Career Information, Career Counseling, and Career Development (11^th ed.). New York: Pearson.