- Only 3.5% of firefighters are women.
- It took until 2018 for a woman to be nominated for an Oscar in cinematography.
- Women hold 7.8% of aerospace engineering jobs.
Women have made incredible progress in joining the workforce,
fighting for equal pay, and rising to the top of their
fields. But some career paths have more progress left to make
than others.
The Bureau
of Labor Statistics' (BLS) 2017 databook on women in the labor
force tracked the percentages of women in a variety of
occupations. The data comes from the Current Population Survey
(CPS) conducted by BLS and the US Census Bureau, and included
60,000 participants from all 50 states.
Software developers
 |
| © Francois Mori/AP |
In the US, 20% of software developers are women. Tech is still a
notoriously sexist field: a recent study claims that "more than a
third of tech industry employees have experienced or witnessed
sexism."
Farmers
 |
| © Jordan Fischer/Flickr |
Only 24.8% of farmers in the US are women, and
less than 10% of leadership positions in agriculture are filled
by women.
Construction managers
 |
| © Bebeto Matthews/AP |
Just 7.4% of construction managers in the US are women. Groups
like Professional Women in
Construction (PWC) seek to support and empower women in the
industry with chapters in different cities.
Financial analysts
 |
| © Mark Lennihan/AP |
Aerospace engineers
 |
| © Bennett Raglin/AP Images for United Technologies |
Clergy
 |
| © Taimy Alvarez, AJC/AP |
In the US, 17.6% of clergy is female. Some religious sects
don't ordain women as clergy, which contributes to the disparity
and is referred to by some as the "stained
glass ceiling."
Camera operators
 |
| © Frank Augstein/AP |
Television, video, and motion picture camera operators and
editors are predominantly male, with women making up 21.4% of the
field. Rachel Morrison became the first
woman to be nominated for an Oscar in cinematography in
2018.
Architects
 |
| © Cheryl Gerber/AP Images for Mattel |
About
half of architecture students are women, but they are
underrepresented in the field itself, which is 26% female. The
New York Times reports that many women in architecture face
discrimination from male colleagues and are often not paid
equally.
Pilots
 |
| © Shutterstock |
5.2% of US aircraft pilots and flight engineers are female.
Conde Nast Traveler reports that the
difficulties of breaking into the field include the costs of
flight training, gaps in women's science and math education, and
the difficult work-life balance.
Firefighters
 |
| © Craig Ruttle/AP |
Most firefighters in the US are male - 3.5% of them are women.
Some firehouses in the US are
still hiring female firefighters for the first time.
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