By Lekshmy Sankar | 19-Jun-2018
I teach a graduate class at a local University. For my class' final paper, I gave my students a few categories they could pick from and write about (e.g., AI, neural networks, social computing, malware, etc.). Every single one of the female students in my class selected social computing. I am not saying this is a trend or a feminist issue by any means - I don't have enough data to call it anything. It could have been many factors, and at the end of the day, I'm glad that they picked the topic that spoke to them. However, it got me thinking about a recent article from Wired that a friend of mine forwarded to me about 'how social media became a pink collar job.'
According to the salary compilation site 'Payscale,' 70 to 80% of social media workers self-identify as women. The job description usually has something along the lines of being 'social,' 'kind-hearted,' and 'upbeat,' which one could argue are terms commonly associated with women. The article talks about how these jobs are women-centric with low internal power within the organization and minuscule pay for the amount of work.
The article made the correlation between the feminine job description and the number of women applying for these jobs. But I think we have to look at the bigger picture. Why are women attracted to social media jobs or topics? In my class, I don't believe when I introduced the topics for the final paper I used any feminine terms to draw women. It's just impressive that the results were the same as the larger identified trend. What is it that possibly makes women want to pick the topic of social media over other topics? These are my theories:
- A sense of community - In 1974, Seymour Sarason wrote a book called 'The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology,' which was a revolutionary book that guides many psychologists and researchers today. There was research paper I read from Goodman & Cunningham couple of years ago that hit on a similar point, that a sense of social belonging was integral to the success of women in engineering. I can only speak to my field of engineering and technology. The persistent barrier and the lack of feeling and being accepted in the field have led to a disproportionate number of women in my industry. I can't tell you how many times I have felt frustrated because my voice was not being heard because I thought that I was different than 99% of my colleagues. I believe that social media was a field that makes women felt less alienated. For many, maybe the first time that they were able to bridge the gap of a social environment with a work environment
- Extension of your brand - In general, women are very good at humanizing their brand. If you look at your feed with videos from your favorite content creators, a trend you will start noticing that many of those videos from women tend to feel more personable and help you build relationships with them. It's an excellent way to increase brand advocacy
- No geographical boundaries - Social media extends the opportunity to reach millions of people across the globe at your convenience. When you don't have the means to be globetrotting every week, it's a viable option to help fulfill your curiosity of the world
- Connections vs. information - I recently read a study by Pew that showed that "76 percent of online U.S. adult females use Facebook, compared to 66 percent for online males, while fairly similar women/men percentage splits exist for Twitter (18 percent/17 percent), Instagram (20/17) and Pinterest (33/8). Indeed, one-third of women are now using Pinterest. But then there's LinkedIn: the researcher said 24 percent of Internet-using men employ the site compared to 19 percent of women". I believe this is because women tend to approach social media differently than men. I recently did a small poll with my friends to understand the different behavior. What I learned is that men tend to approach social media with an end goal in mind (e.g., learn something about something to create influence) and women approach social media as a way to build connections. The subject of my poll was just my friends so it can be completely biased, but I thought the responses were fascinating
- More friends the better - I had a friend recently tell me that she sees social media as a way of keeping up with cultural expectations. What she meant by this is that as children, we tend to expect girls to have a lot of intimate friendships, which takes time to keep up with. Whereas a lot of my guy friends have a fascinating way of compartmentalizing friendships (e.g., work friend, sports friend, bar friend, etc.), which makes it easier to manage.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think the pink collar theory is a real thing in social media jobs? Are women more attracted to social media? Maybe it's a complete fluke. But maybe there's something more to this.
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