Back 30 years ago, to work in a human resource department, you had to know some basic office skills, memorize the employee handbook but didn't need a degree to hire and fire employees. HR departments not only filled up with women when they left their homes by the millions to supplement their husband's flagging income, but some made it quickly to the top of HR departments, becoming the first female executives in many organizations. When staffing companies, these newly-minted women HR professionals were openly sympathetic to other women, just like them, who were looking to help make ends meet in an economy where real wages were stalled. Hiring managers were mostly men, but men who soon found themselves surrounded by women subordinates. Over time, as those male managers left or retired, some of the women subordinates made it up into management for the first time. My own wife was the first female manager at her company back in the early 80s. But the examples are more than just anecdotal.

So the gist of this is that at many companies and on many campuses, the HR department, the hiring department became predominantly female and openly biased toward hiring other females.

At one local college this past year, they hired a female VP, who quickly came in and removed her male subordinate, a person who had performed successfully for over nine years in his position. The replacement will definitely be a woman. While this is likely not a pandemic pattern, that fact that it happens at all is astonishing.

Looking ahead 10 years into the job market, with law schools and med schools pumping out solid women majorities, grad schools the same, men are going to be left with what in the job market? Carpet layers? Appliance salesmen? Norge repairmen? Septic tank servicers? Driving through neighborhoods after a big hail storm, one thing you don't see is women roofers. Not one. Get out your nail guns guys and go tack down some asphalt shingles, we own that job... for now!

-Tim Corwin
June 2011