Males in OT: a Portuguese Perspective

An OT college left this comment with regards to the gender ratio in OT. The comment was so good I thought it definitely deserved it's own post.

Here's what JFaias wrote:

The social representation of professions, such as OT are traditionally linked with female activities, like most of the health professions. We all have to admit that Occupational therapy started as a profession oriented to help people doing things (mostly creative craft activities).


In my experience, here in Portugal, at the time I did my studies in OT, The program was not academic recognized. I was the only male person in a group of 24 women (each one more beautiful then the other), most of them coming from families where, traditionally, women would stay at home taking care of the family. Some didn't find this enough to fulfill their lives and they looked for an occupation with a social representation of being useful to others.


But times were changing, both for women and OT. Scientific perspectives of OT approaches were being developed and theory become relevant to justify what ots were doing. At the same time, women were no more looking for an occupation but for a job and a career.


The average, until the middle of the 80's was one male per class.


Then, academic integration became (I'm still talking about Portugal) and what started to matter was find a place in the Higher Education system. Again, the social representation of profession made its influence: men for engineer, women health professions. In between, there was art professions which were absorbing both genders. OT was in between arts and health and we started to see more men in the classes. No more the privileged one, but female beauty in an OT class had to be divided by 5 or more male students.


I know that the higher education system differs much from culture to culture, but, in general we are talking about a growing from 4% to almost 15%, here.
Today, reality is much different, but, as you very well said, women still prevail in OT. But, since scientific evidence of practice turn into the core of the programs, male students numbers become higher. And this is still a social representation of how we understand what is to study in OT.


Don't get me wrong. I agree with everything you wrote. Actually, I found it very precise. But behind all that, social representation of the profession was, is and probably will be, in my opinion, the main reason for OT to be mostly practiced by women. And I'm glad it is.


Sorry about my english


JFaias

A brilliant description and perspective from another country :-) JFaias can be found on twitter at twitter.com/jfaias

I hope others find this different perspective interesting and informative and I would love to hear your ideas on this topic and any others posted here.

Peace & Balance

MH OT