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Whither Away, Young ... Persons? By Mike Lushington

The headline on the front page of today's (October 5) Telegraph Journal was an open invitation to "Come East, Young Men". It was written in reaction to the big news item of the day, the announcement that the Irving Company is actively considering building an oil refinery in Saint John. This refinery, if it is built, would be the first such (apparently) in North America in some twenty-five years and would equal the refining capacity of the present installation, already the largest in Canada. It was, in short, a huge announcement.         The TJ story that trumpeted the announcement suggested, in part, that, should the project go ahead, it would be a tremendous inducement to many of those young men who have recently left the province to go west in search of work. They will be able to return home to take their share of the thousands of jobs that will be created. The title itself was an allusion to the exhortations of the Nineteenth Century American journalist, Horace Greeley to young Americans at that time to "Go West, Young Men."         As I mentioned above, the story was a big one. One might have thought that it might have attracted the lion's share of attention in media coverage for the day, and I guess that it did. But the title of the story itself drew fire, primarily from commentators who felt that, once again, women were being slighted. I listened to one commentary in which the spokeswoman went into considerable depth to deplore the title because, she felt, there were and are a great many young, single-mother, underpaid women who should be enticed to apply for some of these high paying jobs, should they appear. The thrust of her argument was that only men would feel welcome in applying for them and that the title of the story imparted that prejudice.         Funny, but I didn't get that impression at all, from the story, or even from the headline. Probably it is because I am a male. However, I couldn't help but feel that she was overstating her case in exactly the same way that other commentators have pointed out that the new Liberal Government has only two women in its cabinet, and three altogether in its caucus, and that somehow this rather dismal showing is the fault of the continued male domination of the economic and political world. No one seems to want to ask where the female candidates were in the first place.         I am currently teaching a first year English course for the UNB School of Nursing in Bathurst. I have thirty-two students enrolled; twenty-nine of them are girls and women. Why? Who is controlling the minds of women and demanding that they not train for jobs as welders, pipe-fitters, and heavy machine operators on the one hand, and that they continue to flock toward "traditional" female jobs on the other? Who was responsible for so few women running for political office in the recent election?         I am no apologist for the male chauvinism of the past but continuing to haul that out as the principal reason for today's young women continuing to reject opportunities in the so-called "male world" and flocking toward those same opportunities that attracted their mothers is ignoring the simple fact that, unlike any previous time in history, opportunity is gender-blind.         If someone wants a job badly enough to get the training and to pursue it, it should be there, regardless of the gender of the applicant. It is only when someone confronts active prejudice that she has a legitimate complaint; failing to train for, to apply for, to campaign for a position of any kind cannot be used as a pretext for discrimination.