I certainly agree with Mr. Desnoyers' comment about the equity being lost. I don't think we're prepared to say it's lost, but we're certainly going backwards on the equity in this country.
Sexual gender stereotyping starts very early, of course, and it's very ingrained, but it's helped along by the things we do every day. I'll just give you an example. I work a lot with the community college system, and I've done a lot of research on IT. Every time I go on their websites--and this morning is an example--I open my paper and there's an ad for a community college program on sheet metal fabrication that is starting. The picture in the ad shows a man--and I don't think we should underestimate that. I went on it because we're addressing federal politicians.
I went on the armed forces website. It says “Wanted”, and there's a list of six different occupations, including air traffic controller, aircraft technician, and mechanic. I looked at each of those videos. One out of six was narrated by a woman, and there were very few female faces in those pictures. I don't know about you, but I think that's very important. I know the armed forces have been trying to recruit women, because they've been a sponsor at our national biennial convention the last two times. If I'm a young woman making a career choice and I look at those videos, they tell me that those occupations are really still male occupations.
So from the federal government's point of view, one thing we need to do is have more of a lens. If we're serious about getting women into these occupations, we need to make an effort. We need to show women's faces.