Guest Blog: Where are the men?

This is the first guestblog for the Speech and Language Thera-peers Blog site, and as many questions and discussions have been raised on Twitter about men in SLT, I thought I'd ask my fellow colleague Lauren to give an insight into the men in SLT as a result of her literature review on this topic. 

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Where are the men?

Back in August I was having a conversation with some of my fellow SLT students (including Gemma) about boyfriends and men in general (as you do!) when someone exclaimed ‘Why aren’t there any men on our course?!’  As usual, I overanalysed.

I had never seen a male SLT whilst on any placement, only one of our lecturers is male and there is only one male on our course. I left what was an informal lunchtime chat with the following questions swimming around in my head-

·         WHY are most SLT’s female?

·         What are the experiences of male SLT’s?

·         What campaigns are out there to encourage males into the profession?

 It has been the focus of my final year dissertation ever since.

The evidence base is limited. Whilst consideration has been given to males in nursing and teaching to improve recruitment, and there is plenty of research to suggest why females choose male dominated careers, SLT seems to have been left behind.

Speaking very generally after setting up an informal questionnaire, I found most of my male friends did not have a clue what an SLT does or who we work with. Some of them hadn’t even heard of one. Furthermore, most of them would not even consider joining a profession that is 97% female (Litosseliti & Leadbeater, 2012). When I gave them a list of client groups and asked them to comment, many said they were surprised at the range of clients and the scientific nature of our work. Greenwood et al. (2006) suggest awareness and the profile of SLT need to be raised to encourage more males and I would agree.

Some research suggests males experience gender stereotyping and negative experiences leading to drop out from courses or going into a different profession after qualifying. However, the male SLT’s I have been lucky enough to speak to seem to have had mainly positive experiences and not experienced these so called stereotypes. Whilst they recognise they are in the minority, they get on well with their colleagues and have learnt a lot as an SLT.

Male SLT’s on twitter have also been known to refer to themselves as unicorns!

In terms of recruitment, studies and articles are very quick to say something needs to change. They highlight that it will take time. The fact is, nothing will change if nothing is being done to change it. And no one seems to really know how to go about it.

Following a conference presentation by McAllister & Neve (2005), Australian Speech Pathology has recently launched a campaign called ‘Real men do Speech Pathology’ but as yet its effectiveness is unknown. There was also a support network called ‘Blokes in Speech Pathology’ but this no longer exists. Perhaps it is time for the RCSLT and ASHA to follow suit and attempt to create a gender neutral workforce?

My aim, along with my research project is to gain some perspectives of male SLT/SLP’s and help to promote this brilliant profession to males making university course choices. In my opinion, it is important to create role-models for our male clients and understand SLT from a male perspective.

If there are any male SLT/SLP’s out there who would like to share their experiences or have ideas about how to involve more males in the profession, I would love to hear from you! I tweet from @LaurenpreSLT and have just set up my own blog which will have further information if you are interested! http://laurenlonghurstslt.blogspot.co.uk/?view=classic 

References:

Greenwood N, Wright J A & Bithell C (2006) Perceptions of Speech and Language Therapy amongst UK school and college students: Implications for Recruitment. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 41 (1) p. 83- 94.

Litosseliti L & Leadbeater C (2012) Speech and language therapy/ pathology: perspectives on a gendered profession. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders.

McAllister L & Neve B (2005) Male students and practitioners in speech pathology: an Australian pilot study. In proceedings of the 2005 Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Canberra, Australia May 2005.