When I placed my first male nanny in a full-time family job I bought a bottle of wine to celebrate. After nearly 15 years of running the agency I felt I had broken through a considerable barrier. When I was growing up and making career choices in the 1960s, most jobs were still defined by gender.
Women were expected to be nurses while men were doctors. Girls worked as secretaries while boys looked forward to becoming managers. Many women trained as teachers, but it was usually men who were headteachers.
My best friend prepared for her interview for medical school by scraping her hair back into a middle-aged bun and wearing her flattest shoes and her plainest suit. 'They'll only consider you if you're so ugly that no one will ever want to marry you, so you'll never stop work to have children,'
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