Interestingly, women do not dominate human medical schools in the same way. Johns Hopkins reports that their classes are made up of 50/50 male and female students. There has also been some commentary in the blogosphere recently about how many fewer female science bloggers are out there, with notes that women are as likely as men to get PhDs, but less likely to stay in academia.
So why are there more women becoming veterinarians these days than men? I don’t think anyone knows. I have two personal theories:
- Vet med is often seen as a caretaking profession, something that may appeal strongly to more women than men.
- Why vet med and not human med? One difference is that vet med pays a lot less. Are women more tolerant of low pay than men?