TORONTO - More and more females are entering the bereavement field, but students at Humber College say breaking down gender barriers isn't always easy.
"Lots of women look at me with disgust," said Daniela Grossi, a 21-year-old student in the funeral director program at Humber. "I think it's all a matter of persistence."
In addition to facing opposition from her friends, family, and even her boyfriend, Grossi also had her own personal obstacles to overcome.
"I always had a problem dealing with death," she said. "But I pushed myself to do this. My family wasn't happy with it, but I said this is what I have to do. I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing it for someone else."
Grossi attributes her enrollment in the program to an innate desire to help people, and those in the field say this is a common trend in women entering the profession.
"Females see this as a perfect fit for them," said Jeff Caldwell, the program's coordinator at Humber. "In our society, females are seen as the compassionate and nurturing ones. You really have to be doing this because you want to be helping people in their time of need."
 Females are starting to level the playing field in what has traditionally been a male-dominated career. Caldwell said females first consitituted half of the student body 10 years ago, and of the 130 students currently enrolled in the program, 63 per cent are women.
And similar numbers are being seen throughout North America.
"There's a lot more women coming out of (funeral director) schools all across Canada and the United States," said Susanne Scott, executive director of the Funeral Service Association of Canada. "It used to be very much male-oriented, and now it's becoming very female-oriented, upwards of 50 to 75 percent in some schools are women."
Michelle Lloyd, a 27-year-old professor at Humber, feels this trend has been a logical progression that took place over time.
"I think, that (female enrollment) was low before because, generally, as a society, we viewed it as a job for men," she said. "But women traditionally occupied caring professions...and this is a caring profession."
But achieving equality in the industry has been far from easy.
"There's still the traditional males who feel women can't handle the physical aspects," said Caldwell. "My response to that is...let girls figure it out for themselves. Who are we to say they can't do it."
And with new technology, such as hydraulic body-lifting devices, Caldwell says the physical aspects of the profession are becoming less of a concern.
Despite these advances, however, stereotypes in the industry continue to persist.
"A lot of men wonder, when you're first coming on, whether or not you're going to be able to do it because there's a lot of physical aspect to it," said Lloyd.
"You enter into places often that are all men, and you become the signature woman," she said. "You start to feel that you're only there because they need a woman on staff. But eventually they get used to the idea, and start to see the benefits involved."
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