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teacher and nurse
A road sign saying "men at work" does indeed employ the [[connotation]] of big, burly, heavily-muscled '''male''' human beings. That is the sort of worker typically employed in heavy construction. The point of the sign is to prompt the necessary caution by drivers, alerting them to the presence of construction workers along or on the road. A phrase like "people at work" would fail at this purpose, because it connotes shopkeepers and secretaries. You might as well say "downtown area".
A road sign saying "men at work" does indeed employ the [[connotation]] of big, burly, heavily-muscled '''male''' human beings. That is the sort of worker typically employed in heavy construction. The point of the sign is to prompt the necessary caution by drivers, alerting them to the presence of construction workers along or on the road. A phrase like "people at work" would fail at this purpose, because it connotes shopkeepers and secretaries. You might as well say "downtown area".
A term like "teacher" is often understood to mean a female person. Indeed, writers have often used feminine pronouns in a sentence using the unmarked term. This is, of course, not to imply that men cannot be teachers. It merely reflects the stereotype which ''teacher'' invokes. "Nurse" even more strongly implies a woman, so much so that the term "male nurse" must be used to indicate a man. No one says "female nurse".