How Does Gender Affect the Teaching Profession?
Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, the Equal Pay Act wasn’t until 1963, the Civil Rights Act wasn’t until 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments wasn’t signed until 1972, the first woman to fly in space wasn’t until 1983, and the list goes on and on about how delayed women's rights and privileges are. Not to mention, White men have never had to fight for these rights and even held ownership over women at one point.
The stereotypes over women are so annoying and hurtful even still today; being a female does not mean you are feminine or girly. Throughout my whole life, I have hunted. When I would talk about it people would say things like “does your dad have to help you” or “how do you even hold a gun”, even though I have been hunting alone since I was 13 years old. Forever, women have been stereotyped as delicate and nurturing… and as teachers. In the 21-22 school year in Texas, there were 378,491 teachers total, 287,286 of them were women, that is 75.9% (1). Because of the way women were treated and seen in the past, this has caused being a teacher to be “a highly feminized profession, but feminized means both that women do the work, but also that it's devalued because it is women's work” (2). On the other side of things; men being teachers. In all of my classes built toward being an education major, I have a total of 4 boys in all classes combined. Why don’t men want to be educators?: “Research has found that employers place less value on work done by women than on that done by men” (3). The gender divide, stereotypes, and misconceptions are still an issue and still affecting the education world. Women are still supposed to be fragile caretakers while men are big, strong, and support the household income. Weird.
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Hey Mallory, I loved your example to hunting with the stereotypes and bias with men and women. I think today we are seeing the most inclusion of genders in the profession. I had a lot of great male teachers in high school. I have also noticed if there are male teachers they typically are teaching a sport and a class, which I think is stereotypical. In my experience, I was super lucky to have two male English teachers in high school and I learned so much from them. I don't think it had anything to do with their genders but I think its a common stereotype to think the only male teachers are coaches and history teachers. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the male history/coach thing. It's a very common thing for guy teachers to do because I too had multiple male history teachers that were also coaches. I think it's cool that you had 2 male english teachers and they clearly stuck out!
DeleteHey Mallory, great post! I love how you made a personal connection and as a woman, I can also relate. It is frustrating to have to deal with the many stereotypes of how a woman should dress, act, or the profession she should have. As a young child, I was also affected by these stereotypes. I was often called a "tomboy" because of the way I dressed and acted growing up. I didn't fit the mold of a typical girl.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we've come a long way as a society, women still are still seen as less and stereotyped till this day. It is unfortunate that we are still fighting for equality in the workplace. It's crazy to think that teachers are underpaid because most teachers are women. Growing up, I did not have a male teacher until high school, but all of my principals were always males. It is my hope that the profession of teaching will soon change, and that it will be looked at with a sense of respect, so that teachers will be paid better and women will be respected as well.
I too was faced with comments of being a "tomboy " as a child for silly things like wearing shorts instead of a skirt. I think teachers don't need a "better pay", but a more deserved pay. The stuff teachers do and go through cause them to deserve more than what they are receiving, man or woman.
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