Gendered Lives, Eighth Edition

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Gendered Lives,Eighth Edition

• Chapter 8
• Gendered Education Communication in Schools

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Gendered Education Communication in Schools

• Historically, girls had less educational
  opportunity
• Now much discrimination eliminated
• Schools still marked by gendered dynamics

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Academics

• Males and females encounter gendered expectations
  in schools
• Boys developmentally disadvantaged in early
  school environment
• Feminine environments
• Adult females outnumber adult males
• Boys have less impulse control difficulty
  adjusting to school

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Academics

• Time of frustration and failure
• Males lag behind females in all levels of
  schooling
• Biology contributes to males slower development
  of verbal skills
• Males more likely to drop out of high school

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Academics

• Females success reflects cognitive ability and
  good study skills and habits
• Gap expands after high school
• Females likely to attend college
• Race and socio-economic class also linked to
  success in higher education

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Academics

• Personal choices affect academic performance
• Studying or engaging in recreation

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Academics

• Schooling reproduces gender stereotypes
• Men not encouraged to enter feminine fields
• Sex combines with race to further disadvantage
  males
• African American males targets of teacher
  disapproval drop out in higher numbers

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Academics

• Females perform better at all levels of education
• Earn more and higher degrees than males

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Academics

• Belief females have less ability in math helped
  erect barriers
• Females drop out of math
• Encounter faculty and peers who believe women are
  less able
• Affect self-confidence and how perform on tasks

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Academics

• Women may face gender-related barriers in fields
  such as engineering
• Social disapproval
• Assertiveness needed in field may be counter to
  social prescriptions for femininity

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Academics

• Sex-related differences in brains and hormones
  give males edge in math and science
• Higher mean averages for males come from a few
  males
• Innate differences less important than social
  influences in the U.S.
• Not true in all cultures

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Academics

• African American girls are encouraged to be more
  active
• May encounter stereotypes and be encouraged to be
  less assertive and autonomous when in school

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Gendered-Stereotyped Curricula

• Curriculum content is less biased than in past
• But gender stereotypes persist
• Accounts of war focus on battles and leaders
• Womens contributions on home front seldom noted

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Gendered-Stereotyped Curricula

• Women highlighted in curricula
• Women who fit traditional stereotypes
• Betsy Ross
• Women who distinguished self on mens terms
• Ella Baker

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Gendered-Stereotyped Curricula

• Epochs taught in terms of effects on men
• Neglect impact on women and minorities

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Gendered-Stereotyped Curricula

• Science has gender stereotypes that distort how
  taught
• Sexism in education intersects with other forms
  of discrimination
• Minorities underrepresented in educational
  materials

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Gendered-Stereotyped Curricula

• Curriculum diminishes education
• Students deprived of understanding how half the
  population experiences the world
• Encourages men to see themselves as able to
  fulfill ambitions and women not able to

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Athletics

• Female students have unprecedented athletic
  opportunities
• Due in part to Title IX
• Playing field not even
• Number of female athletes in college has not
  increased proportionately

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Athletics

• Prior to Title IX, most coaches of womens sports
  were women
• Today fewer womens sports coached by women
• Division I colleges pay male coaches more than
  women coaches
• Only 37 percent of expenses for athletics
  allocated to women

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Athletics

• 2005 Supreme Court ruling regarding Title IX
• All colleges required to send students survey
  about athletic interests and abilities
• If dont reply, may assume satisfied with policies

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Gender Socialization in Peer Cultures

• Males more insistent boys do boy things than
  females are that girls do girl things
• Gender socialization more rigid for boys

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Gender Socialization in Peer Cultures

• Male bonding in peer groups reinforces masculine
  identification
• Often engage in drinking and sexual activity

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Gender Socialization in Peer Cultures

• Fraternities encourage brothers to embody extreme
  versions of masculinity
• Desire to be accepted overshadows values and
  sense of decency

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Gender Socialization in Peer Cultures

• Faculty treat women students in
  gender-stereotyped ways
• These actions tell women students they are not
  taken seriously

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Gender Socialization in Peer Cultures

• Women in college feel two sets of pressures
• Be successful as feminine woman
• Be smart and academically successful

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Gender Socialization in Peer Cultures

• Relentless pressure to achieve effortless
  perfection
• Undergraduate women feel overwhelmed by
  expectations

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Single-Sex Educational Programs

• Single-sex schools may solve some of these
  problems
• Heterosexual males more likely to make academics
  priority in single-sex schools

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Single-Sex Educational Programs

• Disproportionate number of women in Congress and
  running top businesses graduated from womens
  colleges

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Single-Sex Educational Programs

• Critics argue sex-segregated education isnt
  answer
• Better solution is make sure teachers in all
  schools treat students equally
• Single-sex schools tend to be private and charge
  tuition

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Gendered Expectations Pressures Facing Faculty

• Gender stereotypes also affect faculty members
• Gender biases and barriers greater for women
  faculty than for women students

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Gendered Hierarchies

• Proportion of male and female faculty affect
  students
• Women and minority students have fewer role
  models
• If more men in administrative roles, students may
  infer its normal for men to hold positions of
  status

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Gender Bias in Evaluations

• Women and minorities more likely to be hired when
  blind selection process
• Predominantly male hiring committees hire fewer
  female faculty

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Gender Bias in Evaluations

• Once hired, women continue to face bias
• Performance more closely scrutinized
• Judged by stricter standards
• Hard to be perceived as competent

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Gender Bias in Evaluations

• Men have to give more convincing demonstrations
  of incompetence
• Male candidates judged on promise
• Female candidates judged by accomplishments

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Gender Bias in Evaluations

• Invisible hand discrimination unwitting
  discrimination in applying policies that are not
  inherently biased
• Largely unconscious makes it difficult to
  eliminate

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Gender Bias in Evaluations

• Womens achievements - luck
• Mens achievements - competence

• Assertiveness in males taken as brilliance
• Assertiveness in females judged negatively

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Gender Bias in Evaluations

• Gender bias in evaluations has material
  consequences
• Discrepancies between salaries

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Gendered Policies Expectations

• Institutions based on outdated family model
• Assume faculty committed to job dont have to
  worry about domestic life

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Gendered Policies Expectations

• Early years require long hours
• These years usually coincide with ideal years for
  bearing children
• Women faculty find it challenging to be
  professionals and parents

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Gendered Policies Expectations

• Faculty member who has child loses work time
• Tenure clock penalizes women
• Males penalized if career is not primary focus
• No paternity leave

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Gendered Policies Expectations

• Due to small numbers, excessive service and
  mentoring responsibilities for women
• Contribute to overload on female faculty