Women in the Workforce

As a cis-het white guy, I have the privilege of being able to grouse about a system that favors me while reaping the benefits of the same system. It's a nice little benefit--one that has really only helped me. It wasn't until I was in college that I started to see how much of my life is smoothed over by virtue of my gender, race, and sexual orientation. It really makes my complaints about things that bother me seem petty.

One thing, however, that bothers me to no end is sexism manifested in my workplace. I'm not talking about the top-down approach, such as hiring practices or the administration as they make teaching assignments. If there's sexism there, it's so subtle that I can't see it.

No, I'm tired of the societal sexism that impacts female teachers. Not only is my wife an educator, but a great many of my coworkers are, too. The problem is pretty obvious: Students and parents treat female teachers as surrogate mothers and, therefore, expect them to be nurturing, accommodating, and sweet. Any teacher who isn't that way runs the risk of being maligned and hated by students and/or undermined by parents. 

Some examples, which are anecdotes* (rather than evidence) that may help illustrate my point:

1. While in the faculty room, a coworker asked if I had problems with one kid. I shook my head, saying that I didn't usually have any problems. He turned in his work, participated in class--all the usual stuff. "He's horrible," my coworker confided. "He's disrespectful, never turns in his work, and dismissive of me as a teacher." She then went on to describe his behavior. I told her that, were he to try such stuff in my class, I would take certain steps. Assuring me that she had done the same thing--but to no avail--made me wonder what could be the difference. In all honesty, aside from the topics we taught, there was no tangible difference between our classes...except our genders.
2. One of the students that I taught when my wife was on maternity leave--a student she had taught and then, when I did long-term subbing for her, I got to teach, too--rarely gave me grief. He was sometimes a pill, but most 8th graders are. For my wife, however, he was perpetually arrogant and disrespectful, ignoring what she had to say and generally being a horrible student. My wife, of course, knew her content area even better than I, yet I--the untrained substitute--had fewer problems than my much more capable (in most everything) wife.
3. When asked by a female coworker about what to do with a particular behavioral problem, my recommendation was met with an "I don't think I can get away with that" response. It didn't take long to realize that what she was worried about was the fact that, as a female teacher, a response like the one I gave would burn bridges she wouldn't want burned. Upon digging into the issue, it became clear that, from her experience, a female teacher wouldn't be able to exert the same sort of social pressures as a male teacher could.

I feel that the problem is obvious: Social norms and expectations are heavy, drawn along gendered lines, and have an adverse effect on my workplace. Students are damaged by this type of sexism, as it sends conflicting messages about the appropriate role of women in the workforce (namely, that a woman at work still must be a mother; that a woman's attitude must somehow be different than a man's, even if that's not the best solution** for the situation; that a woman is expected to coddle, rather than discipline).

I worry that some people think that women in the workforce is fundamentally wrong. I don't think there's really any validity to that opinion, but even if I were to take that at face value, I would contend that, due to the fact that women are in the workforce, we should look at the consequence of a perpetuation of sexist stereotypes. Women are in the classroom--they're my coworkers and friends. And because the societal pressures for women to behave a certain way because they are women prevent them from doing their job to the best they are able, we have a substantial, deeply rooted problem to weed out.

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* I know that these examples are lacking on details. I don't feel comfortable sharing too much information, as the point isn't to try to malign students or expose families. Obviously, I'm being anonymous, but I still feel like sketches rather than portraits are appropriate here.

** I'm not trying to say that my solutions are the best solutions; instead, I'm trying to say that the possibility of using different strategies is locked out because of gender expectations.