For the Sound of Gender Bias, Check My Phone Mail

[niyad]

For the Sound of Gender Bias, Check My Phone Mail


Hillary watching is a good way to catch gender bias in action, as a recent Time magazine piece about her being post-menopausal shows. But other women, not running for president, can also find plenty in our own working lives. Here's how it hits me.



(WOMENSENEWS)-- Would Hillary Clinton make a better president because she is post-menopausal? That's what Dr. Julie Holland, a psychopharmacologist and psychiatrist, argued in Time magazine recently. Dr. Jennifer Gunter responded by pointing out the absurdity of that argument, noting that discussions of male candidates' testosterone levels are appropriately absent from the political commentary.

This is yet another example of the way gender bias continues to flourish. We talk differently about men and women. Women are paid less than men for the same work, their career choices are stifled and even toys reinforce gender stereotypes.

While I'm not running for president, I experience this gender bias frequently as a professional. I am a full professor with a Ph.D., with decades of experience, and yet I cannot count the number of times a student whom I've never met (perhaps an undergraduate interested in my program) writes "Hello Sheri" in an email or calls me "Sheri" in a voicemail. Sometimes they refer to me as Ms. Bauman, although to get my contact information they would have used the university directory, and it is clear that I am Dr. Bauman. I have asked my male colleagues how they are typically addressed, and it's consistently by their titles.

An experimental study conducted in 1981 found that female professors were addressed by their first name more often than males, and that female students were more likely to do this. In that study, this behavior was more common when the female professor was 26-33 years old. I am far beyond that age range. That study is more than 30 years old, and yet I'm not alone in noticing this pattern. An Australian professor wrote about this last year. And scholars, discussing how students address faculty by gender, have detected this same pattern. And it's worse for women of color on faculties. Sure, this could be an example of youthful bad manners or a reflection of the increasing informality of many cultural practices, but I think it's about gender.

. . . .


http://womensenews.org/story/uncovering-gender/150512/the-sound-gender-bias-check-my-phone-mail

[Novara]

1. Postmenopausal?

SERIOUSLY?????????????????

[niyad]

2. so we are either pre-pregnant, pregnant, or post-menopausal.

[Novara]

3. Can't be just human

Our very existence is in our ladyparts, you know. Nothing else matters.

[niyad]

4. and our ladyparts only matter when we are reproducing.