america has always given female teachers a hard time

[ensho]

(re: teachers in Fl. and everywhere else)


It wasn't all that long ago that teachers couldn't be married. or even have men friends. and they had to be as upstanding and circumspect as possible. and could only live in certain places.

before, teachers were all men and they only taught boys. I don't know the history of the first female teachers or the first female college teachers in the US. maybe someone out there in DU land has that info.

***at least nowadays some female teachers have a union to protect them***

(there are a number of novels by women writers that have our fore teachers as part of the tale. sorry, don't remember names. I've read a trillion novels. well, half a trillion :)

I heart teachers, whatever sex.

[Catshrink]

1. Thank you.

But... the unions don't offer that much protection. The fact that teaching is historically a women's profession has a lot to do with low salaries.

[ensho]

2. historically teaching was a male profession

nt

[Catshrink]

3. I wasn't too specific, was I?

Historically in the big picture, you are right. I was thinking US, especially 20th century.

[Chulanowa]

16. Not in America

The majority of teachers, historically and today, have been female. On the other hand a majority of university professors are male.

(yes I know that the difference between "teacher" and "professor" is largely semantic; however most of one label are female, and most of the other are male)

This is because through most of America's history, "teacher" has been perceived as a glorified babysitter

[Odin2005]

22. Actually, IIRC, most teachers were male before a mass public education became an expected service.

I remember reading or hearing about New England teachers in 1800 being mostly men.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ensho]

5. sex of the teacher, silly one.

are you being obtuse on purpose?

[Lars39]

6. In some places during the Depression, women teachers weren't hired at all.

Seems only the men had families to support. :eyes:

[Captain Hilts]

8. Same with librarians. It was US Govt. policy to fire female employees whose husbands were

govt. employees also. The law.

[ensho]

10. I didn't know that - thanks

nt

[Captain Hilts]

7. Most grievance complaints at college level are male students vs. female professors. nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

14. that's interesting.

I'd be interested to know more! I suspect there are a lot of factors impinging on this, and not necessarily because the female prof has done something out of bounds!

Working at a college, I haven't seen it often, but when I do see disrespect from student to teacher, it's more often from male student towards female profs. When female profs have been unassertive, that seems to be taken, by certain personalities, as a pass to challenge and try to control. Hmmm, I wonder if male students making complaints are those same personalities, reacting to female profs who set boundaries on them? Hrrmmmmmmmm.... just thinking out loud

Another generalization from my many many years of observation: I rarely see women speak up in class, even when the subject relates to feminist issues. And yes, profs male and female both, generally call on males more often and relate to them more actively, encouragingly and enthusiastically.

Last generalization -- used to be, I would see disrespect from male prof to female students. Not often, but some men did think sexist jokes were funny, in classes where there were few women. That's improved a LOT by now, though, thankfully.



hi Hilts, good to see you :hi:

[Captain Hilts]

15. Well, Yes, yes, yes, and yes...

I had a student go after me repeatedly - it started on the first day of class about the change of location of the class - and kept going all semester. I'd actually taken attendance, so in the end, it was decided that his attendance was lousy enough, he had no grounds for complaint. But folks at the U told me that it was 75% of all grievances were male students vs. mostly younger female faculty.

When I was a TA at one U and a prof at another - other female instructors, professors, whatever, all had experienced male students who would sit in the front row and demonstrably NOT take notes. Or they'd read or something like that. Male faculty had not experienced that either.

When I was a TA, all the female faculty and TAs got together to discuss strategies to get female students to speak up in class. It's a trial, especially when they come up to you after class and tell you things that would have been great to hear during class!!! I had folks read Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand." It helped. I wish I'd had my focus group training when I was on faculty....

Keep the faith, BlancheS!!!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

40. oh geez, it's late now

gotta get to bed....

have to reply tomorrow!


:hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. Back in the days when I was teaching on the college level, I had frequent

instances of male students (never the smart ones, though) who sat in class and just smirked or were otherwise disrespectful.

One of the women who was an expert on human resources management said that there were studies that showed that the average male student liked teachers and professors who were either "hot babes" or motherly types.

The "hot babes" had a problem, though, because the male students would make inappropriate comments or do things like putting their arm around them. One of my colleagues in the English department had a freshman student walk into her office and say, "I'm glad you're going to be my advisor. You're CUTE." I personally witnessed students trying to get inappropriately close to my female Japanese TA's, too. Throwing your arm around your TA's shoulder or standing real close and taking her hand is NOT proper academic behavior.

The "motherly" types were popular. Some of the students who showed attitude toward me went on the study abroad program in Japan and raved about the language instructor who invited them to her home to play with her kids and brought them homemade treats every week. I have no idea what kind of a teacher she was.

During my second year of teaching, I had a male Japanese TA who clearly didn't like being subordinate to me. At one point, I had to be absent for a week and he substituted for me in class. The student evaluations that semester were interesting. The good students of either gender and all the female students complained that they didn't learn anything when that TA took the class. The mediocre male students said they wished that the TA could have taught all the time.

[Goblinmonger]

9. Male elementary teachers often have it hard today

Seen as a woman's job. Reverse is true in high school. My experience in my part of the country, anyway.

[Odin2005]

13. In my rural elementary school there were only 4 adult men.

The principal, the 6th grade teacher, and the 2 janitors.

[raccoon]

34. In my elementary school, over the years, we had 2 male teachers/principals.

Both bullies and pedophiles.

[BrklynLiberal]

19. and howmany teachers could support a family on only their teacher's salary?

[tblue37]

31. Nowadays I think many men would be afraid of going into elementary education,

because it is so easy for them to be accused of molesting children.

[stray cat]

11. Life is hard for many - much harder for some

few individual groups have a monopoly that surpasses others

[Odin2005]

12. The Corporate elite has an interest in maintaining gender pay discrimination.

As soon as women start to dominate a field the field becomes perceived as "Women's Work" and thus the pay plummets

[BrklynLiberal]

20. VERY interesting point

[BrklynLiberal]

17. The two most female dominated professions...nursing and teaching..are the same ones that

are most underpaid, overworked and incredibly under-appreciated.

When it gets tot he point that there is a dire shortage of either and/or both...there will be a change of attitude.

Frankly, I think the paradigm applies to every job/career that is female dominated. It is given less importance, less pay, less recognition and less appreciation than any job that a man does, even if it is the same job under a different title.
i.e. home attendants, "stewardesses", kitchen help, waitresses, librarians, school aids, secretaries, etc etc

[Odin2005]

21. I noticed that on Food Network the men are called "Chefs" while the women are called "cooks".

And I think "Gee, bias, much? My aunt could kick Emeril's ass...".

[BrklynLiberal]

23. another intresting change of title that brings with it an increase in stature and money

[tblue37]

32. There IS a dire shortage of nurses. In most professions, when such a

shortage occurs, the pay goes up. In nursing and teaching, they just increase the workload and the hours, without significantly increasing the pay.

I don't know if they are still doing it, but for a while some years ago, our local hospital was dealing with a shortage of nuses by training certain cleaning personnel to do some of the work nurses are supposed to do. One of my students who cleaned at the hospital told me he was being trained to do such things!

[raccoon]

35. Add to that, day care workers and nursing home workers. nt

[BrklynLiberal]

18. Some of that is STILL true for women who teach in religious schools.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. My mother's first teaching job was in a small town in Wisconsin in the 1940s

She had to "live with a respectable lady." In practice, this meant that she shared her landlady's spare room with another teacher. Part of her pay was a meal allowance at the town's one restaurant. The food wasn't very good, and the menu was limited.

She could not date (not that there was anyone suitable in the town).

In those days, banks closed at 3PM. The school withheld the teacher's paychecks till after lunch on Friday so that they couldn't cash them on their lunch hour and take the train to Madison for the weekend. The teachers worked out an arrangement with the bank (in those less formal days) by which the janitor would cash the teachers' paychecks and bring back money for them.

[LibertyLover]

26. My mom was a teacher in upstate New York in the 1930s

It happened that she lived at home so didn't have the problem of finding a respectable place to lodge. But she was not supposed to wear pants. My grandfather, her dad, owned a farm and mom helped out on the weekends with chores, as did her brothers and sisters living at home. One weekend someone from the school board drove by and saw my mom in pants working. He reported her on Monday and she was called into the office of the superintendent and placed on probation. Her father was pissed off and refused to sell the school system and anybody he knew who worked for them meat (grandpa was also one of the few butchers in the area). Mom's probation was lifted really quickly and the Prohibition on her wearing pants was lifted for the weekends.

[ensho]

38. I remember the pants thing - when I went to school we couldn't

wear pants much less the teachers.

[ensho]

37. wow, the crap the women had to go through

thanks for the telling

[AwakeAtLast]

27. My *married* union president got pregnant in the late '60's and was let go

This same school district has been known to find ways to fire women put on bed rest - and this is the 21st century! :(

[havocmom]

28. Hell, when I was a 9th grader, our algebra teacher (long married) was pregnant

As soon as she was showing, they made her take a leave of absence. Hired a man who could NOT teach and could definitely not teach math of any sort. Yeah, THAT was good for us. :eyes:

[EFerrari]

30. My Spanish teacher in high school refused to cut her hair short

even though she was over, gasp, 30. She was a rebel and was the first person who said anything about the Viet Nam war that made the least bit of sense to me. She also taught all the advanced Spanish courses at the school which didn't sit very well with the other two Spanish teachers who were male.

[ensho]

39. makes me think of our dear flappers who cut their hair short and were

called sluts for doing so.

and they shortened their skirst and danced with abandon.

all hail the flappers.

[Daphne08]

29. Mine is a family of teachers. My mother, my grandmother,

my aunt, my uncle and my cousins were/are teachers.

I was also a teacher.

Education has always been a political football.

In fact, politics is the main reason we teachers and university professors have tenure.

[SoCalDem]

33. Women in the "real world" workplace has always been an "issue"

for America..

There was never a problem with farm wives busting their asses next to their farmer-husbands, or wives of store-owners, but women in the workforce were another issue.

Women often took IN work...sewing, ironing, washing, etc.. or they did after-hours cleaning. The immigrant women were relegated to sweatshop work, because they were timid, & many did not speak English well, or they had no room in their tenements to DO take-in work.

Women were expected to do all the child-rearing, keep the house, cook, clean, do laundry and of course be "available" to their man whenever he wanted.

That schedule is pretty daunting, without being "out there" competing in the job-world for less money than a man would make, doing the same job.

Men were paid more because the perception was that THEY supported a family, and women worked because they were bored housewives, old-maid spinsters, too homely to "catch" a man, or just wanted "extra money".

No one took note of the fact that for DECADES now, one salary has not been enough to support a family, OR that MILLIONS of women re now MORE educated and qualified than a lot of men, and that many men have bailed on families & Mom IS the sole support of the family.

The movies & books still play up the angle that women do not "need" to work, and the ones who do are often "in it" for self-gratification...not from necessity.

For the young ones here who were not around bck then, take a hard look at "Mad Men". That's as true a representation as there is, of how it really was for women ..and that whole thing continued WAAAAY into the 1970's.

The one quibble I have about Mad Men is that they are almost too nice to the women. Most women I knew in the labor force back then were totally dismissed by the men they worked with, and other than the few who were hit upon mercilessly, and treated like workplace whores, most were just as valuable as the carpeting, drapes or furniture in the place.. totally replaceable.

Teaching was one of the few occupations (the other one was nursing) that "respectable" young women went to college to do.

Being unmarried was often a part of the requirement, because then they would always be available to do extra after-hours tutoring & mentoring, and they could also be paid less because with no family to support they did not NEED to earn more.

Until the late '70's it was pretty common for women to go to college to find a husband, and failing that, they would have a teaching certificate or nursing degree to "fall back on" until they DID find a man.

The Women's Movement was ALL about changing this perception, and it has, to some degree, but all you have to do is go to the movies, and the "olden days" are still there.. Even the brightest, cutest, most successful woman is still portrayed as unhappy, unworthy, and downright neurotic, until she meets "Mr. Right" & has (or tries to) have a baby.

The old myth of women being the "weaker sex/fair sex/delicate flowers of womanhood/etc" persists, and is the bedrock of rightwing philosophy. The LAST thing these people want is a bunch of capable women in charge and running things.

[raccoon]

36. Great post! nt