What might be some of the chilly conditions that female professors of myriad disciplines experience along their tenure journey? Why do these conditions exist? Especially for the young female choral conductor, negotiating the tenure path as a woman in a traditionally male profession, what are some of the pitfalls she may encounter? Bernice Sandler describes a number of ingrained, societal, sex-biased behaviors confronting female professors:· Gender affects how we view competence, and how we evaluate competence.
· If a woman has success, it often is attributed to luck or affirmative action.
· Women are expected to be more warm and motherly.
· Women are supposed to make people feel good, to be emotional soothers.
· Women are expected to smile, be friendly, and not look serious.
· Women are not supposed to challenge students and make them feel uncomfortable.
· Women are not expected to be strong, dynamic, intellectual teachers.· At the same time that students may expect more caring and warm behavior from a woman faculty member, they may nevertheless interpret such behavior as weakness, perhaps seeing it as “too feminine.” However, should a woman faculty member act in a strong and assertive member–like her male colleagues–she may be viewed as “too masculine.” Thus, women faculty are often caught in a double bind: no matter how they act, their behavior is “not quite right.”
Reader Interactions
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
philip copeland says
Sharon Hansen says
Marie Grass Amenta says