This post is sponsored by Nathan as a Christmas present for his wife Leah.
What do you picture when you think of a teacher? If you’re anything like my students and most people in the U.S., you probably think of a woman. Depending on your own experience and views, you might imagine a stern matronly type, a kind motherly person, or a harsh spinster (I happen to be all three, myself).
If you think of a male teacher, on the other hand, it’s probably a specific teacher you had — likely a teacher from high school or a college professor. While there are many amazing male teachers out there, they aren’t necessarily the face of the profession; the general image of teachers today is specific and female and very much influenced by the history of the job. Since the 1870s, in fact, teaching has been largely seen as a “woman’s job” — and, as such, viewed by many as easy, expendable, less worthwhile, and in need of little compensation or respect. While much has changed in the educational field in the past hundred years or so, the sexism, racism, and classism inherent in our system has sadly remained stagnant.
One of the few major changes in past decades is that, as the number of variety of jobs open to women working outside the home has increased, more teachers are now able to leave the profession for greener pastures; in fact, an estimated 40-50% of teachers leave in their first five years. Considering teaching’s legacy as “women’s work” (read: underpaid, unskilled, and disrespected), and the ways that has influenced how schools today are structured — as well as who makes decisions, and how teachers are undervalued — it’s a wonder that we don’t have more of a teacher shortage than we currently do.
In the mid-to-late 1800s, public education, at least in cities, became more standardized and centralized. Spurred by racist and classist fears, control of schools was wrested from the hands of families and elected school boards, replaced by centralized offices with (white, male) superintendents and presidents. These men had strong ideas about what should be taught in schools, influenced (perhaps unsurprisingly) by what made for “good workers” and “compliant citizens.” One principal in 1899, for example, “was a stickler for proprieties,” according to one of the teachers who worked with him. He required students recite “with the toes pointing at an angle of forty-five degrees, the head held straight and high, the eyes looking directly ahead.” Another principal, in 1904, told his predecessor: “You’ll find [the teachers] well-trained… Take my advice and keep them under your thumb.” This was the kind of control and “educational guidance” that seemed to require a male leader in order to institute.
Male superintendents and principals tended to prefer women teachers, on the other hand, because they saw them as “more willing to comply with established regulations and less likely to ride headstrong hobbies” than men. In the 1920s, there was a brief surge of schools trying to replace female teachers with male, since women were becoming more headstrong and demanding of their rights. In the end, however, it proved impossible, because male teachers needed to be compensated more than twice as much as their female counterparts. Women were a far cheaper labor source.
Well into the 1950s, teaching was one of the few professions open to women. The fact that it was a labor force largely made up of women, who ostensibly were not providing for a family, allowed many to justify the low pay despite the fact that most of these teachers could not afford to support even themselves alone as the cost of living rose. Historically, women were thought to be suited to teaching because they “in [their] own hearts, love, hope and patience, have first kept school.” In other words, women were seen as born nurturers, naturally inclined to keep their students and the good of the school as their first priority.
Therein lies the crux of the issue: the fact that women are expected to do this job out of love or biology. The work is seen as “fulfilling” for us; satisfaction the only reward we should need. This mentality still informs how we think about teachers in the present. Just as mothers are not supposed to complain about their children or the hard work of parenting, teachers are not supposed to complain about our jobs. We do it for the children. They need us. When teachers protest poor working conditions, especially if we threaten to strike or to hold a “work to contract” strike (meaning that we only do what our contract requires, usually much less than what we regularly undertake), we are criticized as “selfish” or said to be “punishing” our students. Many push back by arguing that we are doing this for the children, to improve the conditions of their schools and the quality of their educations — and that’s all true. But it should never be viewed as selfish or unacceptable for professionals to advocate for better working conditions and fair pay for themselves.
The anger toward women demanding fair compensation for their work has a long and storied history. As female factory workers went on strike for fair pay and safe conditions at the beginning of the twentieth century, women were also starting the first teachers’ unions. In 1905 the NEA found that in 44 of 48 studied cities, unskilled laborers doing municipal street and sewer work earned more than beginning teachers, while molders engaged in skilled labor made almost double what teachers made. Margaret Haley and her female counterparts joined prominent union leaders like Samuel Gompers to advocate not only for teachers, but for all laborers, fair taxes, and child labor laws. They won many victories, but also gained enemies, who called them “lady labor sluggers.”
The ire against teachers’ unions lingers to this day. While we do have more men in teaching today, it’s still viewed as a woman’s profession, with plenty of modern-day “lady labor sluggers” demonized for not fitting the selfless teacher stereotype. We still see some male teachers garnering more respect and higher pay than their female peers; we see more male principals than female principals.
So many problems within the modern school system are actually older problems — inherited problems dating back to our profession’s roots and outdated, sexist views of women. The corporatization of schools — which is touted and bemoaned in the media — was how we got our modern system in the first place, with children as products and taxpayers as shareholders in a sort of educational factory set-up. Women have been speaking out about this injustice (one created in part to keep cheap, female workers under male supervision) since the early 1900s. The lack of trust many have for teachers is also a product of the school system’s roots; while teachers around the turn of the century were highly educated compared to other workers, having usually completed high school — and often post-secondary training — at a time when most jobs didn’t require more than cursory schooling, they were not allowed to dictate curriculum or methods. Today’s teachers, who hold Master’s degrees and regularly complete required professional development, have many mandates and little input when it comes to what and how they teach. Lack of compensation has always been an issue in teaching and continues to this day.
The few gains that the educational system has seen — the few real changes, which are always subject to scalebacks and repeals — occurred during the 1970s, when men joined the profession in greater numbers and led the unions in higher numbers than ever before or since. When teaching is seen as “women’s work,” it is disrespected and undervalued. There are many problems in our education system, and like other problems — unequal access, institutional racism — the deliberate undervaluing of an entire profession viewed as one belonging to women is not one that can be solved with a new curriculum or more standardized testing. For the sake of our schools and our children, we need to value under-respected teachers, just as we need to value women’s leadership and advocacy, work to undo decades of educational policy built on the foundation of sexism, and — as is always the point of teaching and studying our history — avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.
Sources
Goldring, R., Taie, S., and Riddles, M. (2014). Teacher Attrition and Mobility: Results From the 2012–13 Teacher Follow-up Survey (NCES 2014-077). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved here.
Ingersoll, R. M., & Smith, T. M. (2003). “The Wrong Solution to Teacher Shortage.” Educational Leadership, 60(8), 30-33. Retrieved here.
Tyack, D. B. (1974). The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SO GREAT.
I have nothing else to say and wouldn’t be able to type it even if I did since the red mist of rage has descended over my lady eyes and is obscuring my keyboard.
I had a short conversation a few years ago with the computer fix it dude who was purging our PC of a persistent case of super-computer-space-herpes about the school tax levy on the ballot at the time. He, like me, sent his kids to the public school. When I said that I hoped the levy passed he started ranting about ‘those over paid teachers! Some of them make over 70 grand!’ I asked why, since he has a strong STEM background, didn’t he teach computer science at the high school? Cash in on such a sweet gig? He looked horrified and said ‘No way!’ so I said that 70 grand (i suspect a high estimate, btw) was clearly not enough compensation for that job. End of small talk.
YES!! You are the best. Also, is your name from the Tiffany Aching series?
Thx! Yes, big Pratchett fan. (am working up the emotional strength to read Shepherd’s Crown. I just can’t seem to get started. 😞) Feegles (and witches) 4ever.
I did it. I read it at an emotionally vulnerable, perhaps unwise even time, and I had the hearty cry I knew would come. Still, I recommend it pretty strongly and may even read it again someday to find out if it’s any good, aside from being an object to hold while weeping gently.
That! I expect to weep throughout. I just can’t start when real life obligations are getting the best of me.
Badass! I loved the series so much. I’m thankful for some resolution, but I really didn’t want it to end 😔
Excellent, excellent, excellent. I’ve been reading up on emotional labor today, and this piece dovetails so neatly. I wish I could remember who told me/where I read the idea that “you can’t build a sustainable profession on the goodwill of its members” but that’s exactly what the public discourse about education tries to do. I now work at the university level where much of the EL takes place in the realm of “service” (committee work, advising, etc.) rather than (or in addition to) in the classroom. Lo and behold, “service” is just as gendered as K-12 teaching.
As a teacher in year 6, I am undoubtedly going to love this piece.
Edit: Loved it. Would have liked more specifics on the rise of men and unions, though.
This was really interesting and thoughtful!
Also, it’s amazing how many social phenomena can be explained with the phrase “It’s only important and valuable when men do it”…
Also: at the secondary level, male teachers are often seen as the content experts, and are given AP/IB level classes over female teachers. (Source: my life)
I can see this. Also, I was told by a male teacher from the high school that he just didn’t get what we elementary school teachers were doing all day.
Those darn kids won’t potty train themselves… Grrrrr.
What, did he never attend elementary school?
Right?!
PREACH. I’ve seen that happen a bajillion times.
Extra anecdotal source for you: my memory of which teachers at my school taught college prep/honors math and science (mostly women, some men) vs. which taught AP (all men except 1 woman).
In the English department, there was only 1 male teacher and he did teach mostly CP classes, but also somehow AP human anatomy?? Even though I don’t think he had a science background…
Thank you. Sharing with everyone I know. This has been my theory for a long time but I’ve been too lazy to research anything.
This is very concise and persuasive. Thank you. Unfortunately, I bet a series could be done in this theme (nurses and child care at least). I would read ’em.
This makes me think that, over winter break, I need to pitch a piece about the feminization of liberal clergy, and the subsequent devaluing thereof (grrrrr)
Yes, I would love to read that piece!
This was excellent. Especially:
But it should never be viewed as selfish or unacceptable for professionals to advocate for better working conditions and fair pay for themselves.
When I was a teacher, one of my principals had a bogus list of “Rules for Teachers” posted in the prep room, and would sometimes gesture at it when the teachers would complain about working conditions, with the general message “hey at least you can get married or dye your hair and we won’t fire you!” And even though that meme is of questionable authenticity, the sentiment seems a pretty enduring force in education.
My school had the same thing! We were also frequently told not to be “energy vampires”, which boiled down to not making legitimate complaints or commiserating with each other. Like, that was the only thing that kept me going, and nobody’s going to tell me what to talk about during my 25 minute lunch.
Did we work for the same school? Complaining and commiserating with my coworkers at happy hours was literally the only thing that got me through a few years there.
It’s essential!
Men also tend to move very quickly from teaching into administrative roles, reinforcing the idea that being a teacher isn’t “enough” for someone with ambition or a desire to support a family.
Thank you. This speaks to me on so many levels. Particularly this:
“When teachers protest poor working conditions, especially if we threaten to strike or to hold a “work to contract” strike (meaning that we only do what our contract requires, usually much less than what we regularly undertake), we are criticized as “selfish” or said to be “punishing” our students. Many push back by arguing that we are doing this for the children, to improve the conditions of their schools and the quality of their educations — and that’s all true. But it should never be viewed as selfish or unacceptable for professionals to advocate for better working conditions and fair pay for themselves.”
I teach in a unionized Catholic school in the NYC/Upstate NY region, and we just came off a bruising contract negotiation that dragged on for a year (and magically got settled right before the pope came to town). Damn, does this resonate.
What also resonates are all the little things. In a field dominated by women, the administrative positions are so often filled by men. We do so much of the day-to-day work, and in my own experience, it seems like we’re held to a higher standard than many of our male counterparts. There are very few men where I teach, which creates this weird fetishization of the elusive male teacher. It sometimes seems as if they can do no wrong.
The feitshization of the male teacher is SO REAL. I call it, much more clumsily, “elementary school hot” in my building, hot meaning “you are SO on fire.” Parents and fellow teachers melt when a male teacher plans one thoughtful lesson or JESUS HELP US interacts kindly with a student. It’s getting employee of the month for just showing up, and it’s…odd.
I think about this whole idea a lot!
1. It was great to take in the historic perspective in a succinct way. Thank you, I will definitely be sharing this with my coworkers.
2. I think about this every time someone asks me why I want to be a teacher. (Job interview/small talk being the most regular situations.) Sometimes it’s asked condescendingly, sometimes it’s followed up immediately with “oh, you must love kids,” (which I do). I never know how to give a one sentence answer.
3. Remember that guy who did that poem, “What Teachers Make”? I relate so much to his anger, but I wonder if it would be so viral if a woman wrote/performed it.
Wow. That last paragraph is so powerful! Thanks for a really thoughtful piece. Nearly all my teachers were female but almost all my principals were males.
oh man i love it when posts on The-Toast have sources cited! count me in for a sparklie-eyed emoji of admiration.
the post itself is so frustrating. i might have considered teaching, except for all the nonsense listed here. (and other things, but this was a part of it, too) my sister and sister-in-law are both elementary teachers, and they’ve both tried finding other jobs, but always go back to teaching because they actually really like it. it’s just that everything about being a teacher, except for the teaching part, is so shitty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my late mother when I was in college and my old school system’s teachers went on strike. (This was in the mid-90’s.) My mother was quite sneering and vicious when she talked about the strike because it was about the teachers’ health insurance costs going up from something like $400 to $800 per year, and SHE had to pay much more than that, so they were just SPOILED and it was DISGUSTING that they make a big deal about money because it should be about love of children, etc. She was furious because I said I supported their strike. I was like, “…but they’re not volunteering, and they have bills, and why shouldn’t they think about money, because they’ll probably be happier teaching if they’re not struggling, and they don’t get paid in the summer anyway, so this $400 probably matters a lot, and they’re probably worrying that if they lose they’ll get more cuts, so….?” She just started shrieking about how I might be in college but I’m stupid and know nothing, etc. Of course she had other Issues, but it was an insight for me into the mentality of someone who doesn’t respect (mostly female) teachers at all. Which seems to be a horrifyingly large number of people.
“SHE had to pay much more than that, so they were just SPOILED and it was DISGUSTING”
The mindset of “things suck for me so it should suck for everyone else too” is so widespread and sad to me. Also, we might have the same mom?
Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that, though it’s always nice not to be alone!
Also traditionally–and often legally–a single woman’s profession. My own grandmother was fired from teaching when she married in 1933.
Yeah dude, when I was in (Catholic) high school a single lady teacher got preggers. She did not come back the next year. Her inseminator, who taught down the hall? He totally was there next year.
I graduated in 1995.
Whoops, edited for bad nesting. Will be trying again.
This dynamic was hugely at work here in Wisconsin in 2011, when Walker and the GOP were able to play on “they should love their jobs!!!” and “public employees get good benefits and have it so easy!!!!” to foment -just- enough resentment to squeeze through their budget cuts and dismantling public sector unions. On the flip side, that also got them on the bad side of the many folks here who actually love teachers and think they’re doing awesome work. One of the popular protest signs was “Care about educators like they care for your child,” maybe not catchy but it made the point that we have to support teachers if we actually value education, and a lot of non-teachers made that kind of point in statements during the protests. So the silver lining was, it was really encouraging to see that deep well of public support coming out in response, even if it wasn’t enough to stop the cuts. (Much less the continual cuts since then, ugh.)
The terrible thing–and I feel this very much working as an adjunct right now–is that teaching really IS a rewarding job (at least if it’s your thing, not saying everyone has to love it.) If it weren’t there would be so, so, so many more strikes, given the working conditions.
As the child of a WI teacher (& union rep), many many thanks to the post author and seconding the above.
I’m hoping that this will come back to bite the Walker administration someday as karma.
Same dynamic here in OH with the anti-public-employee union push a few years ago. If police and fire hadn’t been included the rest of us would have been stripped of collective bargaining rights completely. Argh.
I spent February and March of 2011 sitting on cold marble steps, grading papers with one hand and waving a fist with the other. I have never felt as strong a sense of collective rage and solidarity as those two months at the Capitol.
Ooo rage and solidarity is exactly right. I’ve been thinking a lot the last couple of days about this bell hooks interview (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/bell-hooks-buddhism-the-beats-and-loving-blackness/) where she talks about anger:
The first time that I got to be with Thich Nhat Hanh, I had just been longing to meet him. I was like, I’m going to meet this incredibly holy man. On the day that I was going to him, every step of the way I felt that I was encountering some kind of racism or sexism. When I got to him, the first thing out of my mouth was, “I am so angry!” And he, of course, Mr. Calm himself, Mr. Peace, said, “Well, you know, hold on to your anger, and use it as compost for your garden.” And I thought, “Yes, yes, I can do that!”
This is so infuriating I can’t even form a coherent opinion.
Thank you for writing this!
My Grandmothers first teaching contract had rules about dating and some of what would be called today “privacy and human rights violations.” However, I am sad to report that nearly ALL work is now underpaid and undervalued. That is essentially the definition of income inequality.
Fantastic read, thank you!
(I’ve just finished my first semester of on the job teacher training and am feeling so many things at the moment; this has helped me organise my thoughts some.)
Send along some illiterate and innumerate kids and see what he thinks then. (Not really, but really.)
And the shit that women in IT have to put up with! Damn.
Question regarding this statement: “The lack of trust many have for teachers is also a product of the school system’s roots.” The rest of the paragraph talks about how teachers tend to be more highly educated compared to other workers and yet are not compensated accordingly or allowed to have greater input.
I don’t see how that ties to mistrust of teachers. Could you clarify?
We are more highly educated, yet not trusted to do our jobs well without micromanagement. We have advanced training, but are not compensated in a manner that respects that training (or the work obtaining it requires).
Thank you for clarifying. I thought she was talking about a mistrust of teachers among the public.
I spent February and March of 2011 sitting on cold marble steps, grading papers with one hand and waving a fist with the other. I have never felt as strong a sense of collective rage and solidarity as those two months at the Capitol.
We are more highly educated, yet not trusted to do our jobs well without micromanagement. We have advanced training, but are not compensated in a manner that respects that training (or the work obtaining it requires).
I've been pretty fortunate, and I suspect it's less of a thing in operations/systems administration, compared to working with young gung-ho dudebro programmers in Silicon Valley startups.
The only sexism I've encountered to my face is from customers – "I'm looking for the email administrator – I was told 'he' sits here." Uh, you're looking at HER, dude. That's happened a few times.
I have had a few micro-examples of colleagues saying, "But we don't have anything against women, we hire on MERIT, it's not our fault that women don't apply for this kind of work…" And because of the discussions around sexism at the moment in IT, that sort of comment is occurring more often.
Recent case in point:
Colleague (in a joking fashion): I don't think quotas are a good idea for hiring women – next thing will be that only black disabled women [note: he left out "lesbian", because I AM one of those] get hired, and white guys won't be able to get work!
Me (very very very dryly): I don't think you have to worry about that for a while, mate.
To give him credit, he got the point and shut up.
It's a difficult line to hold, when you know you've not really had any problems careerwise to avoid feeling Uncle Tom-ish, while pointing out that the dearth of women (and all those other under-represented demographics) still really is shit.
The feitshization of the male teacher is SO REAL. I call it, much more clumsily, "elementary school hot" in my building, hot meaning "you are SO on fire." Parents and fellow teachers melt when a male teacher plans one thoughtful lesson or JESUS HELP US interacts kindly with a student. It's getting employee of the month for just showing up, and it's…odd.