Education: Learning to be Male and Female

1. WS 222 Lecture 3 Education: Learning to be Male and Female

2. Plan for Today • Questions about last time? • Questions about book assignments? • Questions about Reading? • Book Presentation on Reviving Ophelia by Mary Piper (Madison) • Lecture on Sapiro Chapter 5 • Debate on Taking Sides Issue 5 • Reading Assignment • Writing Assignment

3. Madison Reviving Ophelia

4. Sapiro Chapter 5

5. What struck you about this chapter?

6. Why is education so important in gender equality?

7. Three Premises: • To think of education only as what happens in school is to ignore much of what has constituted education through most of history. • Both the substance and process of education impart more than school subjects. They help shape people’s values and ways of living in society. • Historically, education has been designed to help children find their place in society. Their place, and thus their education, has been defined partly by their gender.

8. Early Efforts • What was education like prior to the 19th century? • Formal education? Informal education? Religion? Is any of this still true today? • Anne Hutchinson—stepped beyond bounds of women’s proper role • Enlightenment theorists and women’s education • Rousseau (men should be educated), Wollstonecraft (women too) • Judith Sargent Murray • One of the first American feminists to insist that females and males do not naturally have different characteristics but are rather taught to be different.

9. Double Standard (p. 147) • “Our high and mighty Lords. . .have denied us the means of knowledge, and then reproached us for the want of it.”

10. Expanding Access • Gender segregation in schools • Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) • There must be at least some separate time and space in which women can learn among themselves, unimpeded by the hierarchical relations between the sexes. What do you think? • By 1872 • Women still received less education than men. • Even if they went beyond the elementary level, their education was oriented towards producing good wives and mothers. Is there a place for this in education?

11. Increasing Leadership Roles • Why is/was it important that women have leadership roles in education? • Why pay teachers less? • Women did not have to support families as men did. • Women deserved less pay because they would quit their jobs when married. • Women would accept low salaries (free market). So. . .gender stereotypes and prejudices allowed mass education to grow cheaply in the US.

12. Employment and marriage did not mix well. Employment and motherhood even less well. • Until WW 2 most school boards demanded women resign when they married. • What about the Church Education System? • Sex education • Dr. Alice Stockham 1878 “every child should get special instruction in procreation and reproduction. Let us see to it that no girl should go to the alter of marriage without being instructed in the physiological function of maternity.”

13. “Women’s” Education Fields • Home Economics, Domestic Science • “The modern housewife needed more than her mother’s recipes to be successful; she needed a firm knowledge of nutrition, psychology, sociology, and even biology and organic chemistry to run her household scientifically. Even advanced math to help kids with homework.” What do you think? • Women should choose a career that (a) fit in her “inevitable” family commitments and (b) could be dropped for a few years when her children need her most”. What did you consider when choosing a major?

14. Achieving Higher Education • Edward Clarke 1880s—if women became too educated, the energy that should go to their wombs would be diverted to their brains, leaving them too feeble to produce healthy children. • Only in 1980s did women and men reach parity in # of bachelors and master’s received. • Table 5-1 (p. 149). What factors influenced this?

15. Women’s Education Today • Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972: • “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” • Enforced by both the U.S. Department of Education and federal Office of Civil Rights • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttC_d4nSq8s • 1974 Women’s Educational Equity Act • Provided funds for new programs to promote women’s education

16. Have American’s attained gender equality in education?

17. How Much Education? • Do men and women get the same amount of education? • Do men and women get the amount of education they need? • Research shows that to earn the same amount of money as men, women need more education than men.

18. Amount of Education • Early Education Programs—roughly equal numbers • Special Education—why more boys than girls? Incidence versus diagnosis and treatment? Models of development? Educational models? P. 150 • High School—gender and race interaction. • No gender differences in dropout rates among white students • Higher in African American men than women, Latinas than Latinos

19. BA and MA—about equal. • Poorer families--56% female white, 68% female African American, 77% American Indian. • Wealthier families—men 51% total, African American 59% • Some people still believe that if you’re a women’s institution you are a lesser institution

20. Rise Up, O Men of God– President Gordon B. Hinckley Oct 2006 • I call your attention to another matter that gives me great concern. In revelation the Lord has mandated that this people get all the education they can. He has been very clear about this. But there is a troubling trend taking place. Elder Rolfe Kerr, Commissioner of Church Education, advises me that in the United States nearly 73 percent of young women graduate from high school, compared to 65 percent of young men. Young men are more likely to drop out of school than young women. Approximately 61 percent of young men enroll in college immediately following high school, compared to 72 percent for young women. In 1950, 70 percent of those enrolled in college were males, and 30 percent were females; by 2010 projections estimate 40 percent will be males, and 60 percent will be females. Women have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men every year since 1982 and more master’s degrees since 1986. It is plainly evident from these statistics that young women are exceeding young men in pursuing educational programs. And so I say to you young men, rise up and discipline yourself to take advantage of educational opportunities. Do you wish to marry a girl whose education has been far superior to your own? We speak of being “equally yoked.” That applies, I think, to the matter of education.

21. What Kind of Education? • Research provides evidence than under certain circumstances, girls and boys receive different amounts of education even when they are in the same classrooms. • 1) Amount of attention teachers pay to boys and girls. • 2) Types of attention the teachers pay. • 3) Degree to which the chosen teaching methods effectively reach girls and boys. • 4) Degree to which the subjects studied stretch and challenge boys and girls. Your experiences?

22. What did you learn in school today? • Overt curriculum • Hidden curriculum • Importance of mentors • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIAYE_VG11Q

23. Women as Educators • The higher the teaching position, the lower is women’s share • How does this affect you at BYU? • Gender bias in teacher evaluations. • What difference would it make if more women entered higher ranks of education?

24. Question of Choice • Do girls and boys and women and men have the fullest possible opportunity to get the education they choose? The book says no. • Sexism?

25. Education For What? • Have schools gone to far in teaching “alternative lifestyles” and in mixing up people’s gender roles, thereby belittling women’s traditional roles? • Research shows that education does not pay off for women in the same way that it does for men. Well-educated women do face a glass ceiling. Is this true? Have you seen it?

26. Education for and about Women • “Women” is still a special topic • Adrienne Rich says women have to “claim an education.” Has this been true for you?

27. Anita Hill is a Boy • Reactions?

28. Do sex differences in careers in mathematics and sciences have a biological basis? Taking Sides Issue 3

29. Setting it Up • YES summary • NO summary • Your opinions?

30. Writing Assignment • What were some of the key changes in the history of women’s education? • How do we measure what constitutes a “good education” for women and for men? What remedies do we need to obtain better education for women? For men? • How do you think your gender impacted the type and quality of education you received in High School? In college?