2d ago

Misogyny is thriving in our schools. Why aren’t we doing more?

lens.monash.edu

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Aren't most teachers women? Why aren't women doing anything to address this, something is clearly failing in their classrooms.
- Why do you blame teachers, apparently because they're women, and not their parents?
  This is the result of giving "conservative" misogynists a platform instead of a black eye.
  
  you're weird...
  You ask a question, then instantly answer it
  You then resort to physical violence.
  good show...
- Err, these boys aren't being taught Misogyny 101 in the classroom...the female teachers are often the victims here. Asking them to solve this problem is delusional.
  
  101? What are you a yank?
  
  Victim blaming? What are you, a misogynist?
- In primary school most teachers are women, but in high school - which is what we're talking about, it's pretty balanced.
  More to the point though, something is failing in classrooms. That's what the article is about, hence the title "misogyny is thriving in our schools". Obviously it is not being caused by the teachers. The teachers do not want this to happen. It makes for a horrible work environment - especially for the female teachers. Programs and strategies are being implemented to try to address the problem, but the root of the problem is not from the school itself.
  I hope that answers your genuine good-faith questions on the topic.
  
  Wrong, in High School (and every other teaching field) the majority of teachers are women.
  https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/staff-numbers
  Obviously the teachers do not want this to happen, but they are the ones in the position to teach otherwise and so I ask, why are these women not doing so?
  
  Well, 'majority' just means more than 50% - so your claim is true. But that doesn't mean what I said is "wrong". The site you linked to says 61%. (Which I still think is relatively balanced compared to many fields of work.) And obviously that proportion will not be uniform in every school.
  Why are you trying to push responsibility of the problem to women anyway? That's pretty weird. I'm surprising you're still pushing on this even now. It's as if you actually feel strongly that women teachers in particular are the only people who can address this issue. I don't know why you'd take that view.
  
  It's weird that I think teachers should be teaching?
  
  You have said in multiple posts that "women" should be doing more to address the issue of misogyny.
  What are you saying now? That you don't think teachers are doing their jobs? Holy smokes man. It's not what you were saying before, but it is similarly hateful.
  
  Teachers are limited in what they can do. They aren't magic - they can't just snap their fingers and create different beliefs and good behavior. They can't spend their whole workday trying to un-brainwash a single student. And even if they did, they can't follow that student home to continue this work. With limited options to actually change a student's point of view, they are left with options to simply curb the behavior so they can get on with teaching.
  However, these options are also limited. They can enact small punishments in the classroom like taking away certain privileges. Or they can send the student to the administration for some kind of punishment like detention. These punishments typically don't result in significant behavior change. Schools have the option of expelling students, but this is heavily frowned upon by higher-ups, as it puts more strain on overtaxed "second chance" schools, and often brings the ire of parents.
  So the teacher ends up stuck with a misbehaving student without the time or resources to effectively change their mind or their behavior. Blaming individual teachers is... dumb. It's really dumb. Teachers are there to teach, and to handle minor disciplinary issues. They need more resources to handle bigger issues like this.
  
  The problem is lack of good male role models.
- Is it our responsibility?
  
  Well it's men's responsibility every other time, and you've driven us out of education, so yes.
  
  You are a dickhead.
- i don't know how things are in Australia, but i do know how misogyny is so common in American schools. you can't think of it as being individual failures on behalf of the teachers. you have to think of this as entire system of patriarchy that selects for individuals who are less likely to resist it.
  firstly are the weed out systems:
  a school teacher needs 4-6 years worth of higher education to be eligible to teach meaning a school teacher is more likely to come from a wealthier, more conservative background
  a school teacher is paid poverty wages, making them more reliant on spousal support, creating a soft reinforcement of traditional gender roles
  teachers are hired by administrators who are usually men, men who can have unaudited privilege in the system of patriarchy, creating bias in what they consider "professional" for a teacher towards someone who will fit into this overall system
  then there's the reinforcement systems
  you are genuinely correct that most teachers are more progressive when it comes to social issues, but they are also making poverty wages meaning they're more reliant on the job. they're more desperate and therefore less likely to upset the apple cart
  teachers are not the only people who interact with kids. administrators are usually who operate the punishment system in a school. this punishment system creates an interplay between the nurturing mother stock character and the disciplinary father stock character. the disciplinary father stock character in his role will often hand children mysogynistic views very directly.
  
  a school teacher needs 4-6 years worth of higher education to be eligible to teach meaning a school teacher is more likely to come from a wealthier, more conservative background
  Most Australian university students have their study 100% funded upfront by the Australian government and only pay it back over time if they earn above a minimum threshold, so the connection between socioeconomic background and university education isn't as strong as in the US (though it definitely still exists).
  
  a school teacher is more likely to come from a wealthier, more conservative background
  I couldn't find stats for Australia, but in America teachers are statistically more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, so I don't think this is supported.
  It is also worth noting that, though I couldn't find anything on Australian educators' political leanings, teachers are one of the most highly unionised workforces in the country, and our centrist party (the one the media and many in the general public would call "centre-left", like your Democrats) has explicit ties to the union movement.
  a school teacher is paid poverty wages
  In Australia they're paid quite well. It doesn't scale as highly for the average teacher as it does in many other highly educated jobs, but the base salary is pretty good. There's the important caveat that teachers are largely expected to spend their own money on classroom supplies, though.
  teachers are hired by administrators who are usually men, men who can have unaudited privilege
  Teachers in Australia are hired by the department based largely on very impersonal factors like qualifications. There's not a huge amount of room, at the level of classroom teachers, for that kind of bias to have as much of an effect. What more personal decisionmaking does happen is done largely by principals, who are former teachers themselves. Because hiring is done at the department level, principles can get involved in decisions like who gets a job at which school, but the fact that they have a job at all is much more impersonal. The promotion and hiring of principles and other non-classroom positions may be a different question.
  That said, I'm not disagreeing with your main point. It is a systemic failure. At a scale far larger than merely within schools.
  
  If you don't know how things are in Australia, why are you entering the discussion?
  
  to discuss how these things happen in other parts of the world with similar roots of anglocentric patriarchy. i'm not trying to drive the conversation, just provide "here's what happens in another part of the world, maybe it will help analyze your systems"

32 comments