Do women discriminate unfairly against men in the teaching profession?

Alex Meier

Teaching in Ireland is a female dominated profession - Approximately 75% of teachers are female with the numbers higher in primary schools.

Many schools, like my own, are dominated mainly by a female staff with female management - which, of course, is unsurprising given the higher numbers of women in teaching.

Where the balance is readdressed is in boys schools only where higher numbers of male teachers tend to be employed relative to the number of female teachers.

As a male teacher I have noticed serious discrimination against males by the "sisterhood" [to coin a phrase from the INTO] in management in schools.

Let me give examples in my own school:

Four years ago - Male Science teacher told his hours are no longer there only for his classes to appear on the timetable of another female teacher in the school.

A fully qualified male IT teacher loses his job and has his IT hours handed to an unqualified female French teacher.

A qualified male Irish teacher recently let go. . . Principal stated to our union rep that another female teacher in the school "has Irish" but happens to never have taught it before.

An all female senior management . . . A highly experienced male teacher with many years service recently went for an A-post. . . Job went to a junior female teacher.

Board of Managements are packed with women as are interview boards. . .

The reason I raise this thread as I have spoken to other male teachers over a period of time and I recently met another senior male teacher who went for a senior management post only to lose out to a less qualified and less experienced female counterpart. . . .

So are my observations justified (in that the sisterhood are minding each other)?

Thoughts?

mtoutlemonde

Alex Meier wrote: »

Teaching in Ireland is a female dominated profession - Approximately 75% of teachers are female with the numbers higher in primary schools.

Many schools, like my own, are dominated mainly by a female staff with female management - which, of course, is unsurprising given the higher numbers of women in teaching.

Where the balance is readdressed is in boys schools only where higher numbers of male teachers tend to be employed relative to the number of female teachers.

As a male teacher I have noticed serious discrimination against males by the "sisterhood" [to coin a phrase from the INTO] in management in schools.

Let me give examples in my own school:

Four years ago - Male Science teacher told his hours are no longer there only for his classes to appear on the timetable of another female teacher in the school.

A fully qualified male IT teacher loses his job and has his IT hours handed to an unqualified female French teacher.

A qualified male Irish teacher recently let go. . . Principal stated to our union rep that another female teacher in the school "has Irish" but happens to never have taught it before.

An all female senior management . . . A highly experienced male teacher with many years service recently went for an A-post. . . Job went to a junior female teacher.

Board of Managements are packed with women as are interview boards. . .

The reason I raise this thread as I have spoken to other male teachers over a period of time and I recently met another senior male teacher who went for a senior management post only to lose out to a less qualified and less experienced female counterpart. . . .

So are my observations justified (in that the sisterhood are minding each other)?

Thoughts?

Were the people who lost their jobs in the school for a long period? As far as I know, before any vacancy arises staff on part time hours have to be considered first.

With relation to interview boards, from experience there have always more men than women on the board.

linguist

I suppose that to best answer this question, we should probably 'out ourselves' gender wise. I'm male.

I have to honestly say that I have never got the impression that men were discriminated against in terms of finding or retaining employment. If anything, I would say that many people will tell you it's the opposite. I have worked in virtually every type of school you can imagine (all girls, all boys, mixed etc) and my impression is that male teachers were highly employable across the board. In fact, the management at the all girls school in which I taught seemed to think that it was important for the girls to learn to work with men in preparation for their careers away from an all female environment!

As regards the generality of the situation, there remains a perception out there that men can be favoured because they will tend to work full time for the length of their careers. Indeed, a past female principal of mine told me so to my face. So I honestly don't feel that men face negative discrimination in the manner you suggest.

One thing I will say is that since I teach subjects (hence the username!) which tend to be more the preserve of women, I have on occasion had one or two issues with female subject colleagues. Different, usually minor things. On a couple of occasions when we were having a subject meeting during lunchtime and the business was sidetracked by what one might call girly topics of conversation, I tried to refocus the conversation shall we say and it wasn't always totally appreciated. But I suspect that can happen anywhere.

2011abc

Couldn't agree based on my ( limited) experiences .Females are in vast majorities in primaries and make up maybe two thirds of secondaries yet male principals and DPs make up a disproportionately large fraction of management .

rainbowtrout

I disagree, and context is needed for each of your allegations.

Alex Meier wrote: »

Teaching in Ireland is a female dominated profession - Approximately 75% of teachers are female with the numbers higher in primary schools.

Many schools, like my own, are dominated mainly by a female staff with female management - which, of course, is unsurprising given the higher numbers of women in teaching.

Where the balance is readdressed is in boys schools only where higher numbers of male teachers tend to be employed relative to the number of female teachers.

As a male teacher I have noticed serious discrimination against males by the "sisterhood" [to coin a phrase from the INTO] in management in schools.

Let me give examples in my own school:

Four years ago - Male Science teacher told his hours are no longer there only for his classes to appear on the timetable of another female teacher in the school.

Was there cutbacks in the school where the hours had to be used to fill a permanent teachers timetable before a non permanent teacher?


A fully qualified male IT teacher loses his job and has his IT hours handed to an unqualified female French teacher.

Again, were cutbacks the reason for this? Permanent teachers timetables have to be filled first, and the fact that this teacher lost his job would indicate that he was not permanent, was the French teacher permanent? Also as an aside, IT qualifications, while useful are about as useful as having CSPE, and SPHE on your CV. They are used as filler classes on timetables a lot of the time.

A qualified male Irish teacher recently let go. . . Principal stated to our union rep that another female teacher in the school "has Irish" but happens to never have taught it before.


Well did she? Was she permanent and him part time? I am qualified in biology, but have never taught it since I qualified 15 years ago. Many members of staff I work with are probably not aware that I am qualified to teach biology. Until 3 weeks ago, my principal was not aware that I was qualified to teach maths, despite me holding the qualification for the past 6 years and telling him so in the past. I'm teaching maths next year. :rolleyes:

An all female senior management . . . A highly experienced male teacher with many years service recently went for an A-post. . . Job went to a junior female teacher.

Probably more common in primary schools as the majority of teachers are female, but not as common in secondary schools in my experience. As 2011abc said the proportion of male principals and DP is disproportionate to the number of males working in the profession.


Board of Managements are packed with women as are interview boards. . .


All of them? How many BOMs are you familiar with? Ours is about half and half. Only interview I have done recently are for A and B posts. More men than women on panels. Haven't interviewed for a job for a long time, but all panels except one were male dominated.


The reason I raise this thread as I have spoken to other male teachers over a period of time and I recently met another senior male teacher who went for a senior management post only to lose out to a less qualified and less experienced female counterpart. . . .

So are my observations justified (in that the sisterhood are minding each other)?


How many other male teachers? Just the ones in your school or a good spread across different schools?

I can't comment on the post and neither can anybody else here.

For the record I am female, and recently lost out on an A post in my school. I have twice the number of years teaching done as my male counterpart who was given the job. I have more academic qualifications, and I currently hold a B post. He has no post. My staffroom were outraged by the outcome, and the general consensus (from male and female staff) was that I lacked a Y chromosome. :rolleyes: But I'm not going to use that experience to suggest that all promotions within the teaching profession go to men.

Thoughts?

Thoughts? I think you've made a lot of sweeping generalisations, which may or may not be true and the examples you've provided in most cases need context and in at least 3 of them there may be valid justification for the job losses, which are not gender related. If any of the job losses described were due to gender discrimination, then those teachers should have taken cases if there was just cause. If there was gender discrimination in those cases it doesn't mean you can make sweeping generalisations about the whole teaching profession.

evolving_doors

Ya OP im thinking it could be a 'gender discrimination' question more so for your own school rather than the profession as a whole. So from that regard, maybe have a chat with other male colleagues (sound them out carefully before revealing your thoughts!).

Usually Id say 'each case on its own merits' but with things like discrimination or bullying I believe that a pattern may be established if it is endemic within the organisation, but only if it is carefully documented in diary form, with others prepaired to corroborate.. and then it's into legal (which may split a school). But if you can establish a pattern then you might be right.

Itd be very tricky without evidence and witnesses though. It would be worthwhile looking up some cases just to see what the judgement was won or lost on. I think itll come down to 1. what was said & 2. what was written down (policy on promotion maybe!).

It appears every 2 weeks or so here though. Person with less experience/qualifications gets position over someone who on the face of it has more (or else someone not being shortlisted for interview to keep them out of the running).

I call it the 'living in a small country' factor.