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Division of labor

Most of the teachers I interviewed enumerated several tasks that were performed by one gender more than the other. In each case, although the participants provided rationale for the division of labor, they also described them in terms of impediments to their teaching. As I discuss later under "culture," the men are hesitant to complain about this imbalance. Williams (1991) interviewed a sample of male teachers and some of them voiced these same concerns.

This special treatment bothered some respondents. Getting assigned all the 'discipline problems' can make for difficult working conditions, for example. But many men claimed this differential treatment did not cause distress. In fact, several said they liked being appreciated for the special traits and abilities (such as strength) they could contribute to their professions.(PP 260-61)

Being asked to fix a tire is like being asked to make coffee. Neither is particularly harmful unless it is fashioned into a job as part of a structure of gendered differentiation. Neither certainly qualifies as "special treatment." Women often liked being "appreciated" for those special traits women brought to their professions until they were granted the right to object to these sex-typed expectations being integrated into their jobs. When one must behave in stereotypically gendered ways in order to retain a job, this cannot be considered preferential treatment.
Like Williams, I learned that males are often asked to take on the physical tasks associated with teaching. Tasks such as lifting heavy objects, doing dirty or risky repairs, and even filing in for the custodian are all considered part of the male teacher's job. Non-teaching manual chores were high on the list of least desirable aspects of being a male teacher. In addition, males are often expected to have technical knowledge that allows them to repair almost anything. These are highly stereotyped male characteristics. For example, Dennis, a fourth grade teacher, told me the following interesting story regarding the distribution of manual labor.

Amazingly, all the heavy stuff is stored in my room. [What kind of stuff?] Video equipment, portable screens, trunks with project materials, volleyball poles, miscellaneous junk. [Why is it all in your room? Was it there when you started teaching?] No, and I've changed rooms twice. The stuff just follows me. Whenever anyone needs heavy things set up, I get a little note in my box to bring it to room such-n-such. [Have you ever spoken with any one about this?] I brought it up once and the principal just dismissed it as whining. I got the impression that I was supposed to feel special, needed.
In addition to "strength" issues, males are often expected to be the disciplinarians on campus and find that they have a disproportionate number of "problem" students in their classroom. This is very closely associated with the "male role model" issue presented above. Both Bill and Jake tell us similar stories.

[Bill] I think that there have been, at this school anyway. I feel like I've been given more difficult children, behaviorally, because I feel that feelings about me at school are that I'll deal with them & I won't give up on them & because I'm a male, I'll be more effective with them. I don't have anything to prove that, but I sense it because of the kids I've received & the class make-up I've received as compared to other class make-ups. So, I feel that that is a different expectation because I'm a male.
[Jake] Whenever a kid comes along who's more troublesome than usual, either I or Frank are asked to have him in our class. [Do you and Frank teach the same grade?] No, Frank teaches sixth, I teach third. I asked the principal once why she wanted to put a particular kid in my room and she told me he would push a female teacher around. These kids are only ten. I told her I didn't really look forward to a career as a warden. She told me to get used to it because it is accepted practice to have male teachers handle aggressive kids.

The scrutiny issue presented above was also manifested through a division of labor. Sometimes this was overt, as with Mark, a first grade teacher but more often it was more subtle such as with Chuck, a fifth grade teacher.

[Mark] I had the strangest thing happen to me. I had a little girl who was getting picked on until she broke down and cried. I took her aside and wiped her tears and talked to her for a while until she felt better. Later in the day, one of the other teachers came in and asked me about the girl. When I told her what happened, she told me she had better take the girl out and talk to her to make sure she was OK. I was really insulted by that. She wouldn't have gone into a female teacher's classroom and taken the girl out. I wish I had told her to mind her own business, but I didn't dare. I feel like any special relationship that the girl and I had is shot.

[Chuck] It just irks me that my duties are limited by my sex. I'm perfectly willing to take my turn watching over the athletic field but once in a while I'd like to be in contact with the girls and learning more about how they interact. It's important to me as a teacher to relate to the students a lot of different ways.

Two aspects of these, and other similar narratives, were particularly fascinating for me. First each of the teachers above had, early in the interview, told me that there were no tasks that were done more by one gender than the other. This was in response to the prompt, "Describe any teaching activities that are done more by one sex than the other or that are done differently by one compared to the other." Second, these men all stated that they did not "dare" to protest the situation. This point will be discussed below.

Promotions

Male teachers frequently receive unsolicited information alluding to their appropriateness for administrative positions, special teaching assignments, or teaching at a higher grade level. This happens most frequently in the early stages of their training when they are treated to a kind of "tracking" similar to what we find happening to girls and minority males in high school career counseling. Here I only want to give voice to Allen and Dwight and follow up below in the sections dedicated to ideas about increasing the number of males in teaching and appraising the "culture" in which male teachers operate.

[Allen] I take college courses in art, music and other subjects just to round myself out for the kids. I'm always learning something new to bring in and have fun with. The story around the school is that I must be trying to get promoted by taking more units. I can't believe that they won't accept the fact I just love teaching.

[Dwight] The district office and the county send out employment opportunity flyers whenever there's an open position for guidance or something. It seems they never forget to mention to the men when there's an opening. It's like we probably don't really like teaching and can hardly wait to get out. It almost feels like they're saying we should get out.

Jim Allan (1993) writes that, because of their minority status, males may be very aware of others' attention to their maleness. Allan proposes that possibly men have two options. They can align with male principals and administrators because of their maleness, but then they will be in conflict with their female coworkers. Christine Williams (1991) argues that this is exactly what male teachers do and so enjoy a hidden advantage that she terms "the glass escalator." On the other hand, male teachers can form allegiances with their female peers and run the risk of being seen as deviant males (unreliable, homosexual, pedophile) by male administrators. There are two problems with these perspectives. First, there appear to be other important actors who would also see the men as deviant such as the female peers themselves, the students, significant people in the males' lives, and the general public including the parents of the students. Second, it is becoming less common for the males at this level to have a male principal.

More male teachers

Allan (1993) tells us there is a "preference" for hiring males on the part of some schools. He says this preferential hiring has three bases: a commitment to affirmative action; a desire on the part of male principals for male companionship; and the public's demand for more male models in the class room. None of the teachers I interviewed fully agreed with this assessment. Although many of them told me that they had heard many positive things from the teaching community and the public about how good it is to have male role models, their lived experiences leave them with the reality that there has been no significant increase in the number of males in primary teaching. While most of the men I interviewed confirmed that they have certainly encountered positive and optimistic rhetoric from administrators regarding some form of "affirmative action," they could not recount any instances where the result was more males being hired. The idea that male principals would prefer to hire men in order to enjoy male companionship did not resonate well with most of these teachers' experiences. First, the majority of these men were hired by schools with female principals. Second, over half the men whose principals were males denied any real contact with the principal and believed that the principals came from a secondary school background rather than elementary school. Most of my participants saw principalship as being an entirely different occupational area from teaching and were more likely to view the teacher/administrator relationship in employee/employer terms rather than as a friendship or mentorship arrangement. None of the participants named the principal as their mentor, but instead identified another teacher, usually female.
When I asked the men in my project to tell me how they would go about increasing the number of men in teaching, I was surprised to find that four felt it would be a mistake to actively do so. Their concern was that any attempt to bring more men into the field would necessarily tap into a population of men who would be detrimental to teaching in general, and the position of males in particular. In sum, these men felt that there was a kind of self-selection already taking place that was providing the profession with only those men who were clearly cut out to teach. These men were quick to point out that this apprehension was not confined to men, but that any program that creates a wave of hiring brings inferior teachers into the profession. They felt it was more likely that the incidence of problem teachers would occur with males, however, since the problems would be likely to occur in non-teaching areas such as molestation.
The majority of the participants stated that increasing the number of males was a worthwhile project. Eleven out of fourteen were very excited about the prospect while the other three seemed ambivalent. Four of them focused on changing the attitude of males regarding the teaching profession. The remainder were fairly evenly divided between the need to change the image of elementary teaching and the need to change teacher education processes. Most agreed that increasing teachers' pay would have some effect, but then go on, as with Keith, to expand on their ideas.

Uh, I think probably the quickest and easiest way that you could get males into education is ((chuckle)) well, pay them as much as you pay an accountant or somebody with an MBA. [later, regarding high school curriculum] Something like that, that is a parenting component where they you know, they get some awareness of what it's like to be a parent. [Yes] So that those who find that they have the proclivity to really want to work with children um, can learn so early, early on. 'Cause we encourage it in girls. Oh girls, oh yeah, they babysat, they became camp counselors, they've taught Sunday school. Guys, what have you done? Oh yeah, well I was on football team and I was a you know. We've separated them early on. We've got to change the way we socialize kids.

Fred, a fifty year old fifth grade teacher, and John, a kindergarten teacher, each feel that the answer lies in the way we assign child rearing tasks. While Fred focuses on the institutionalized practices of teacher education, John, like Keith, above, goes further back into the way we socialize girls and boys in elementary and secondary school.

[Fred] If I were king, I would wipe out every school of education & every university & start over because I think it starts there. When someone enters a school of education & they start looking at their career choices I think they're guided, men, I think the bias starts there. Guiding these guys deliberately into & away. Because I've talked to & had student teachers and they were given no encouragement when they went through the university system. They were given no opportunity or direction to say "Hey maybe that's an option". ...change entirely how, when they start education courses & educational methodology at the university level to let these guys immerse themselves just as much with an approach to elementary schools as the high schools.

[John] I think I would try to get guys in to experience the classroom. Even before that, let them, as kids, play parent. Like in my class room, everyone gets encouraged to take care of little children and to take care of the home. It's real hard to find picture books that even show males taking care of the family, you know? Except as the breadwinner.

The image of teaching as "women's work" is a theme that pervades almost all the conversations I've had with male teachers, regardless of the specific topic under discussion. Fred, Dave, and Eduardo exemplify the results of applying the image to the issue of increasing the number of males who teach.

I think first you have to destroy the stereotype that only women are good with younger children.

I think they have to dispel the, the myth of the school (marm) type thing. You know, I think, I think, people have that pre-conceived notion that, that, that's sort of how you're supposed to be doing it. That, that, that women are supposed to be teaching little kids.

We need more images of men with little children. It's getting a little better. You know, we're seeing more ads where Dad is taking care of the baby and such. But most of the time the message is that Dad's incompetent, that men aren't going to get it right. I always watch the screen really close when a story comes on about teachers or parents, and it's almost always women. They [advertisers] have actresses playing the part of construction workers and fighter pilots so that girls will have role models, why not men as teachers and single parents. I'm a single Dad.

Are we, as Freidus (1990) implies, continuing to live a self-fulfilling prophecy about women's work and men's work? Robinson (1990) suggests that some of the most interesting applications of gender studies are those that propose how problematic maleness and masculinity are in a highly gendered social and intellectual context. It is possible that those who choose to defy the usual world of gendered occupations have considered the ramifications and risks and are willing to share their experiences with others.

Summary: The Absent Presence

Levine (1978) talks about occupational segregation working two ways and "norms of manliness" acting as a psychological barrier to keep men out of traditional female work. This may not go far enough. By focusing only on the psychological barriers it overlooks the possibility of real, material barriers that males face. Williams (1989) poses the idea that women in men's work have to deal with the apparent threat they pose to others while men in women's work must deal with the apparent identity crisis that ensues. Citing Chodorow (1978), she tells us that problems of gender for women are an external issue while for men they are internal. The question this begs is: where would men obtain information that threatens their identity? By saying that there are no real assaults upon men who try to cross over, we may be inadvertently closing off communication with those who would like to tell us about the assaults they experience. There is ample evidence in the research regarding male day care providers to show that much of what they suffer through is external (Cohen, 1990). Ayers (1986) and Baker and Collier (1992) also found that accusations and suspicions of abuse were the primary problem of male day care workers. Levine discovered that people were limited (in their frame of reference) to think about men and children only through models of fatherhood. Thomas Laqueur (1992) would tell us that the model of fatherhood is not exactly a positive image when compared with that of motherhood.
The men in my study often expressed their perceptions of others' expectations about masculinity in the teaching profession. These perceptions, in turn, partly shape how these men behave, justify their behaviors, and negotiate masculinity. Thorne (1993) tells us that these perceptions shape the way that these men "do gender".
Almost every teacher expressed in some fashion the idea that he had not spoken to anyone about some of the things he had told to me. Often this was couched in terms of being afraid of their comments being misunderstood, such as with Adam, who expressed discontent over having to comply more with chaperone rules than his female peers.

There's really no discussing this with anyone. They respond with an attitude of "you really should know this by now" and that kinda cuts off any further conversation or negotiation. That's just the way it is

Frank, a third grade teacher and Eduardo, the third/fourth grade teacher who expressed frank anger over being scrutinized for breaking the touching rules that his female partners seem to ignore with impunity,

[Frank] I feel I'm less capable of understanding the girls because I've got limited contact with them. I don't think I've ever expressed that before. [Why is that?] Well think about how it sounds, a male complaining about not getting enough time with the little girls. There's no one to complain to.

[Eduardo] I haven't told this to anyone but my wife. I don't dare to complain to anyone about the issue. I mean, the only ones I think would support me are those who are technically breaking the rules by doing too much touching. I don't want to cause them trouble. I just want to be able to teach the same way they do. But I can't go in and demand the right to touch kids more.

A more critical problem may be the fact that these men have few connections with other men in the profession. This limited contact with others who might share their experiences and concerns leaves men without the means to furmulate ways to express themselves.

[Keith] There are, actually we have, for the, for the um, proportion of the teachers that we have here, we do have quite a few males. There uh, two are in third grade, the two third grade teachers are both males. F-fourth grade, no. Fifth grade, there's one. So there's three other male teachers and myself. So there's four. And then we have a resource specialist in this year who's new who's a male. So that's five if you consider him. He's not really a classroom teacher, he's more of a pull-out, special program. [Yes] Um, so there's four classroom teachers out of uh, like twelve or thirteen classrooms, so a third of the teachers are... [That's very high] It is high. I mean, especially since uh, lately I, I, I talking about transferring to another school. And I said, well, you know, what's it like there and they said, there, there are no men, none. No male teachers in that school and there's like 23 teachers. So I thought uh, I don't know if I could do that. [Why?] I don't think I would want to be the only male. I get along well with women, but you know, it's kinda like... I like the diversity. I don't want to be the token male.

[Norman] Sometimes I think I kind of miss that -- that I don't have a group of guys that I can hang out with. But, you know basically I kind of just go out, do my thing at school & then get myself back to the beach as fast as possible.

[Dave] more and more, I've gotten away from going the um, the social aspect of, of interacting with my peers. When I first starting working there, and this is interesting because it goes right with your theory, er, not your theory, but your theorem. Um, when I first starting there, there was about five, there was five male teachers. And now, I was the only one for a couple years, and now there's one other guy, but I hardly ever see him 'cause he's in kindergarten. He's a kindergarten teacher so I hardly ever see him.

They lack a vocabulary that allows them to communicate some of their experiences to others. I was taken with many of their struggles to find the right words to express how they perceive their situation. Several of the participants expressed to me that this isolation was a determining factor when deciding to take part in the interview.

[Norman] Oh, I just think that when you told me about your project I was really fascinated & I definitely would be interested in reading it. I'd be interested to see how other people that are kind of doing the same job as me are answering the questions or what you kind of hope it does. It's kind of neat. I always wonder if other guys are handling...are going through, you know, are having the same...the same, uh experiences that I am.

[Mike] Well, you know, I think that it's really, wh-, that, wha-, what made me want to talk to you, not made me want to talk to you, but when I got your letter, just the whole idea of males in education and the things that go on, the reverse um, [...] ((little sigh)) I want to call, it's a reversal of roles. Um, when it's a predominantly female situation... Um, things that, that we, things that nowadays go on in the workplace that if it was male-oriented or male-dominated, and it happened, that women would immediately go sexual harassment, or duh-duh-duh-duh. Those things happen in teaching, but because it's the males, we don't jump up and go sexual harassment.

[Fred] Well, yes, it's very interesting because this has gone on the last 2 weeks. I walked into the teacher's lounge, & about 4 of them were sitting there, nice hot & heavy & they turned & stopped & we know each other well enough that we can tell off-color jokes to each other, among some of us, & without fear of being accused of sexual harassment & this sort of thing. But, they saw me & they sort of gave me this look & I laughed & I said "Oh, gynecological time, should I leave"? And, they said "yes". So, I'm excluded their, whatever it might be, about sex or their female functions, they very pointedly, twice now in two weeks have said "we have been having a good discussion & you need to get out of here"! You know, the lounge is the only place we can go to get away and relax for a bit, and now I don't feel welcome.

[Roger] Here's, here's, here's a prime example. Um, we have a workroom, and uh, in the uh, in our area in there, and um, I may have a copy of it in my briefcase, I'll look real quick here. Um, one of the gals came in and posted um, a list of, of uh, perceived male um, things that happen ((chuckle)) and it was called seminar to males, or seminars for males, and it was uh, it was uh, tongue-in-cheek situation about these seminars that they were gonna put on, that would be put on to help men get over these things that they do in, in relationships. And that's what it was. When it was put up there, it was tongue-in-cheek, but when I saw it, I looked at and went, what is this doing on the teachers' bulletin board in the teacher's workroom? But I couldn't complain to anyone.

[Chuck] And um, as a male, and if women are having, are, are not getting along with with their husbands real well, and their husband's kind of jerking them around a little bit, they'll come into work sometimes and kinda bash on you a little bit because you're a male and so you just become not so much the, the teacher that they work with, but just a male to direct their anger towards. So, there's a lot of things that go on in education because it's predominantly female, where the roles are reversed.

Jill Nelson, (1993) describes a corporate culture in which people can feel various levels of discomfort because of being different or because they experience some form of internal contradiction or "bind". It's clear from some of the comments that male teachers are often made to feel uncomfortable and that this discomfort is what Nelson would call "cross-gender" discomfort. The "casual segregation" that takes place is sometimes a product of the under-representation of males and sometimes it is a result of the purposive activities of others. It's also clear that many of the men feel they are caught in the classic gender bind that is usually associated with women working in predominately male occupations. They feel they have to represent teaching on one hand and males on the other.
Hansot and Tyack (1988) argue that it is often more useful to focus on an institution's policies and practices, rather than focusing on individuals when we are interested in determining the salience of gender. But they caution that the policies and practices may be implicitly gendered even it explicitly gender-blind, because the practices are so deeply imbedded in the institution and have gone for so long unquestioned, and, I would argue, because males are not sensitized to seeing gender as a phenomenon that influences their daily lives. By listening carefully to men's narratives, it is apparent that gender is indeed present as an organizing structure in the lives of male elementary school teachers even though they, themselves, often attest to its absence.

V. IMPLICATIONS

The more we know about those people who live their lives in gender atypical ways, the more information we will have that provides us with alternatives to the existing gender order. We can learn much from the daily experiences of men and women who live their lives in ways counter to traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity. While they may not articulate any strategy for actively dismantling the gender order, they often reveal their efforts to negotiate through a variety of socially constructed expectations while continuously reconstructing their masculinities or femininities. The more information we have and share regarding the multiple ways of being male and female that exist in our society, the closer we become to disassembling the dichotomy of gender itself. I suggest that having men do women's work would contribute to the larger project of disassembling gender as a powerful organizing force. For me, this is not always a question of inducing or compelling men to cross over. It is also likely that, in some instances, we must allow and assist them in doing so.

Paul Sargent  ©2001
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