Episode 23: The Curious Case of Gender in Educational Leadership

Real Talk Intervention

In the midst of our wider, cultural conversation about women, and power, and leadership, and power, let us pause for a moment to consider the quite curious case of gender in education.

Of course, education is an historically female driven profession - for much of the last century it was, in fact, one of the few jobs a woman could even realistically perform. That history continues to influence our profession today. 76% of classroom teachers remain women.

As women slowly take on larger and larger roles in industries all over this country, education sits as an - actually rather large - island. An experiment if you will, of sorts - an enormous, functioning machine - a bureaucracy, a power structure - inhabited almost exclusively by women.

The lazy among us often joke how the world would be different, how much better it would be, if it could be run by women.

Well, education gives us a glimpse into what that world might actually be like.

And apparently we'd just give control over to the men?

The gender inequity that exists in all other power structures in this country, continues in education. A mere 13% of superintendents are women, and surprise, they're paid demonstrably less than male superintendents, and hardly half of our administration are female.

The statistics are hardly worse than the rest of the country, true, but ... isn't it just somehow even more appalling in 2018? This World War 1 factory floor filled with female workers, while the men look down hardly seems aspirational.

But what, exactly, is perpetuating this inequity?

In our podcast here we discuss societal messages to women leaders - Lean In, ask for a seat at the table, be assertive - and how those messages, and those leadership behaviors, may be keeping you from succeeding, in, not only a female-dominated workforce, but with male leaders used to a female dominated workforce.
Listen to the podcast here or find us on iTunes and subscribe.

If you're a teacher, a teacher-leader, or an aspiring teacher-leader, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Discussed in depth is Adam Grant's book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. His TED talk on Givers and Takers will get you thinking.