Schools institutionally sexist?

[RobynNora]

Would be interested to know what people think of this, whether this aligns other's experience and if it bothers you on a day-to-day basis or not?

I was just reading an online chat about the asymmetries of 'Sir' and 'Miss' as titles in schools. Sir having much stronger connotations than Miss, which is a hangup from when women teachers were young and quit when they married. It's been discussed here before.

Someone else commented that people in the corporate world tend not to use marital titles, while most schools still use them, which seems outdated. And that in many schools, nobody uses the gender neutral Ms - especially at primary. Instead, the kids are effectively told which teachers are married or not, while all the men get to be gender neutral. Unfair!

I'm not fussed which titles people use in real life, but in a professional setting, isn't it weird to still use married titles? Won't very small kids think it's important to know if women are married or not and unimportant to know if a man is married or not?

What's more, the senior leadership team at our local primary is entirely male. Most classroom teachers are women. All the cleaners and catering staff without exception are women. It's never commented upon and I sometimes wonder if people don't see it.

Just had an even better thought. Let’s make all male teachers be Master X or Mr X at work so we know if they’re married or not too! Least it’s fair then.

It’s not the kids you need to worry about judging teachers on marital status. If you’re a Miss, you’re certainly treated more condescendingly by the mums at parents evenings.

I completely agree that Sir vs Miss is completely wrong, but I’ve struggled to think of a suitable alternative (I’m not a fan of Ms, but it’s not the marital status part that grates on me, but the parity in status). I have considered getting a PhD so I can be doctor 🙂

It’s more that the default for men is Mr while the default for women is Miss/Mrs, which sends a message that we should care whether or not a female teacher is married while nobody cares whether a male teacher is married

But it's not the default imo. It's just a matter of choice. I call myself Mrs at school because... well... that's my name. There would be nothing at all preventing me from being called Ms or using my maiden name if I wanted to, but I don't.

The only reason schools seem a bit more old-fashioned in this regard is surely because in most other kinds of workplace you use first names, so calling people Mr Miss or Mrs doesn't really apply. That doesn't make schools sexist.

I was miss and came back from mat leave (unmarried still) and school renamed me ms without asking!

It’s not the kids you need to worry about judging teachers on marital status. If you’re a Miss, you’re certainly treated more condescendingly by the mums at parents evenings.

Really? I've never experienced that. But I've certainly seen sexist attitudes from students towards female teachers. Nothing to do with their marital status though. Just to do with them being female.

@MrsTerryPratchett

I hear that about social space but I then think lost lessons are more suited to girls, and the boys struggle more

My local comp uses sir and ma'am. I worked briefly in Denmark and it was unusual there for the students to know the teachers surnames, they were known by their first names.

I personally think schools should get rid of titles completely. You can respect someone and still call them by their first name (no one calls their boss Mr / Ms / Sir etc, except the Army I guess). My DS have just started a 14+ college placement for year 10&11. All staff are called by their first name.

I have to say that for our primary, there are several male teachers (non SLT) teaching from reception up to year 6 and a few male TA’s. I’m not sure about the lunch staff as I’ve never been in to see those. SLT are 75% woman, including the head. Thinking about it now though, we only have white staff, I can’t think of a single non white member of staff of any level.

We have Mrs/ Miss/ Ms variations at school, currently no men on staff but in the past they have always been Mr. My class call me Miss/Mrs Louisiana which is fine, I answer to both (plus Mum from time to time!). DH has the same but also at least one Mx at his school.

Far more annoying IMO are the teachers who call you Miss in front of the children. DH (secondary teacher) does this, even when he has visited my school in a professional capacity. I have a name, please use it! FWIW I refer to colleagues as Title Name or FirstName, the children are able to recognise that we have first names too!

DS (14) calls all his teachers miss or mr. He doesn't care if they are mrs.

School is definitely sexist though - there was a great programme a few years ago where they showed that the teachers in primary were giving a lot more attention to the boys than the girls and when they complimented girls it was for outcome not effort.

Can't remember what it was called but maybe someone else will.

I prefer the US "Ma'am" to Miss.

A private school near me uses sir/M'am.

I'd rather be miss. M'am is...shudder. I feel lucky to be at a middle school with good behaviour all round, and am often called miss. Just miss.
As long as it's respectful I don't mind. The students are there to learn, not scaffold my self perception.

Having a DD at a girls school and one at a co-ed, the co-ed is definitely skewed towards boys in terms of uniform (all wearing ties - which woman ever has to wear a tie for her job?) and in terms of strict discipline. Girls are not angels but they are certainly less disruptive and better behaved generally and don't require a disciplinarian environment. In all girls schools, girls are much more likely to choose to carry on with subjects that are traditionally dominated by boys. I found at school that boys dominated lessons in general, were disruptive and showed off, so demanded a lot more of the teacher's attention.

@Hardybloodyhar I see your points but I think it relates to status. If we call all men Sir and all women Miss (which also happens to be an address term for a young female child) will they receive a tiny, subtle but sexist message that men are more important than women?

This makes for interesting and slightly sad reading.

www.tes.com/news/male-teachers-twice-likely-want-headteacher-job-careers-schools-education

ps I am a Ms at my primary school and there are a few others 💪

So interesting about ties @ElftonWednesday.

I’m with you on ma’am. There’s more authority there, perhaps because it sounds more suited to an older women. It sounds equal to sir

@MsJuniper

ps I am a Ms at my primary school and there are a few others 💪

💪🏻 💪🏻

[quote RobynNora]@Hardybloodyhar I see your points but I think it relates to status. If we call all men Sir and all women Miss (which also happens to be an address term for a young female child) will they receive a tiny, subtle but sexist message that men are more important than women?[/quote]
Possibly. Although I am still the authority in the classroom.
I do refer the boys to a male teacher as escalation for classroom sexual harrassment as it's important they see that this behaviour is considered unacceptable by other men.
The contempt they are met with when they have to 'repeat what you said to sharneigh to Mr Smith'. Doesn't sound so funny now does it? I think it hits the right note.

@AICM

LoveGroove

What has been suggested is a way of stopping children knowing the relationship status of teachers. My idea is no more or less stupid than any other on this thread.

It’s not about keeping marital status a secret, and I’m going to be charitable give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you know this, but are being obtuse.

It’s about the double standard whereby the title men go by has nothing to do with their martial status (because who cares?), whereas the title women go by is wholly determined by exactly that.

As a primary Head Teacher i’m quite surprised that ‘Sir’ is still being used. I have 8 male members of staff in my school and none of them have ever used that. In addition my SLT is a complete mixture including 2 x male teachers and 2 x female staff and then myself.

Few things
Teachers choose themselves if they want to change their name after marriage. Some arrive back after wedding calling themselves Mrs while others go their whole career never
changing. And if they want to use Ms that's fine too.
Some posters are saying boys take up more attention etc but l see in my experience that a lot of education has become more geared towards how girls mainly learn. Boys like to move around more and do hands on stuff and there is often less opportunity for that. A lot of praise and encouragement goes to the girls for things they often enjoy doing eg keeping neat copies and nice handwriting. My dd adored all that and now so does my gd. ( not all girls obviously) while there is not the same respect for stuff guys often like eg taking stuff apart and putting it back together. As a lot of primary teachers are female l notice some teach as they would like to learn and the lack of male teachers up through the school can cause an imbalance. A lot of boys get disillusioned with education as see no place for them in it.
Also on the leadership aspect l have spoken to Secondary School students on my career as a teacher and girls ask questions like
Is the study very difficult or is it difficult to gain entry to the course
Boys ask
What is the starting salary?
And how soon can you become a principal?
Every year!! They both are looking at their careers in a different way.
So l think we need to look at both aspects of education and ask ourselves if both sides are getting a fair shot.

In our secondary all female teachers are called "Miss" even when they are married. Even other teachers sometimes refer to them as Miss with no surname. Eg "Go and speak to Miss about it"

My mum was a teacher and being called Miss used to infuriate her, she used to correct them "My name is Mrs Surname". So I find it weird that all these (mostly married) teachers are referred to as Miss. The kids certainly know they are married though as there several sets of husband's and wives working in the same school.

On that front, in one of the couples working in our school, the wife is on the SLT and the husband is just a regular teacher. In primary I'd say nearly all the staff including SLT tend to be female but in secondary it probably still tends towards a male bias (maybe to do with women being more likely to take time out of a career for childcare reasons).

I do think Sir is more respectful than Miss though. The equivalent to Sir is actually Madam isn't it? But never really used, certainly not in schools.

@HTPri that's really encouraging! I hope your school is in our catchment.