Grace Sullivan. Gender Bias in Society and Education

History and Background

Bias is a term many people have heard throughout their life but what exactly does it mean? How does it get defined when gender is involved? According to the American Psychological Association gender bias can be defined as “any one of a variety of stereotypical beliefs or biases about individuals on the basis of their gender.” The APA touches on how this can be seen often linguistically through phrases such as “physicians and their wives” instead of “physicians and their partners.”

Gender bias is often thought of in terms of household duties. For example, when a woman is pictured doing a job she is often at home, cleaning, taking care of the children, teaching, etc. When a man is pictured doing a job he is at an office, a construction site, a farm, etc. Hardly ever are men thought of being in a teacher or nurturing role or women thought of being lawyers, architects or some type of leadership role.

The gender bias that is seen through society and especially in education has drastically shaped the roles and paths we see men and women go down. Education is a career path that is primarily dominated by women. Education on a university level experiences gender bias in majors constantly and most often has male professors. Why do men jump straight to a professor role in education compared to an elementary education role? Do men experience gender bias when they do try to break into this path? Do women experience gender bias when they go down a male-dominated career path? 

According to Zipdo, teachers are 77% female, boys are 30% more likely to fail school, 57% of male high school graduates are STEM compared to 42% females and the list goes on and on.

Gender bias in education exists on both sides. Society conditions males and females from a young age to how roles in the world should be played. Females are encouraged to be nurturing and go after careers like teaching or nursing. Males are encouraged to pursue careers in science and math, typical leadership roles. It appears that both genders are to fit into the roles society wants when it comes to education.

Insight and Experience at Mississippi State University

According to the Office of Civil Rights Compliance, Mississippi State University does not participate in discrimination, especially gender bias and is “an equal opportunity institution.” Gender bias at the university level is prohibited by the law. While Mississippi State does indeed provided equal opportunities for all in education that does not mean the bias is not still occurring due to societal expectations.

Research.com reports that in a typical male-dominated field such as engineering there are 89 males compared to 6 females while in a female-dominated field such as education we see 256 females compared to 66 males. 

Mackenzie Jolly, a senior special education major from Flowery Branch, Georgia, has experienced firsthand how men, because they are not typically in lower education, can be favored over women in a female-dominated field.

“Within my major I would say I've experienced it. As a sped major, there's not many men that choose that so when there is a man they tend to get favored. They tend to get favored when they are there, either by professors or students, because there's just not many of them so they naturally will gravitate towards them and either get favoritism from the professors or the students will just love them even more because there is a man,” Jolly said.

When men do break into a female-dominated field they are embraced. However, when women try to do so they are not met with the same adoration and favoritism. Izzy Hultgren, a senior kinesiology major from Spring Hill, Tennessee, often finds herself surrounded by males in her classes. Hultgren remembers a specific moment in a neuro mechanics lab where she was disincluded in a conversation because the topic was sports, something a female is not typically interested in.

“They were just talking innocently enough about like, I think it was like Super Bowl last year. And they just automatically assumed, or at least that was the vibe I got, they automatically assumed that I wasn't aware of the Super Bowl or what goes on, things like that. So I wasn't included in the conversation, which football is not my sport, but like they just kind of like assumed and I'm guessing it's because of the way I look and probably because I'm a girl which sucks because I would have loved to be like included in that conversation but I wasn't,” Hultgren said.

Dr. Daniel Gadke, the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education, contributes the pattern we see in education and society to how history has played out but is not something that we are forced to stay in.

“I would hope that kind of in any place as new patterns emerge that it's a pattern that looks more equitable, you know, what I mean and diverse. And so I think any institution that is trying to like maintain, grow or do a better job is creating space for that across the board, and a variety of facets, so yeah, hopefully that's transparent at a university but yeah,” Gadke said.

While society has naturally provided this gender bias in education it can also be the reason the bias stops. Awareness of a situation is the first step towards change. Dr. Janice Nicholson, the Department Head of Teacher Education and Leadership, believes that awareness truly is that first step to changing gender bias and creating a more equitable system in both education and society.

“We're not, things aren’t equal so let's do something about it. And then you go back to I guess one of the overreaching things about gender equity goes back to title nine and athletics. That's kind of the landmark of we gotta have equal opportunities in athletics for both males and females. And I think if we put as much emphasis on other things, we can make some things happen but it all boils down to what's important,” Nicholson said.

Just because gender bias in society and education has existed for hundreds of years does not mean it is all the same. There has been improvement over time but as Nicholson stated, we can take the steps towards truly working on eradicating gender bias alltogether.

Email me at mgs393@msstate.edu with any questions.

View our Sources.