'Yeah, the boys are .... powering' Charlie (not her real name) says to me in a group chat during remote learning this week. The ellipsis is telling, and she's done it purposefully, in a good humoured way. Boys are many things at this age. At sixteen and seventeen they can be smelly too, and best kept at a distance because they can also be annoying. Girls do mature a little faster, and learn that boys can also be quite distracting.
I have the luck to have a bright class this year. For the most part, they are at a higher standard than I'd expect at the beginning of Year 11. They are not scared to take risks, to engage in intelligent group discussion, and communicate with me like we're all adults in this learning journey together. I fell in love with them in the first class, if not the first 15 minutes - they were personable, funny and warm.
But as usual, the boys were the show stealers, the vocal ones, the ones who would drown out the smaller voices in the class. The girls simply didn't fight - don't fight - for this vocal space. And if they do talk, which some will, the boys voices soon drown them out, almost speaking over the top of them to assert dominance. It's not malicious, just boisterous, and symptomatic of a social demographic - and cultural - that allows this. The girls often give up and don't fight for their space. They shrug and ignore it, see it as the norm, roll their eyes. But it bothers me. What happens next?
I think about how this becomes the well practiced social norm. It feels as if it fits the stereotype. Boys are loud, girls are quiet. Boys grab the floor and hold it. They appear to have a lot more social power than girls, and this carries through their lifetime. According to some studies, female bosses are more often interrupted by male subordinates, and hold the floor more (if they can get it at all) and their points are not taken as seriously. In this context, it's easy to understand why we see woman as powerless victimes and men as undermining, excluding and demeaning. Now my boys don't mean to behave this way - they're generally polite and raised with equality as a cultural and social value. But they're also socialised to be dominant. Gender identity starts young.
How interesting I find the social stereotype that woman are more talkative when I see the opposite in a classroom discussion situation. The stereotype boys are more competitive seems to ring more true to me - this plays out as they fight for attention in the classroom space. Girls seem to read things a little better and learn when it is best to keep quiet (there's no point as I will be shouted down, I'll ask a question later when I can get her one on one).
But I'm just as much to blame for this behaviour. It's really common for teachers to pay more attention to the voice that's the loudest. Ask a question, and you're hardly going to ignore the voice that's shouted out. Sometimes you're just so grateful for any incisive comment you don't care that it's from the same group of students (in my case, boys) all the time. Boys are pretty darn good at getting attention.
It's also hard to generalise and come up with a firm solution as there are so many factors involved in addressing this. It also varies culture to culture, country to country. For example, in some countries co-peration is a culture value, and competition is not. That might be the kind of classroom that is more considerate in class discussion. Some classes might have quieter boys, because girls are known to be talkative, so speaking up might be seen as 'too girly'. A discussion in an English classroom might look different to one in a Physics class.
But I want to know to what extent am I co-constructing a culture that disallows woman's voices. Am I providing all of my students with the equal opportunity I would expect in any social situation or in any workplace I participated in? And if you're a parent, education obviously starts at home and for home edders, continues there. How do YOU create space for equality? Are you concious of what you might allow a boy and not a girl, or vice verse? What do you do to address it? And if you are a male teacher or parent, how important is this to you? What are you teaching your boys and girls?
I may be in institutionalised education, but I still like to think I am unschooling mainstream narratives even in small ways. How do I play a part in subverting gender norms? How do I hold space for all genders, equally?
When I look at my own practice, I do - I raise discussion points and then pointedly look at the girls for a response, reprimanding the boy for calling out (or the girl, for that matter, before the men in the room get narky at me here) and praising the 'hand up'. I encourage co-operation over competition. I celebrate and congratulate more considerate behaviour. And at times, I have those hard and uncomfortable conversations with these students about the impact of their behaviour and, restorative justice in mind, lead them to consider how it might feel to be silenced, to be interrupted, to be spoken over the top of.
We've create a little girls only safe space in Teams, almost against my better judgement because I feel uncomfortable about dividing along gender lines. Solidarity and support in a safe space seems to be in order: if you want to talk, girls, you can here. It's not ideal, and this year I'm setting firmer goals for myself and the students for how to be considerate, and how to hold space for each other's viewpoints and ideas.
Wish me luck. Advice welcomed.
You've really got me thinking now. Having two girls, I can't really say anything on seeing a gender difference in the louder and quieter ones. I'm sure you can guess that my eldest talked the most and often talked over her sister. I'd would have to bring to her attention that her sister was talking and she genuinely didn't realise. Her sister wasn't the only person she talked over. Their father is the same. I'm also reminded of what you told me about your boy being so quiet and you trying to make sure he had the opportunity to have his say.
Now I'm thinking back to school and I can't really say if the boys talked over me any more than the girls. I'm quiet, so I'm used to it. Thinking about it, generally we would put our hands up to answer questions, so the louder ones would probably be the ones bouncing in their chair to get the teacher's attention! 😆 It was a different generation then, though.
It does seem to be in girls' natures to be more docile, but is that nature or nurture? Deep voices also carry better than higher pitched voices, making it easier for boys to be heard over girls once their voices have dropped. I wonder if later developing boys find themselves drowned out too. 🤔
I wonder how effective the occasional reminder would be to your boys to give everyone a chance to be heard would be. It may also make the girls feel a bit more empowered.
What subject do you teach?
That's the ongoing question. I was reading literature yesterday that suggested girls might be docile because they read the social cues that suggest it is more considerate to not shout anyone else down. But again, that's socio-cultural, not necessarily genetic. There's plenty of examples where woman are NOT docile, and certainly historically, woman have been just has capable as men in all areas. I agree that it can depend on the person - there are always exceptions in even the classroom - and it can very much dependent on the demographic. Certainly the boys at my school are for the most part outspoken, confident, dominant - but by no means ALL of them.
So then it comes down to this: everyone must be respectful of everybody, regardless of any identifiers such as race, gender or ability. Job done.
I teach English.
Don't I know it!
Principals to live by!
I’m now about to admit that have utterly succumbed to the gender norm ideals. When you said your boys were loud in the lessons, I kind of expected you to say you taught something like science. English wasn't a subject any of the males I grew up around had enough enthusiasm to talk over others for. So either we are moving away from gender norms enough for them to not be worried about gender and subject pairing, or you're just an amazing teacher who gets everyone enthused. I'm suspecting the latter or both of the above. I'm also wishing I had an English teacher like you, instead of a scary, angry little Welshman.
Hard yes on the gender norms being indoctrinated young. Coming from my perspective as a trans man, sometimes I look back at my youth and think, "wow, I should have realized sooner," lol, because I just defied so many gender norms. I mean, not all of them - I'm totally crafty in that I like knitting and sewing and things like that and those are generally considered "girly" in our culture - but HOO BOY was I NOT quiet and docile. I was really outspoken and participated in class and other groups - but I will say that I wasn't the kid who didn't understand time and place. I wasn't the class clown who interrupted like so many boys were, but on the playground I let it all out, lol.
I had a guy friend at around the same age as your students, who thought that "men should open doors for women." I thought that whoever got to the door first opened it just to be polite, and only men doing it for only women was actually insulting. I had told him repeatedly that I hated when he did that and he refused to stop, so if he got to the door first, if there was more than one, I'd take the other door and ignore him making a grand gesture waving me in. If he had just let it be even, I wouldn't have minded, but he would race me to the door just so he could open it first. I told him that it isn't about "respecting me as a woman" if I, the (ostensibly) woman, told you I didn't like it. Respecting me would mean listening to me. He still didn't stop. I have a huge problem with those "manners" that are more like infantalizing insults and are forced even when the recipient of the supposed "respect" says they do not feel respected by it. I mean, if a lady likes it when a man opens a door for her or whatever, fine, her boyfriend can do it for her if it makes them happy. But that boyfriend should not assume that everyone in the world with a uterus feels the same and get his testicles in a bunch if they don't (which so many cis guys do).
@phoenixwren and @riverflows.
I always thought that you generally hold doors open so they don't hit the person behind you in the face. 😉 Also if someone has their arms full and are strugging to get through a door. Then there's those times where you open a door at the same time as someone the other side does and scare the crap out of each other! Then the one who has hold of the door usually keeps hold of it and let's the other through. So many reasons to hold a door open for someone, so why did another get added? 🤔
Personally I just humour men who go out of their way to do it, but I can imagine it must be particularly irksome when there's that other layer on top in that you didn't choose to have a female body and now that gender is being...I don't know...rubbed in your face?
Yeah it's the - everyone does it to be polite, that's how I am too. But occasionally there's that guy, like my friend in high school, who gets angry if someone they perceive to be female does it for them, and then you know that they aren't being polite to you when they do it, lol.
Man - the whole door opening thing! Gawd I hate it. There's only one thing worse than that and that's the hand in the small of the back. Get TO fuck off me! That's a hilarious story though - what an effort to prove a point! The fact he didn't listen tells all, doesn't it - it's hugely disrespectful of personhood let alone genderofanykindhood.
!ENGAGE 25
Exactly. Like I'm not going to get mad if someone just thinks they are being nice, but if you've talked about it and they've said that "men should do it for women" and you tell them "please don't do that" and they keep doing it? That's not respect! That's forcing what they want on somebody else.
I also will often say to cis guys who don't get it, "Okay. What if another man insisted on opening doors/hand on the back/standing when you stand/pulling out your chair for you? Would you feel respected? Would you like it?" They pretty vehemently say that that's insulting and they would be mad and might punch a guy. HEY YO THERE'S YOUR CLUE THAT IT ISN'T VERY NICE, IS IT? Sigh.
!ENGAGE 40
Hey, thanks for the Engage! I don't have enough to tip you back with them, so:
!BEER
Well have to work on that, then. 😉
View or trade
BEER.Hey @homeedders, here is a little bit of
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BEER.ENGAGEtokens.You're the kind of teacher I want more of in schools XD
It's not even in classrooms, I notice it happening just within my family where the boys (same reason, not malicious, just rambunctious and enthusiastic and boisterous and in the case of the younger one with adhd, an inability to wait and intensely feeling like everything is critically important because he knows he'll probably forget in the next minute) are constantly just talking over the top of my girl whenever there's a group conversation going on. She gets annoyed about it but usually does the same thing (rolls her eyes and shuts up, or if she's feeling particularly narky, yelling at them that she was talking.
Oldest is usually dumbfounded and youngest annoyed at getting yelled at "for no reason", they are so intent on what they want to contribute they literally don't realise they're riding roughshod over everyone else. Several years of countless reminders later they are getting better at pulling themselves up though so there is hope yet ;D
!ENGAGE 40
ENGAGEtokens.With how things are going so far, I know that our son is going to be the loud one that talks up the most in front of others. He already does that when my wife and I are having a conversation lol. I don't know if he will hit a classroom of that size for many years though, so it will be some time before we can figure that part out.
Having separate teams channels for the girls is in a way understandable but I get your perspective on that. You want the girls stating what they said in the girls-only channel, in the everyone channel instead of hiding it away from the boys. That's a challenge but I think with time you could probably foster a good relationship amongst the class to be fair and let everyone talk.
We are trying to teach our son the most we can as far as things not being gender specific or stereotypical. There isn't one thing that my wife does or I do that the other one doesn't do (except make pan-fried eggs, my wife sucks at that :D). We are trying to instill as best we can that there is equality among the both of us as parents so he should think of that the same. We just hope that in the future, with as sweet as he is and can be, he doesn't get taken advantage of!
!ENGAGE 40
ENGAGEtokens.Wish you luck , but wisdom to . Those teens can be animals ;-)
Teaching them about genetic trades created and passed on true many generations .
Trades that are in no way wrong and for long cared for survival of the race .
The bold that take action for power to survive , nature ,..or social environments , did for long in history indeed survive most of the time . Men would protect and woman would care , Good to now that after a heavy hunt someone takes care of the preparing of the rabbit . And Good to no someone is gonna bring a rabbit back home today .
Nothing wrong with that i guess , why a long time ago a man decided to go catch the rabbit ? don't ask me , i wasn't there . But in this easy comfortable modern safe and overpopulated society today we no longer have to catch rabbits , The role to protect or care has changed while our evolution leaps behind it seems . Or at least creates a whole lot of confusion .
It's o.k. for the genders to pick the role they feel fit's them best . Both (all) have there own unique skills to live a life on this world . In fact , bring the right set of skills together and you might be able to hit a jackpot on a long and happy life . ;-)
!ENGAGE 30
ENGAGEtokens.I don't have any experience with kids that age, I've only worked with younger children. But it seems to me as if you're doing the best you can.
It is that age, that boys explore what it's like to be a man, and maybe they have a greater need to be loud and be heard and be the strongest, than girls do.
So I think it's a good idea to create a 'girls only' space, where they can do what girls do, and get what they need to strengthen their personality. That's what creates confidence, that they can take back into the classroom, into discussions and into their lifes.
I'm sure, you're a great teacher, who really cares about all of the kids equally. And I think you already encourage and inspire the girls by just being you, by being a strong woman who lives the life that she wants to.
<3
!ENGAGE 30
ENGAGEtokens.Thanks so much! I do care about all the kids equally - I don't have favourites or preferences and I feel responsbilty for them. I don't like injustice and as a woman I know what it feels like to be a victim of inequality and I dont want it for them!
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