Men in Women's Studies Classes IV

This discussion of "men in women's studies classrooms" differs from
some of the others that have taken place on WMST-L in that it
specifically asks for research dealing with this topic.  The
discussion took place on WMST-L in October 2003.  For a number of
other WMST-L files on this and other topics, see the
WMST-L File Collection.  It contains an entire section called "Men."

It has happened again.  In my all-women Psychology of Women course,
several students said that they wish we had men so we could get a
"male perspective."  They also insist that they do not talk less in
the presence of men, and the classroom dynamics would not change if we
had men in the class (and believe that saying it would is equivalent
to male bashing).  I know there is a huge file on WMST-L (actually 3
files) on men in women's studies classes, but does anyone have any
actual research?  Or at least know of any research that finds that
women speak less in the presence of men, or that there are no
differences?  I have been talking about gender and communication and
mentioned the research on interruptions, setting topics, etc.

Christine Smith
Antioch College
casmith  AT  antioch-college.edu

I don't have the precise reference, but Ernest Boyer wrote in the 1991
Carnegie Foundation Study _College: The Undergraduate Experience in America_
that "In many classrooms women are overshadowed. Even the brightest women
students often remain silent. ...[they] will frequently wait until after class
to approach a teacher privately about issues raised in the discussion. Not
only do men talk more, but what they saw often carries more weight. This
pattern of classroom leaders and followers is set very early in the term."

Regards,
Kristi Siegel

***

Kristi Siegel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair, English
Mount Mary College
Milwaukee, WI
siegelkr  AT  mtmary.edu

On this thread, I have heard from two different suspect sources that men
"have fewer words" than women, so that by the time they get home from
work, their words are all "used up."  But women have more words they
have to use up by talking men's ears off.  This of course is counter to
my experience in every social or academic situation I've been in, so I
am also wondering about statistics or sources listmembers can pass on.

Thanks,
Scout
scout  AT  hoyden.org

Kristi Siegel wrote:
> I don't have the precise reference, but Ernest Boyer wrote in the 1991
> Carnegie Foundation Study _College: The Undergraduate Experience in America_
> that "In many classrooms women are overshadowed. Even the brightest women
> students often remain silent. ...[they] will frequently wait until after class
> to approach a teacher privately about issues raised in the discussion. Not
> only do men talk more, but what they saw often carries more weight. This
> pattern of classroom leaders and followers is set very early in the term."

Dear Scout,

There have been many studies on this phenomenon.  See "Chilly Climate in the
Classroom".  I have forgotten the author.  And there are others written by
women researchers.  I have noticed a tendency for women to quote male
researchers on this issue lately, and it is detached from other concerns.
This is a very bad idea as most women point out a history to the event.

Denise


Denise M. Marshall
denimars  AT  fdu.edu

College at Florham
Fairleigh Dickinson University
285 Madison Avenue, M-LA0-03
Madison, NJ 07940-I099

A couple of sources that reference lots of others:
1) Myra Sadker and David Sadker discuss this issue in Failing at
Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls (Myra died of cancer, but David
also has some newer work that I haven't read); 2) try a textbook on
gender and communication, such as Julia T. Wood's Gendered Lives:
Communication, Gender and Culture; 3) recent work on women in computing
showed this same dynamic on early listsrvs (Susan C. Herring "Gender and
Democracy in Computer-Mediated Communication." EJC/REC. 3.2, 1993.)

There's plenty of stuff out there on this. Hope this helps you find some
"evidence" quickly.
Good luck,


Mary Kirk, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor, Educational Philosophy & Planning
Metropolitan State University
700 E 7th
St Paul, MN 55106

Virginia Sapiro, in "Women in American Society," the chapter on
personal communication, has a lot to say about this [see original
message below], complete with names of studies.  My students have
found it very interesting.

In "The Root of This Longing," Carol Lee Flinders gives examples of
men's non-verbal language causing women to silence themselves, even at
the graduate level in a highly competitive university.

On the other hand, I haven't always found men a negative influence in
class.  If there are older women in class, for example, younger men
sometimes listen with respect.  Responding to a chapter on women and
the law, one man said, "I just don't get this."  A middle aged woman
said, "Really?  It's the story of my life."  He looked at her,
surprised at how this theory could be her reality, and she explained
parts of her life where the law had affected her directly, including
leaving her husband surrounded by military with drawn guns.  When a
very pretty young woman described being stalked, the same young man
said, "I never understood that.  I thought the woman caused it."  I
saw him later, when he was doing a paper for a non-WS class but was
looking at a legal issue and how it affected women.

One young man said, "I used to like women.  Now I see them as
competition."  A middle aged (blind, lesbian) woman asked him to join
her for coffee on the way out of class -- later he reported that he
felt better about a number of things discussed in class.

While we try not to make a single person responsible for the actions
of all people who fit into one of her/his categories (an
African-American is not expected to represent all African-American
women, an exotic dancer is not expected to represent sex-workers, for
example), one man made it clear that if asked, he would try.  So that
if a woman said, "Men don't think like that, *do they*?" glaring at
him (as once happened), he would reply, "In this case, I would....
Men that I've talked to say .... and in my reading, X says... but Y
says...."  We found him enlightening.  It went both ways.  At the end
of class, members of the class asked to write about fellow students
who had taught them the most.  The male student said, "In spite of all
my reading and thinking and efforts to understand, Tracy [one of the
women] understood more about the dynamics of my marriage after 15
minutes than I did after 3 years.  I have taken her advice and it's
making a difference."

In one class, there were two large, intimidating looking men.  At the
end of class one woman told me, "I had pretty much given up on men,
but Brian [a skinhead] was so sensitive and Mark [a rugby player] was
so vulnerable, that I have decided that one per cent of men are
probably ok, and if you consider how many men there are, one percent
is a lot of people."

Marilyn Grotzky

  I have heard about this research, and it is very interesting to me.
However, I have seen little research aiming to find out WHY women are
dominated by men in academic settings.  With the proper study design and
statistical analysis, this should be possible.

   Of course, girls are raised to not interrupt boys.  Moreover, most
females want to be attractive to males (sexual orientation could play a
major role in the dynamic of a WoSt class, esp. upper division and above,
compared to a "typical class") in their classes and being "feminine" and
"demure" is important in this.  Another factor is the ratio of females to
males--will males dominate conversations if there are only a few of them and
the most of the students are female?  Is the issue more whether or not
female students talk less, or the relative weight given by students (and the
prof?) to the views of male vs. female students?   Is the gender of the
professor material, and does the sexual orientation and/or feminist
identification of the professor affect the classroom dynamic?  Does it
matter if the professor is open about her or his sexuality and/or stand on
feminism?  Do profs signal these things nonverbally?  This is just a start
on the possible factors...

  At a conference I attended Last year, a graduate student presented a study
she did on a contemporary class (I think it was a Management class).  While
there was a slight bias towards males, one single female was by far the most
talkative of all students--completely skewing the statistics.  The "outlying
female" is just one of the issues that must be considered when analyzing the
published studies.  The more I think about this, I question the degree to
which differences between having men and not having men in a contemporary
class is statistically significant--although this is only a hypothesis.

  If there aren't studies on all this, what have others observed
empirically?

Hannah Miyamoto
Women's Studies Graduate Student
Minnesota State Univ., Mankato
hannah.miyamoto  AT  mnsu.edu