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Over my years of teaching, I have found it frustrating and problematic that teacher culture is highly gendered. Statistically, we live in a reality of a 80-90% white teaching force and the majority of the teaching force is also statistically "female". There are deep historical reasons for this based on gendered politics and gender norms in our society. For example, teaching was one of the few jobs that women were allowed to occupy once the development of the Common Schools expanded in the 1890s. This history still sticks because women have been stereotyped as caretakers more so than men, and more fit to do the labor of rearing children. The political aspect of this is complicated by the wage disparity for teachers. Researchers believe that one reason teachers are paid less in terms of social strata is because teaching is generally considered a "woman's field". This is one reason why it is often a novelty to have a male teacher (in public education). I also found this hard to deal with in schooling spaces where it is mostly women and there is a feminine culture of teaching. I would describe this feminine culture by a few characteristics such as taking a very mom-like role as a teacher, having lots of extras like snacks and decorations in the classroom, being competitive w/other teachers about appearance, weight loss, or participation in the social culture they decide upon. Elementary school may be a spot to locate this culture more specifically wherein Secondary may be more pocketed. This is because Secondary also comes with gendered norms. There are typically more men in Secondary because there is an emphasis on curricular content. Here, the intellectual work is assumed to be more of men's work. Knowing these cultural trends and patterns made it hard for me to find my fit in certain schooling spaces. I had to block out some of the extra expectations and competitions from colleagues and focus on what I felt were my strengths as a teacher with my students. I am wondering if anyone else here has noticed or wondered about some of the things I have mentioned above? What are you seeing? How are you feeling about it?

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For me as a nursing major I feel like theres a stereotype that its more for women than men and there is not many men in our program. I feel as a nurse I could be just as successful as a stereotypical business man. I think this somewhat effects QU culture because people don't expect men to be in the nursing program and have an unconscious bias to it or the same for women in the business program. Same goes for education majors as there are more female teachers than male which is similar to nursing in that aspect. I don't think gender or what program you are in should determine how successful you can be in the future as we are all at school in order to be successful in the future. Gender can also create competition among careers or people in their work place.

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Jenna Madigan, Victoria Walsh, RJ Schroeder

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Jenna Madigan, Victoria Walsh, RJ Schroeder

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Our group discussed a lot about how women have to be very observant and aware when they are out in public or even out at night, whereas men don't usually think twice about this. RJ used a good example when he said he was in New Haven walking around by himself the other night and did not think twice about it. Victoria and I said if we were doing that we would be very nervous and we would not go anywhere alone. RJ also brought up how his mom always taught him to be a "protector" almost. He walks his friends that are girls back to their rooms. Changing topics a bit, we talked about at QU it can be very hard to find people that are accepting of your gender identity and sexuality. I mentioned how one of my friends has found a really hard time finding an accepting roommate because he is gay.

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We are both in the health care realm major as Occupational Therapy and Psychology majors which we have found to be very female dominant field. In my psychology applied clinical science concentration internship class there are only 2 boys in the class of about 16 seniors and juniors. There is also only 1 boy to 80 girls in the sophomore class of OT majors. This goes back to how society expect females to be more nurturing and pushes them to go towards those fields.

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Gender roles and identity affect QU culture because we are majority female at this school. Certain programs are male dominated while others are female. Housing is usually the same gender unless you request differently. Dorms are operated by female floors and male floors. When you live off campus you have more freedom to chose who you want to live with.

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At Quinnipiac, gender roles are very prominent. Gender stereotypes have been placed on us. Women are seen as being nursing and education majors, and men are seen as being business and stem majors. From personal experience, advisors might discourage you from going in a certain direction (changing majors) just because of stereotypes.

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Depending on what major or program you are in, there will most likely be more males or females in one rather than the other. Usually, there are more females in nursing or health science majors, and more males in business. Also, for sports like hockey, there is more hype and funding around men's sporting events.

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In terms of culture and gender at QU, there's a gap. More specifically, at QU there's a larger female population than a male population. Even with specific majors, there's a gender gap. For instance, if you look at Nursing or OT majors, you will see more females in the classroom compared to an engineering or computer science class. It breaks the stereotype if a male is in a female-dominated field such as Nursing or Teaching. Another way gender roles play a role in QU is on-campus housing. For instance, males and females are separated by floors so you will barely see females on a male floor. However, off campus, some females may feel safer to have a guy living with them depending on the area they live in

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With both of us going into the education field, we're both going to be facing privileges and deficits. With Tucker being a man and going into the education field, he's going to have an easier time finding a job, while I'll have to face competition of the other women also hoping to get a job in education. In the MAT program here, Tucker would (theoretically) get hired before he graduated just because he's a man.