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four gender equity models, page
Running Head: Four Gender Equity Models
Four Gender Equity Models and
Why They Matter to Mass Communications Education
Kim Golombisky
School of Mass Communications, University of South Florida
April 1, 2000
Kim Golombisky
doctoral candidate, Department of Communication
instructor, School of Mass Communications
CIS 1040
University of South Florida
4202 E. Fowler Ave.
Tampa, FL 33620
(813)973-0814 home phone
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Abstract:
Four Gender Equity Models and
Why They Matter to Mass Communications Education
With women comprising the majority in mass communications classrooms, "gender equity" in education must be a priority for mass communications educators. This essay provides a general review of the issues. First it critiques four "gender equity" models-- "equal," "equitable," "fair," and "affirmative"--and then it examines how these models relate to mass communications education. Finally it suggests a classroom "gender equity" audit and offers some practical strategies for developing a "sex affirmative" mass communications learning environment.
key words: communication, education, gender equity, mass media
Four Gender Equity Models and
Why They Matter to Mass Communications Education
Females have made up the majority of mass communications students for over 20 years (Becker, Kosicki, Hammatt, Lowrey, Shin & Wilson, 1999; Kosicki & Becker, 1998), yet rarely are these women the focus of mass communications discussion and research. Other pressing diversity issues have occupied our attention, such as: representations of women and minorities in the media and in media careers, the status of women and minority faculty, and Standard 12 diversity compliance for the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Paralleling feminist critiques noting the absence of women's voices and experiences in "knowledge," so, too, have the majority of our constituents in mass communications education failed to capture our scholarly imaginations, despite their overwhelming presence in our classrooms. This lapse should be cause for concern among mass communications educators, if not ethically, in terms of social justice, then professionally, given the possibility of our field becoming another under-valued pink-collar ghetto like so many female-dominated endeavors. Seven years ago Ramona Rush (1993) passionately argued, "If those of us in higher education and the media professions make a systemic and systematic commitment to equity we could arrive in the 21st century being all that we can be" (pp.71-71). Let us not overlook our female students in this mission, even as several members of AEJMC's Commission on the Status of Women prepare to update the landmark 1972 study on women in mass communications education (Rush, Oukrop & Ernst, 1972). In this essay, I revisit "gender equity" in education to inspire a new commitment to activism and intervention on behalf of the women we educate.
Below I engage the education literature to demonstrate how a communication perspective problematizes the logic and language of "gender equity." First, I review "gender equity" as a general education issue and then more specifically as a mass communications education issue. Next I frame "gender equity" as a discursive problem emerging from a particular history. I distinguish four "gender equity" models that have applied in education research: "equal," "equitable," "fair," and "affirmative." Put simply, "equal" has meant treating girls like boys; "equitable" has meant treating girls like girls, meaning as second-class students; "fair" has meant making invisible sexism visible; while "affirmative" education, valuing girls, remains an illusive goal. The result is four very different visions of "gender equity." Next I review the literature on classroom learning environment to see how the issues become framed as problems of "equality." Finally I suggest a classroom "gender equity" audit and offer some practical strategies for developing a sex affirmative learning environment. If we are to empower all our students to make mass communications classrooms their own, without sacrificing anyone's else's right knowledge, then it is imperative to understand how varying concepts of "gender equity" expand or narrow the possibilities for progressive change and social justice--both in our classrooms and, later, among mass communications professionals.
"Gender Equity" In Education and Mass Communications Education
"Gender equity" in U.S. education, affecting half the student population, has never enjoyed wide public support or systematically been enforced in spirit or letter. Sex discrimination in education became illegal in 1972 when Congress passed Title IX of the Educational Amendments to the Civil Rights Act. At its word, Title IX states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Under the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, Title IX covers any program or activity housed in an institution that receives any federal funds. (See "Appendix" for a selected timeline of civil rights legislation and court rulings affecting girls and women in education.)
Yet, despite 28 years of research and recommendations since Title IX's passage, "gender equity" has remained a marginal, though highly contested, education issue. "Gender equity" supporters continue to observe systematic sex/gender disparities and/or biases in: professional and career education; math, science, and technology education; standardized testing; athletics; sexual harassment policies; treatment of student sexuality and parenting; curriculum and instructional materials; and classroom interaction (National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, 1997). Detractors argue that gender discrimination data are unreliable and don't generalize. Some believe that "equal access" to coeducation rendered "gender equity" moot. Many Title IX critics feel that Title IX not only hasn't helped female students but also has hurt male students.
During the same period, a national education reform movement calling for increased educational standards and teacher accountability has virtually ignored sex/gender issues since it began in 1983 with the National Commission on Excellence in Education's report, A Nation at Risk (1983) (American Association of University Women, 1991, 1992, 1998a, 1998b; Applegate, 1998; Wheeler, 1993). Teacher education, by and large, does not teach gender issues; students resist studying gender; and professors feel uninformed and ill-equipped to deal with the resistance "gender equity" discussions generate (Bartsch, Daniel, Golombisky, Kimmel, Ogren & Rosselli, 1999; Campbell & Sanders, 1997; Griffin, 1997; Lundeberg, 1997; Sardo-Brown, 1995). Education research and training, grounded in social science and resistant to critical pedagogies, rarely addresses social constructionism, the symbolic nature of language and communication, or critical, queer, and feminist theories. Furthermore, third wave feminisms, providing absolutely necessary reminders of diversities among women, are notably absent in the rare pockets of educational equity advocacy occurring in U.S. universities. However, we do know consistent classroom intervention does decrease gender stereotyping and increase positive attitudes toward "gender equity" among students and teachers (Biklen & Pollard, 1993; Carelli, 1988; Cole, 1989; Froschl & Sprung, 1988; Klein, 1985; Sadker & Sadker, 1994; Taus, 1992; Wheeler, 1993).
Meanwhile, mass communications programs have experienced a continuous increase in the number of female students. In 1998, mass communications education awarded 63% of bachelor's degrees, nearly 62% of master's degrees, and nearly 53% of doctorate degrees to women (Beck et al, 1999). Women first became the majority in mass communications undergraduate programs in 1977 (Kosicki & Becker, 1998) and finally outnumbered men as mass communications doctorate recipients in 1997-98 (Becker et al, 1999). "Women dominate enrollments at all levels of journalism and mass communications and are more dominant than in other fields, on average, at the university" (Becker et al, 1999, p.66). However, the implications of this female majority for our degree-granting programs have not been regularly evaluated.
Women's issues and female undergraduate students have been addressed only sporadically in mass communications education literature. (See, for example, Creedon, 1993; Egan, 1991; Luthra, 1996; Morton, 1993). Female graduate students in mass communications find sexual harassment in their departments a real threat, but they are more concerned with other more subtle forms of sexism: "Among other things, many respondents wrote that such discrimination exists in the form of 'incredible pay inequity, denial of teaching equipment and facilities, denial of research and travel funds'; and that, according to another respondent, 'the attention of the professors is routinely focused on male graduate students, while the majority of women work in isolation.'" (Andsager, Bailey, & Nagy, 1997, pp. 41-42). Scholarly discussions of feminist and critical pedagogies in mass communications education are conspicuously absent in mainstream mass communications literature, except for Luthra's (1996) excellent, albeit brief, theoretical summary.
Multiculturalism and diversity in the curriculum have been addressed (Bramlett-Solomon & Liebler, 1999; Cohen, Lombard & Pierson, 1992; Dickson, 1993, 1995; Edwards, 1992; Hon, Weigold & Chance, 1999; Kern-Foxworth & Miller, 1993; Manning-Miller, 1993; Rawitch, 1996). However, "diversity" and "multicuralism" tend to be code for race and ethnicity, often to the exclusion of sex/gender. Nevertheless, we are concerned with our inability to attract appropriately proportionate ratios of students of color, of boths sexes, into our degree programs (Becker et al, 1999; Dickson, 1995; Kern-Foxworth & Miller, 1993; Kosicki & Becker, 1998; Liebler, 1993; Morton, 1993). Additionally, graduate students are not being taught how to integrate diversity issues into their own teaching, and women and part-time faculty are more likely to introduce diversity issues into mass communications courses (Endres & Lueck, 1998).
When it comes to the status female and minority faculty in mass communications, 1990s scholars also have been justifiably concerned (Dickson, 1995; Dupagne, 1993; Hon et al, 1999; Morton, 1993; Rush, 1993). Despite the "feminization" of mass communications education (Beasley & Theus, 1988), the threat of mass communications becoming a "velvet ghetto" has only been addressed for public relations sequences (Toth, 1989; Zoch & Russel, 1991), and even then female PR faculty resist discussing the possibility (Zoch & Russel, 1991).
"Gender equity" must be a priority for mass communications education. We must educate ourselves, our colleagues, and our graduate students in order to give our female students what they need to be successful after graduation. Our job is to prepare our majority female students, in all their diversity, not only for entering their professional fields but also for entering them as women. We must give them the tools to be strong, full of a sense of their worth and rights while cognizant of the realities they will face, such as work/family concerns, gendered communication and management styles, and, sadly, inevitable sexism. We must instill in them a moral mission of leadership to struggle for diversity and inclusion in their own fields as well as on behalf of the publics they serve. We ourselves must try to be exemplary role models. Above all, we must be careful that our efforts don't further marginalize the very women we're trying to help. Women's issues and needs are not "special," as in deviant or outside the mainstream; rather they are "different" from men's issues but still very much mainstream (Bell, Golombisky, Singh & Hirschmann, 2000).
The Discursive Logic of Gender Equity
In "gender equity" in education debates, I find a persistent faith in the rhetoric of "equality" to define social justice. However, no one has noticed that how equality is defined, and then how it is practiced, varies dramatically. Here, rather than supporting or dismissing "data" on girls' and women's "equality," I engage "gender equity" in education as a communication problem. What, exactly, do we mean by "gender equity"? What does it--or would it--look like in classrooms? Too often education has treated both "gender" and "equity" as concrete objects, but they are merely abstract ideas, which seem real through persistent use. The terms, "gender" and "equity," are metaphysical, defined inconsistently, and difficult to translate uniformly into material practice because the multiple sites encompassing "gender inequities" in school and at work are not all equivalent.
No one, however, has studied the historical assumptions driving "gender equity" as a discursive package of vocabulary, logic, and narratives. U.S. "gender equity" discourses evolve from a complexly woven fabric of Title IX's own meandering history of federal and state legislation, litigation, and policy -- all surprisingly related to national education reform, federal employment law, and the Civil Rights and Women's movements (Golombisky, 1998, 1999). None of these historical threads has sufficiently theorized a definition of female equality that doesn't somehow, first, erase differences among girls and women, and, second, either disable or erase females relative to males. I find two themes here: first, our inability to think of sexed/gendered difference as other than a greater or lesser status and, second, the belief that equality is a fact, rather than a negotiated, historically contingent set of relations and practices.
The "female" sex/gender, by virtue of its dialectic relationship to the "male," is not symbolically "equal" to the male sex/gender in our commonsense understanding of these words. Given the opposite/secondary cultural symbolism we attach to the female/feminine "gender," relative to the male, by what rules of behavior might we construe females as "equal"? Legal scholar Martha Minnow (1990) summarizes this as the "dilemma of difference": "when does treating people differently emphasize their differences and stigmatize or hinder them on that basis?" and "when does treating people the same become insensitive to their difference and likely to stigmatize or hinder them on that basis?" (p. 20). We do not have handy vocabularies for labeling relationships that are "different," but not greater or lesser. This is education's great contemporary paradox: how do we speak of students' "differences" differently? How might we construct a more efficacious, politically viable logic, discourse, and set of educational practices for our female mass communications students? I next explore the various ways we interpret the meaning of Title IX's "gender equity."
"Equal," "Equitable," "Fair," and "Affirmative" Approaches
In discussions of girls, women, education, and Title IX, four words frequently crop up: "equal" "equitable," "fair," and "affirmative." Sometimes the words are used synonymously. At other times, the specific choice of terms seems an intentional, though implicit, attempt at distinguishing some differences. I have yet to see the words explicitly operationalized in relationship to one another, however. Here I offer my own interpretation of some distinctions we can draw as "equal," "equitable," "fair," and "affirmative" relate to sex/gender and education. As with any typology, these categories are artificial, thus imperfect, but they do demonstrate a number of consistent, though mostly unconscious, philosophical differences in approaches to sex/gender discrimination in the classroom. "Equal" means equal access. "Equity" refers to separate-but-equal sex segregation. Sex "fair" means making invisible forms of sex discrimination visible and then implementing more "fair" practices according to girls' and women's specific needs. "Affirmative" is equivalent to "affirmative action." In fact, once established, these four models render the most frequently applied umbrella phrase, "gender equity," problematic even though it is the nomenclature for Title IX issues. Below I discuss each of these four models.
Before continuing, I also offer an explanation of my use of the words "gender" and "sex." Mostly I use the words together to indicate their inseparable relationship in the symbolic construction of two sexes and two genders. If used separately, "sex" will indicate female/male physiology and "gender" will indicate feminine/masculine cultural attributes, roles, and behaviors associated with "sex." Feminist and queer theories find this distinction highly suspect. "Sex" cannot precede "gender" because "sex" is always already a heterosexually "gendered" concept. Binary sex is predicated upon binary gender, and both binary "sex" and binary "gender" depend on compulsory heterosexuality. However, since "sex" as biology and "gender" as culture continue to hold some mainstream currency, and since this paper focuses on concepts of "equality," I will let the questionable separation of "sex" from "gender" alone for present purposes. I have dealt with this issue with regard to Title IX and "gender equity" in earlier work (citations deleted for blind review).
Equal Education
"Equal" treatment generally refers to treating females exactly as males are treated. This philosophy assumes that educational standards for males are equally relevant for females and that females should be guaranteed the same rights as males to achieve those standards. This approach most often applies to "equal access" to schools, programs, classrooms, activities, and careers. The problem with this perspective is that if our classrooms are designed for an ideal white middle-class able-bodied male student and if we privilege a curriculum in which females are absent or subordinated, then merely offering females equal access does not guarantee equal educational opportunities for females, whose very different material experiences are not represented. "The absence of women is not noted," writes Tetreault (1997, p. 150). "There is no consciousness that the male experience is a 'particular knowledge' selected from a wider universe of possible knowledge and experience" (Tetreault, 1997, p. 150).
Significantly, this criticism echoes race theory's critique of colorblind equality, which makes the material experiences of people of color disappear. For example, Gay (1997), in "Educational Equality for Students of Color," writes:
Educational equality in the United States is popularly understood to mean the physical access of African Americans, Latino (sic), Asian Americans, and American Indians to the same schools and instructional programs as middle-class European American students. The prevailing assumption is that when these groups become students in majority schools, equal educational opportunity is achieved. Until recently little attention was given to the quality of the curriculum content and instructional processes as key factors in formulas for educational equity. (p. 195)
This similarity between both sex-based and race-based critiques of the "male-defined curriculum" (Tetreault, 1997) is not accidental. Sex discrimination legal scholars Lindgren and Taub (1993) note the relationship between Title IX at school and its legal antecedent, Title VI at work: "The language of Title IX parallels that of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance" (p. 277). Sex "equality," while a necessary tenet for opening educational opportunities formerly denied to girls and women, does not allow for girls' and women's differences and different experiences.
"Gender equity" in education issues and policies that, generally, have been guided by the "equality" model include: access to higher education, vocational and career training, math/science/technology education, standardized testing, and, oddly enough, sexual harassment. The thinking is that proportionate numbers of females and males should be engaging in the same academic and career pursuits. (Standardized testing and sexual harassment are more complex, as I will discuss shortly.) In other words, females must have "equal" access and opportunities to engage in postsecondary education and career training, especially in the areas of math, science, and technology, where women are under-represented. The difficulty comes when persistent cultural norms still align some career and academic tracks with masculinity, in opposition to femininity. Strong symbolic processes that gender curricula and careers themselves undermine policies promoting equal access. Nursing and education still attract more females than males, and, conversely, science and engineering still attract more males than females. Similar patterns exist in vocational education where women concentrate in clerical and allied health fields. Overall, the higher the wage range, the lower the participation of females compared to males. Conversely, lower skill-level and wage-range tracks attract more females than males (NCWGE, 1997). That males shun female, or pink-collar, fields illustrates a common problem with "equal" treatment: the female/feminine is still devalued. Once historically male-dominated fields become female-dominated--for example nursing, clerical work, and teaching--the fields themselves lose social prestige and salaries fail to remain competitive by male standards. So, while females may aspire upward mobility toward the male standard of equality through male privileges and prestige, males do not aspire downward toward the lesser female status in equivalent numbers. Nor does discussion ever suggest elevating the low status of pink-collar work. This predictable phenomenon has serious implications for mass communications education with its increasing female student body.
Standardized testing "equality" is a more complex topic. Standardized tests remain a sore point among women and other minorities since they are used to track students into courses of study, counsel students into career options, and determine students' potential for postsecondary success. Under Title IX, a standardized test must accurately measure what it says it will measure, and if one sex scores differentially, the test, technically, is discriminatory, thus illegal. The most blatant forms of testing sexism and racism, common in the 1960s, have disappeared. But more subtle biases remain in the form of these tests' vocabulary and choices of examples, among other things. In other words, they are culturally biased. Because testing services is a growth industry, testing companies actively continue to revise their tests fearing public embarrassment and loss of business, mostly in the form of government contracts. Nevertheless, bright females still score lower than bright males, especially in math subjects (Stanley, Benbow, Brody, Dauber, & Lupowski, 1992), and gifted females are generally counseled away from high-income career choices (Rosselli, 1998; Walker, Reis & Leonard, 1992). Placement and admissions tests designed to indicate how students will perform in their first year of college still over-predict for white males and under-predict for all females; first-year female college students on average earn higher grades than white males, even though test scores predict the opposite (FairTest, 2000; Klein & Ortman, 1994; NCWGE, 1997). Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores last year showed a 43-point gender gap, which has grown each year for the last three years; a similar gap occurs for African American, Latino, and new Asian immigrant students, although the testmakers themselves state that two students' scores must "differ by more than 125 points before they can reliably be said to be different" (FairTest, 2000). Still, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, as many as 12,000 qualified women each year are excluded from flagship U.S. universities because of differential SAT scores (FairTest, 2000). New studies indicate students who are aware of racial and gender test biases, and even those who are aware of broader societal sex/gender and racial stereotypes, score lower on SATs, a phenomenon called "stereotype vulnerability" (FairTest, 2000).
Yet testing may be one place where the mainstream may reject anything less than "equal" treatment. Separate testing, based on sex, race, ethnicity, or class, is inconceivable, as is the idea of dramatically altering test content or form. Both strategies elicit protests of "dumbing down" education, another clue about the white male standard of educational excellence. Alternative evaluation measures or processes are not likely in the current political climate where states, under pressure to improve schools, find implementing mandatory standardized tests the quickest way to satisfy growing public demand for school accountability.
Sexual harassment, the educational "equality" issue that is--or should be--most significant to mass communications educators, also has been guided by an "access" model. Surprisingly, sexual harassment was argued into the law on the basis that victims of sexual harassment are deprived of "access." This legal argument first succeeded in the context of employment, then later was adapted to education. At the time Title IX passed, we had no concept of "sexual harassment." But after the courts recognized sexual harassment in the workplace in 1976, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the courts in 1977 recognized the first case of harassment in education under Title IX. Thus, educators are doubly protected against sexual harassment under both Title VI and Title IX. Until recently, school employees could sue their employers for sexual harassment, and school employees could be charged with sexually harassing students. Peer-based harassment, the most prevalent form, only became protected under Title IX in 1999.
In Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999), the US Supreme Court reversed a judicial stance that previously refused to recognize student-to-student harassment. A 1993 American Association of University Women study found school-age girls more than boys reporting difficulties concentrating on school work after incidents of sexual harassment, and many of these girls also reported a desire to stay away from school because of harassment (AAUW, 1993). Paralleling these findings, Ivy and Hamlet's (1996) peer sexual harassment studies found that, for their college student respondents, classrooms were a primary site of peer sexual harassment, "with a general trend for women to view some behaviors as harassing and as more severe than men." Others have found similar patterns for graduate students (Andsager, Bailey, & Nagy, 1997). Rosselli (1998) concludes, "These findings point to a silent crisis in schools that may still be reluctant to acknowledge the frequency and impact of sexual harassment on achievement" (p. 4). Educators too often shrug off harassing behavior as "boys will be boys," "flirting," or "no harm done" (Stein, 1979/1986, 1991, 1992, 1993a, 1993b; Bogart & Stein, 1987). For "gender equity" advocates, the "hostile sexualized climate" at school includes this kind of teasing, any form of unwanted physical touching or sexual assault, as well as calling girls names associated with female anatomy, calling boys feminized or homophobic names, and any educator's response to harassing behavior that is less than swift and firm (Shakeshaft, 1993).
In the Davis ruling, however, the Supreme Court clearly distinguished a substantive difference between sexually harassing behavior and teasing: "Damages are not available for simple acts of teasing and name-calling among schoolchildren," wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (Oppel, 1999, p. 1A), who led the court's majority opinion in a divided five-four decision. This divided decision exhibited an unusual and perhaps historic alignment of the high court's justices based, in part, on sex (O'Connor shows, 1999). Drafting the dissenting opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy sarcastically wrote, "After today, Johnny will find that the routine problems of adolescence are to be resolved by invoking a federal right to demand assignment to a desk two rows away" (Oppel, 1999, p. 1A).
In an unusual display for the Supreme Court, Kennedy read extensively from his dissent during open session. O'Connor then departed from her written opinion to respond, saying concern for "little Johnny" should not drive "little Mary" from the classroom in tears. (Oppel, 1999, p. 1A)
The Davis decision, by adapting its wording to mirror Title IX's language, shows that school-based sexual harassment follows an equal access "equality" model. The sexual harassment must be "so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victims of access (emphasis added) to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by schools" (Oppel, 1999, p. 4A).
While using the "equal access" argument originally may have been a politically expedient way to get the courts to recognize sexual harassment, the problem of defining what, exactly, constitutes sexual harassment, and by whose standards, has been an ongoing, highly fraught legal process. In 1991 two lower courts recognized a "reasonable woman" standard in defining sexual harassment by agreeing that a woman may recognize behavior as sexually offensive where a man may not (Ellison v. Brady, 1991; Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyard, 1991). This was a stunning, unprecedented victory for women's rights advocates. Both decisions directly affected sexual harassment policies in education institutions. However, in 1992, the Supreme Court indicated its preference for a gender-neutral "reasonable person" standard in defining sexual harassment (Harris v. Forklift Systems, 1992). Predictable under critiques of the "equality" model, a different female perspective in matters of sexual harassment was subsumed under a universal standard, which always is gauged as a male norm.
Equitable Education
The next gender equity model, "equitable" treatment, assumes and makes allowances for fundamental differences between females and males. This approach closely corresponds to a "different cultures" perspective, which begins with the premise that U.S. girls and boys grow up in such different gender cultures that they, in essence, live in different worlds (Belenky et al, 1986; Gilligan, 1982) and speak different languages (Tannen, 1990, 1995). Interestingly, though, gender equitable schooling most often manifests in contexts where it is biologically sexed bodies that matter, such as athletics, where powerful social norms demand segregating the sexes. While separate-but-equal is now inconceivable in matters of race, U.S. courts interpret Title IX to support sex-segregated school athletics: "Unlike race segregation in schools," explain Lindgren and Taub (1993, p. 297), "the 'separate-but-equal' doctrine remains intact."
The greatest problem with separate-but-equal strategies is that girls and women and their programs almost never achieve parity in head count or in resource allocation. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (1997) reported that women's sports receive only "23 percent of athletic operating budgets, 38 percent of scholarship dollars, and 27 percent of the money spent to recruit new athletes" (NCWGE, 1997, p. 11). Girls' and women's sports mostly get the hand-me-down facilities and equipment, and the second-best schedules (Henderson, Bialeschski, Shaw & Freysinger, 1996). Women coach less than 50 percent of women's teams and less than 2 percent of men's teams, although they coached 90 percent of all women's teams at the time Title IX passed (NCWGE, 1997). Once again, gender differences fall into a kind of thinking that still holds that males are the norm from which females deviate. Lindgren and Taub (1993) point to a number of key Title IX court rulings on women's sports in education where sex stereotypes manifest. They find four "convictions that pervade discussions of girls and women participating in athletic programs" (1993, pp. 297-298): (1) Females are not as naturally capable in athletics as males; (2) females are more fragile than males, thus more prone to sports injuries; (3) athletics "masculinize" females; and (4) "(p)eople are not interested in women's sports (Lindgren & Taub, 1993, pp. 297-298). Hence, not only are females and males constructed as different, but also females are somehow inferior. Furthermore, gender equity critics, especially sports enthusiasts, assert that in a period of limited educational resources, providing separate resources for girls means taking resources away from boys, which almost always translates as discriminating against boys.
In mass communications education, the dilemmas of sex "equity" generally have not been an issue because our classrooms are not segregated by sex. However, problems of disparate resource allocation associated with the sex "equity" model may become a greater concern if the numbers of women in mass communications classrooms increases to the point that the field in general becomes viewed as "women's work." Furthermore, "equity" has implications for mass communications educators training future media professionals. The same thinking that drives the courts, amateur and professional sports, and separate-but-equal education practices also emerges in mass media representations of female athletes and women's sports. "We are talking about how to educate the next generation of journalists, particularly sportswriters, about the frames their stories will provide for their audiences of what men and women can do in this culture, as well as what is appropriate--and what is not--for them to do" (Creedon, 1993, p. 50). Coverage of women's sports receives only a fraction of the time and space devoted to men's sports; women's sports air in the least desirable dayparts; and sports commentary often refers to female athletes as "girls" instead of women and tends to use trivialized and diminutive adjectives to describe women's competition (Creedon, 1993, 1994; Birrell & Cole, 1994).
Fair Education
Similar to sex "equity's" separate-but-equal approach, the third model, "sex-fair" education also makes allowances for differences between the sexes. A major departure, though, is that "sex-fair" education tends to assume that differences between females and males are more the result of girls' and women's discriminatory treatment at school than girls' and women's innate sex. So, unlike sex "equity's" unconscious male perspective, sex "fair" education recognizes girls' and women's experiences. Sex "fair" education begins with making these differential, but mostly invisible, experiences, perspectives, and practices visible and then offers girls fair alternatives to androcentric education, such as adopting cooperative learning models in lieu of competitive models in the classroom. "Gender equity" research pioneers Sadker and Sadker have used the phrase "sex fair" consistently since the 1970s. In their 1994 best-selling book, Failing at Fairness, the Sadkers note that "access" is not enough, but they stop short of defining "fair": "But an open-door policy does not by itself result in fair schools" (p.ix). Rather, the Sadkers (see for example, Sadker & Sadker, 1994; Sadker, Sadker, & Long, 1997) more often imply that sex "fair" means eliminating gender-based stereotypes in curricular materials and training instructors to see the unconscious classroom practices that give males more and better instruction than females. (See also Orenstein, 1994, for a similar, although still implied, definition of sex "fair.")
The "sex fair" model does not always escape the sex "equity" model's gender hierarchy, either. Too often classroom "alternatives," such as gender-sensitive pedagogies, become framed as a kind of remedial or special education for females, who then become "exceptional" rather than "normative." For example, rather than critiquing competitive classroom pedagogies that privilege male socialization processes and culture, making pleas for "sex fair" education becomes a way of suggesting females by nature need extra, special or more classroom and course assistance than males. Ironically, in making its appeal for better treatment of pregnant and parenting students, the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE, 1997) adopts the language of disability in stating that "schools must treat pregnancy and related conditions no worse than they treat any other temporary disability" (p. 39). Pregnancy, a natural biological process for women, becomes framed as a "disability" in the context of education because male students, always the standard, do not experience it. Rather than accepting female reproduction as normal female experience, education frames pregnancy as a "problem" to accommodated. In fact, disability rights advocates face exactly the same issues of logic, language, and meaning. Note, for example, that even the language of "disabled" is a negative construction in opposition to "abled." Furthermore, others argue that making allowances for girls, such as failing to teach them how to be competitive, may de-skill them, instead of prepare them, for a world still run, for better or worse, mostly by men.
"Sex fair" education strategies are highly relevant to mass communications classrooms as I will discuss later in the section titled "Classroom Learning Environment."
Affirmative Education
A contrast between sex "fair" and sex "affirmative" appears at least as early as 1985 (Scott & Schau, 1985). In this distinction, sex "fair" materials and practices eliminate sex bias, a definition compatible with the Sadkers' use. But sex "affirmative" materials and practices privilege women, a rare education practice found only in women's studies programs (Klein & Ortman, 1994). Sometimes called "women's curriculum," sex "affirmative" education re-conceptualizes knowledge to encompass women's experiences in all their diversity (Tetreault, 1997). However, in mainstream education, sex "affirmation" more closely resembles affirmative action. The idea is to promote an ideal toward which society should strive. So, for example, while a "sex-fair" broadcast engineering text book would portray numbers of females and males that realistically mirror the ratio of their respective contributions to the field, in the fourth approach, a "sex-affirmative" text book would demonstrate equal numbers of females and males engaging in broadcast engineering as an exemplary ideal--even if males actually outnumber females in the field.
Like critics of affirmative action, critics of sex "affirmation" argue that in a world of finite school resources, sex "affirmation" is a zero-sum option; giving something to females automatically takes something away from males. As Cohen and his colleagues (1992) write:
Some student members of the cultural majority are uncomfortable in their impression that multicultural and feminist views can only be added to the curriculum if something else is taken away. Within the context of a zero-sum perception, these students believe they are being asked to pay for an increase in the legitimacy of multicultural and feminist views by accepting a decrease in the legitimacy of traditional cultural norms grounded in what is commonly referred to as a Eurocentric academic environment--academic code for the charge that white males of European ancestry dominate the scholarly landscape in the United States. (Cohen, Lombard & Pierson, 1992, p. 3).
Not only students, but also policy-makers, administrators, faculty, and other groups opposed to women's rights advocacy share this view. Additionally, an interesting phenomena occurs whenever female voices, bodies, or representations occur in equal numbers to males': Because such a thing is so incongruous to past experience, both females and males perceive that females are somehow given more voice, space, consideration, representation, or priority than males. Spender (1985) has called this the "male register," which posits that because we live in a society that systematically privileges the male and masculine, true sex/gender parity becomes a kind of experiential illusion of male/masculine discrimination.
Despite its rarity, sex affirmative strategies will become increasingly important to successful mass communications programs. As a male colleague of mine who teaches television broadcasting noted, "The fact that most of my students are women forces me to completely rethink what and how I teach from their point of view." Indeed, curricular content, differences in learning and communication styles, and the circumstances female students face after graduation will force us to rethink our courses and classrooms as mass communications educators. From sexual harassment to Felice Swartz's (1989) career "mommy track" and from gendered management styles (Tannen, 1995) to the legal issues of women's pay disparities, "sex-affirmative" education in mass communications may become less an option than a survival tactic.
These four perspectives, "equal," "equitable," "fair," and "affirmative," are not applicable in every educational setting, nor are they always interchangeable. None is perfectly suited to address every situation, and some contexts may require employing more than one model simultaneously. In the 28 years since congress passed Title IX, "Equal" treatment under a male standard has increased opportunities for females to go to college, and enter mass communications professions. But it doesn't force difficult questions about why males and females enter some career tracks in unequal ratios or why males outnumber females at upper management levels, nor why male-dominated fields have more prestige than female-dominated fields. "Equitable" treatment in practice often means second-class treatment, as when sports media argue that they can't equally support women's sports because fans, including women, just aren't as interested as they are in men's sports. This observation often results not only in excusing discriminatory treatment but also in reasoning that females just aren't natural athletes--like males. "Sex-fair" strategies also tend to reinforce existing inequities, such as the textbook that realistically portrays the greater numbers of males in a particular discipline but simultaneously seems to communicate to all students that males are better suited to that discipline. "Sex-affirmative" strategies, like affirmative action, invite charges of reverse discrimination, a kind of mathematical logic that makes adding resources, representation, or programs for females an automatic subtraction from males. Furthermore, "gender equity" public rhetoric and scholarly research rarely operationalize which "gender equity" models are being employed, and these models may shift from one context to another as well as mid argument in the same context. Nevertheless, although I have problematized the phrase "gender equity," I will continue to use it--under caution--to refer to the general topic of sexism in education.
As a review of the sex/gender issues most relevant to our day-to-day teaching activities in mass communications, I next discuss the classroom learning environment, including hidden curriculum, instructional materials, and classroom interaction.
Classroom Learning Environment
Hidden Curriculum
Until Title IX, few thought to examine curriculum or teaching practices for sex or gender discrimination. Since then, we have learned much about sex discrimination and gender bias in schools, a topic referred to as the "hidden," "informal," "symbolic," or "latent" curriculum because its systematically teaches lessons about double-standards for girls and boys. Hidden curriculum also refers to the differing educational goals and standards that schools inadvertently apply to students who depart from the assumption of a white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual male student. Banks (1997) defines the "latent curriculum" as what "no teacher explicitly teaches but that all students learn" (p. 24). Nieto (1996) writes, "Hidden curriculum refers to those subtle and not-so-subtle messages that, although not part of the intended curriculum, may nevertheless have an impact on students" (p. 42). Sadker, Sadker, and Long (1997) write that the hidden gender curriculum, beginning the first day of school, teaches all students "that females are less important and less significant in our society than males" (p. 134). Mass communications education is no less subject to these unconscious messages than any other educational setting. Understanding the hidden curriculum and evaluating our own classrooms and practices is imperative.
Instructional Materials
The earliest efforts at Title IX compliance focused on cleansing, fixing, balancing or rewriting educational texts and literature to purge them of sexist portrayals of females--that is, where portrayals of females existed at all--and focused on adding positive examples of female authors, histories, and characters where formerly there were none (Heintz, 1987; Paul, 1996; Potter & Rosser, 1992; Vaughn-Roberson, 1989). Today, though, it is still not difficult to find examples of instructional materials, texts, literature, videos, software, supplementary materials, handouts, and even classroom decor such as posters all portraying sexist or trivialized images of females--or completely omitting females, their experiences, and perspectives (Bland, 1995; Huff & Cooper, 1987; Klein & Ortman, 1994; Sardo-Brown, 1995; Shakeshaft, 1993; Sleeter & Grant, 1991). Having less to do with issues of "equal" access than of representation, correctives for sexist curriculum content include either realistically representative "sex fair" or idealist "sex affirmative" models. Mass communications educators must examine their texts for representations of sex, race, ethnicity, dis/ability, and even sexual orientation. They also must look for "affirmative" texts and urge publishers to be more proactive on behalf of the students they serve. Additionally, more systematic content analysis of mass communications texts is in order. Hanson's (1999) research on basic speech communication texts finds "the casual undergraduate student...would come away with the impression that public speaking is something that men do" (p. 15). Mass communications research has no equivalent current research; we don't know what our texts are telling students.
Language, too, teaches students lessons about the subordinate status of females. "If a girl always hears that 'he' means everyone, while 'she' means females only, that girl is learning that females are less important than males," writes Shakeshaft (1993, p.89). Even language's "gender-neutral" forms, such as the use of plural "they" for "he"/"she" or the use of "humans" instead of "men," still communicates girls' and women's invisibility, thus unimportance, in the same way that their absence in textbooks does. Furthermore, supposedly gender-neutral forms of language, such as firefighter and flight attendant, used to replace gendered words like fireman and stewardess, actually continue to signify sex and gender because their associations with gendered divisions of labor remain so strong. Firefighters still conjure images of men, and flight attendants, women. Gender neutrality as an anti-sexist strategy, while not specifically aligning under any of the four "gender equity" models, shares similar problems with the "equality" model in that gender neutrality assumes that un-gendered forms of language equally represent both females and males and their experiences. But gender neutral language, like anti-sexist admissions policies, isn't necessarily "fair" or "affirmative" for girls and women. Simply opening a door formerly closed to females--whether that door opens into language or into a mass communications classroom--doesn't mean one feels welcome. In my classroom, when I use feminines as universals or list feminine pronouns first, I know I will evoke facial expressions of surprise. For my female students, that surprise over time becomes pleasure and pride--a form of "sex affirmation." They begin to do the same, I note in their assignments. Sometimes male students resist. Once in a while a negative comment appears on my end-of-semester evaluations. "Too much emphasis on gender," a someone will write. Spender's (1985) male register at work.
Classroom Interaction
Educators also unwittingly contribute to this informal curriculum of sexism. Since the late 1960s, the Sadkers have published substantial research documenting the ways teachers unconsciously treat male and female students differently. Before Myra Sadker died of breast cancer in 1995, the Sadkers published their last major work together, Failing at Fairness (1994), which describes typical classroom practices: instructors call on males more often than females, ask males more difficult questions than females, allow males to take more time to answer questions than females, allow males to rethink and respond to incorrect answers more than females. This pattern of disparate treatment persists through college and generally comes from a very subtle, mostly unconscious social norm that makes putting females "on the spot" feel inappropriate, even cruel, to instructors. Additionally, males blurt out answers eight times more than females, who wait silently with their hands raised in larger numbers. The Sadkers call this "blue arm" because the raised hand usually goes numb from lack of blood flow before the female student is called on. Educators also generally enforce rules for being polite more stringently for females than for males, whose behaviors, such as blurting out answers without being called on, are excused more often as assertive masculine behavior. Over time, females internalize these implicit codes of classroom behavior so that by the time they reach college classrooms, they police themselves, and many have become silent observers. This hidden curriculum regarding classroom interaction and behavior allows males to participate more actively in their learning. At the same time, instructors perceive males as more physical than females. As instructors we may reinforce gender stereotypes by asking male students for assistance associated with strength, such as lugging in TV/VCR carts. "Even teachers who are aware of the importance of treating females and minorities fairly do not realize that their actions are most likely to benefit White boys" (Klein & Ortman, 1994, p. 17).
Just as disturbing, when working together in groups, males dominate females and females defer to males (Sadker & Sadker, 1994). "Other studies have suggested that boys in small groups usually receive help from girls when they ask for it, while boys often ignore girls' requests for help" (Sardo-Brown, 1995, p. 22, citing Wilkinson et al, 1985). Others, including the Sadkers, note that competition in the classroom--for teacher attention, for having the right answer, and for getting the highest grades--benefits males, who at a young age already have been socialized to enjoy one-up-manship as a kind of sport. White females learn to equate competition with conflict, a social taboo for white women, and so in the classroom are more likely to opt out of participating if they can. Shakeshaft (1993) writes, "The 'I win, you lose' philosophy is seldom questioned, is constantly reinforced in classrooms and on playing fields, and, according to some (Gilligan, Lyons, and Hammer 1989), is not the best environment for girls" (Shakeshaft, 1993, p. 88). Perhaps most disturbing, most of our classroom interaction data does focus on white girls, although most people interested in the subject acknowledge the need for more research on girls and women of different ethnic, racial, socio-economic backgrounds, as well as those with disabilities or who speak English as a second language.
Teaching methods focusing on "cooperative learning" allow small groups of students to work through assignments and learning activities together. Evidence suggests that girls and women do especially well in cooperative learning groups (Klein & Ortman, 1994; Rosselli, 1998), a "sex-fair" strategy. But these tactics work only if teachers are sensitive to the ways that females, for example, allow males to assume leadership roles in small group exercises and interaction, while girls act as observers and secretarial recorders. Even diversity-sensitive teachers also must have strategies for ensuring that all participants actively contribute to the cooperative learning group. Other strategies include allowing students to write down their responses to lecture questions before replying, which insures that students who like or need more time to process have a chance to participate in discussions.
Conducting a classroom audit can provide instructors, even feminist instructors, with astounding information about unconscious patterns of classroom communication. Talk-time tallies are the simplest approach to finding out where the hot pockets in the classroom are located. On a seating chart, make a hash mark every time a student speaks in class. Even more useful is to ask a graduate student to sit in the class with a stopwatch to time how long each student speaks. The numbers quickly dispel inaccurate perceptions. Once I sat in on a class talk-time tally for a colleague. The class felt a bright female student spoke more often and longer than any other student. In fact, the class really was angered by its perception of her dominating the group discussion. The group was amazed to learn that in reality, two other male students had spoken twice as often and twice as long as the female student--further demonstration of Spender's (1985) male register at work. Another useful demonstration is "paying to speak." Each student receives three chits at the beginning of the class period and is asked "spend" them all before the end of the session. Suddenly new, formerly silent voices emerge, and other more talkative voices become more careful about when and what to contribute. Although painful to watch, a video of classroom interaction also can instruct professors on where they tend to focus their attention in the classroom, where their "cool" neglected areas are, and how small groups are interacting during classroom activities. These strategies may feel awkward at first, but when integrated into the course as routine, they can make the classroom a more "affirmative" place for everyone.
Conclusion
From kindergarten through graduate school, and from hidden curriculum to athletics, Title IX has done much to improve the conditions under which girls and women attend school. But the law also has become a lightning rod for a series of complex and not always related debates about what is feasible, fair, and just for schools to do on behalf of girls without discriminating against boys. Most of the time, public debate overlooks the complexity of the subject, or assumes a single simple approach will solve the problem completely if only educators could discover or invent it.
Although as a society we assume the right to and necessity of education, we tend to overlook the fact that we continually refine our definitions of both education's purpose and content. This process is always nuanced by the systematic but often invisible ways we gender the world as well as our differing expectations for students based on their sex. Examining the difficulties we have determining what comprises "gender equity" at school demonstrates the rift between gendered language and material practice. "Equal" treatment turns females into theoretical males and measures equal access to education without accounting for other forms of institutional sexism or hidden curricula. "Equitable" and "fair" approaches attempt to account for female differences but tend to excuse disparate resources and treatment for females based on those differences. "Affirmative" approaches, a kind of affirmative action for females, trigger charges of reverse discrimination against males. This perception of male discrimination occurs because if males are the implicit normative student, then all practices will be gauged by their perspective.
I agree with Dale Spender (1982) when she writes:
Educational equality for women will have been achieved when women's experience is accepted by society as equally valuable and valid as that of men, when half the knowledge that is available is generated by women and about women, when women are half the "government of education", and when women's ideas about education are equally viable and equally implemented with those of men. (p.39)
My fear is that too many mass communications classrooms don't get past "equal" access, that there is not enough sensitivity to women's issues, that there is even hostility toward discussing the possibility that we are not being as "affirmative" as we could be. I fear that "gender equity" is perceived as a "marginal" issue relegated a few committed, over-worked mass communications feminists, but by and large not relevant to "real" mass communications scholarship. More than half of our students beg to differ.
Appendix:
Timeline of Selected Civil Rights Law Changes Affecting Girls and Women in Education
1954 U.S. Supreme Court: Brown v. Board of Education Makes racially segregated schools illegal.
1963 Equal Pay Act Requires equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex.
1964 Civil Rights Act Forbids discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
"Sex" was added only as an unsuccessful attempt to block the bill's passage.
1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act Begins massive infusion of federal funds into public
schools.
1968 14th Amendment: Equal Protection Clause Reasserts citizens' rights to equal protection under
the law.
Bilingual Education Act Funds pilot programs targeting English-as-second-language students.
1972 Title VII of Civil Rights Act Amended to cover schools and public employers.
Title IX of Educational Amendments of Civil Rights Act Forbids sex discrimination in education
"programs or activities" receiving federal funds.
1973 Rehabilitation Act Forbids discrimination based on disability.
1974 Women's Educational Equity Act Establishes "WEEA" to combat sex bias in education.
1975 Age Discrimination Act Forbids discrimination based on age.
Education for all Handicapped Children Act Requires public education to accommodate
handicapped children.
1976 Vocational Education Equity Act Forbids discrimination in vocational education.
Education Amendments Legislates elimination of sex discrimination, bias, and stereotyping in
education.
1978 Title VII Pregnancy discrimination at work is Title VII discrimination.
WEEA Is re-authorized.
1979 U.S. Supreme Court: Cannon v. University of Chicago Individuals, in addition to government,
can sue under Title IX.
1980 "New" WEEA Encourages Title IX enforcement.
1982 U.S. Supreme Court: North Haven v. Bell Title IX covers school employees in addition to
students.
1983 Equal Rights Amendment ERA, specifying equal rights for women, dies in Congress.
1984 U.S. Supreme Court: Grove City College v. Bell In effect, reverses Title IX.
"Newest" WEEA WEEA is re-authorized emphasizing educational equity for girls and women at
risk for multiple forms of discrimination.
Carl D. Perkins Vocational Act Funds vocational training for girls and women.
1986 U.S. Supreme Court: Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson Employees can sue for sexual harassment
as sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act ("hostile environment").
1988 Civil Rights Restoration Act Restores Title IX to cover any educational program or activity
receiving any federal assistance.
WEEA WEEA is re-authorized.
1990 Disabilities Act Updates Rehabilitation Act.
1991 Civil Rights Act Amends Title VII to allow plaintiffs to collect damages (has sexual harassment
implications) and reinstates protections threatened by Supreme Court rulings.
lower courts: Ellison v. Brady; Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards Courts accept "reasonable
woman" standard in sexual harassment cases; a "reasonable woman" may construe harassment
where a "reasonable man" may not.
U.S. Supreme Court: Franklin v. Gwinnett Co. Schools Under Title IX, students claiming sexual
harassment (from school employees) may seek damages. (Student-to-student harassment still is
not covered.)
1992 U.S. Supreme Court: Harris v. Forklift Systems
Court indicates it would prefer a "reasonable person" standard in sexual harassment cases.
1996 Title IX Congress eliminates state funds for Title IX.
WEEA Congress funds to continue operations.
1999 U.S. Supreme Court: Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education Schools are responsible and
liable for protecting students from student-to-student sexual harassment under Title IX.
Court Cases (Chronological Order)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 74 S. Ct. 686 (1954).
Cannon v. University of Chicago, 99 S. Ct. 1946 (1979).
North Haven v. Bell, 102 C. Ct. 1912 (1982).
Grove City College v. Bell, 104 S. Ct. 1211 (1984).
Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 106 S. Ct. 2399 (1986).
Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872 (1991).
Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards, 760 F.Supp. 1486 (1991).
Franklin v. Gwinnett County Schools, 112 S.Ct. 1028 (1992).
Harris v. Forklift Systems, 114 S. Ct. 367 (1993).
Davis v. Monroe County Board of Eduation S. Ct. (1999) (120 F. 3d 1390, 11th Circuit, 1997).
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