Middle Ages
Every once in a while I read a story that gets me FIRED UP. This happened recently when the fantastic Dr. Kristine Ehrich texted me this: Stereotypes of middle-aged women as less ‘nice’ can hold them back at work. This article is based on research by UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business professor, Dr. Jennifer Chatman. Like a lot of great research, this project was inspired by something Jennifer was experiencing in her own life. Since hitting her 40s, she saw a decline in her teaching evaluations (and so have I). This seemed weird to her because her knowledge of the field, comfort in front of a class, and all the other things (theoretically) necessary for great evaluations were better than they had ever been. What the hell? Turns out that the problem was that she was a woman over 40 who wasn’t matching up to her students’ expectations of how she “should” behave towards them. You see, there are descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes regarding gender. The descriptives are about what men/women “typically” do while the prescriptives are about what we SHOULD do; this is where issues arise in the classroom and at work. The prescriptives are not based on how women ACTUALLY act and that disconnect is where women get dinged in their teaching evaluations, performance reviews, and ability to advance in their careers. The general expectation (stereotype) is that we should be warm (definition = enthusiastic, affectionate, kind) and caring so when we do not act in accordance with that, people don’t like it and we are punished. When women enter their 40’s we start getting hit with gendered ageism; the super cool combination of being discriminated against for being both “old” and a woman. In society we disappear from TV (yes, there are exceptions but they are few and far between), movies show us as the grandmothers, and advertisers ignore us. Once you hit your 40s the world has very few acceptable options of what you can do with your life because, OMG you guys, that is so old!! Since being 45 makes me an expert in this topic I have made you a list of your options ladies:
Settle in under a pile of cozy blankets you knitted, never show your (wrinkled) face in public, and wait for the sweet relief of death.
Sweetly and earnestly encourage the hopes and dreams of everyone around you (because yours are dead you hag!) and then use all the time you have no longer trying to achieve anything to bake cookies for everyone around you. You are now basically Mrs. Claus but without that weird bonnet. Unless you are into bonnets-those are actually ok if you are over 40 because no one is looking at you.
Retire, move to someplace warm that isn’t Florida with your besties, wear caftans, have afternoon cocktails on the lanai, do puzzles, die.*
Spend the majority of your time ensuring that everyone around you is comfortable. This is most easily done by taking care of all the pesky things no one actually wants to do. You can clean up after everyone, make tasty/healthy meals, run errands, maybe mow the lawn. Definitely make sure that nothing you do brings you any joy or fulfillment. You are too old for that, you selfish monster.
Start a coven. Cast spells. Wreak havoc.
Become invisible and literally just disappear because your thoughts, feelings, and ideas no longer matter.
Men and women are seen as more effective and capable as they get older. Makes sense. But only women are seen to be less warm as they age. So, when talking about teaching evaluations the perceived lack of warmth translates into complaints about their female professor’s personality which turns into lower teaching evaluations. This is something because I have met some male faculty with truly terrible personalities who maintain great teaching evaluations. Put simply: it’s not fair. Women are judged more harshly than their male counterparts based on these stereotypes. According to the research, the peak (or rock bottom) of our lack of warmth/inability in the classroom comes at age 47. Can’t wait!
Student evaluations are flawed in so many ways. They are biased against women and minority faculty and when you add in pregnancy it gets worse. Additionally, the people evaluating our teaching (students) don’t actually know the subject matter so evaluating our ability to teach it to them seems problematic. What this means is that teaching evaluations are often more of a likability measure. Research has shown that the most important characteristics of a professor include getting to know students, being seen as a life-long learner, and being a role model. Additionally, most students prefer the teachers who are not strict with their classroom rules and who are pretty generous when scoring student work. Cool so the “measure” of whether I am good at teaching has absolutely nothing to do with my teaching and is more about learning their names and being an easy grader. A logical response would be to either try and fix them or get rid of them all together but this is academia so neither is going to happen! The big issue here (aside from the overt discrimination) is that these evaluations are used to evaluate faculty performance. Every year our teaching evaluation scores, research productivity, and service activities are taken into consideration as the basis for our pay increases.**
I have a theory of why all of this is happening. It’s because, by the time we reach our 40s we, as women in academia and beyond, are simply sick of your shit.
Truly. Fed up. Over it. No longer willing to entertain it. This feeling of not engaging with ridiculousness is what started the idea of tightroping in the first place. We don’t want to change the behavior that (finally!) feels right to us. Personally, I started feeling my “warmth” fade after I had Leo and went back to work. There I was (age 38) trying desperately to be all the things to all the people. I was juggling my career and being a Mom and not dropping any balls ever yet I had students (very earnestly) telling me that they couldn’t get their assignments done on time because they had a formal to attend. I’m managing all of my responsibilities and keeping a human alive and you would like an extension on an assignment that has been on the syllabus for months? No. My willingness to excuse unprofessional behavior and engage in general nonsense had simply vanished by that point and this is where I believe the concept of warmth gets twisted and used against us. To students, warmth is doing whatever they need in the name of “caring.” Warmth is moving deadlines, spoon feeding, hand-holding, and generally bending over backwards. To me, warmth is caring about them and their ability to succeed. Letting them blow off deadlines because they didn’t manage their time properly isn’t helping them and it’s certainly not setting them up for success. Unfortunately, as soon as our versions of warmth don’t match up and we stop conforming to sexist standards things get dicey for women in and out of the classroom.
None of this is ok. Everyone’s work should be evaluated by performance, not their ability to conform to stereotypes. Though I don’t have a surefire solution to these issues, I do think that women refusing to tightrope can help us start making a shift. We don’t have to be “warm” to be good at our jobs. We don’t have to smile. We don’t even really have to be nice (how many male jerks have you worked with?). What we have to be is competent, prepared, and ready to execute the tasks our job requires. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now that I think about it, maybe pay equity and gender parity might help warm up our our old, cold lady hearts!
*My preferred scenario
**Tee hee. What is a pay increase?