to see change the next time such statistics are generated? What actions might you take to foster progress toward those changes?
This imbalance replicates in higher education, too. In higher education, men remain four times more likely than women to serve in the most powerful positions (Robinson, Shakeshaft, Newcomb, & Grogan, 2017). Researchers Katherine Cumings Mansfield, Anjalé Welton, Pei-Ling Lee, and Michelle D. Young (2010), who have explored the lived experiences of female educational leadership doctoral students, describe progress for gender equity as glacial. In the United States, female professors continue to earn less, obtain promotions more slowly, and struggle with heavier teaching and service loads than male professors (Mansfield et al., 2010).
In political positions worldwide—where most education policy is formed—women hold less than one-third of the seats in the lower houses of national legislature (OECD, 2017). In 2018, the U.S. Senate had an all-time high of twenty-two female senators of one hundred total senators (Abramson, 2018). And, while a record number of women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, they still make up less than a quarter of the House (Jordan, 2018).
When I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court], and I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
U.S. Supreme Court justice
In summary, every way you look at it, women have plenty of room to increase their influence regarding what happens in schools.
Trends in Gender and Leadership
Does gender really matter in good leadership, or do the qualities of good leaders transcend gender? Do we need more women in educational leadership? After all, whatever a woman’s motivations for pursuing a leadership position, neither the path nor the work is easy.
Gender does matter. Greatly. In this section, we will explore why closing this gender gap in school leadership is absolutely vital. What does gender have to do with leadership? A whole lot if you consider trends in pop culture, research, and statistics. Trending topics and issues include the following.
• Gender equality
• Sexism
• Pay parity
• The Me Too movement, which has prompted a long-overdue focus on sexual harassment
• The social and economic impacts of girls’ access to education worldwide
• Stereotypes about women leaders and the discrimination they face—not just from men but also from other women
• How to sort biological and brain-based gender differences from the gender differences that culture produces
Not paying attention to gender’s impact on leadership has perpetuated many of these issues, the consequences of which we have only begun to comprehend and remedy. Further, it has become increasingly clear that the barriers women face actually hurt all genders. Instead of creating a binary distinction between female and male leaders, we hope to create understanding of how this distinction influences choices and how effective leadership requires drawing on the best of both.
THINK ABOUT IT
While the #MeToo hashtag may seem like a phenomenon that arose in 2017 from high-profile abuse cases, Tarana Burke founded the Me Too movement in 2006 to empower women, especially young and vulnerable women, through empathy. Burke (2018) states that the #MeToo conversation has expanded to focus on determining the best ways to hold perpetrators of abuse responsible and stop cycles of abuse. The Me Too movement’s growth shows that needed conversations may take a decade or more to finally grow and bear fruit.
It’s easy to be both encouraged and discouraged, given the relatively short time we have been discussing the issue compared to how long it has been an issue; time and persistent focus are required. What changes have you observed as a result of the Me Too movement in the media, in marketing, and in your workplace? What impact has the message of the movement had on your conversations with women? With men? How does it inform discussions about gender and expectations with your students?
Gender is not the same as sex, which describes biological and physical male and female differences. Gender, a nonbinary social construct, relates to the social and cultural behaviors we attach to people; as we discuss further in chapter 9 (page 153), it is widely acknowledged that greater variation occurs within the genders than between them. For the context of this book, we view the feminine and masculine constructions as widely as possible.
Our interest in influencing more women to take on leadership roles took root in our first work experiences, with Jane starting out in the archetypal male world of finance and Barbara delving into research on how women’s lives differ from men’s from the start of her broad career in education and leadership.
A Word From Barbara
Through the lens of my Portapak (a 1978 version of a GoPro camera), I learned some visceral lessons about gender, equity, and power. During my first year in university, my eighteen-year-old self wanted to investigate and share the stories of women and children who stayed in what were called women’s refuge homes. These homes gave women and children a safe haven from domestic violence—then a concept that people talked about in hushed tones—if acknowledged at all.
The camera lens created a space for me to observe and engage in others’ lived experiences. I aimed to put the spotlight on a significant social issue that needed attention and whose powerless victims needed greater access to quality support. Finally, I presented what I filmed to my class. Viewing the heart-wrenching and challenging experiences of the women, who articulated their vulnerability with dignity and generosity, we were rendered silent in our inner turmoil—first, at the injustice, and second, at our own dilemma of what we could or should do.
One challenging insight was that people seem to blame the victim for being in a situation of violence, and that domestic abuse was somehow lesser than similar abuses that occur outside the home. Perpetrators were not held to account and certainly saw their power over their partners as a right in their domestic partnership.
In the 21st century, topics around gender equity, pay equality, violence against women, and the motherhood penalty trend in the media. Daily commentary and research illuminate stereotyping and unconscious bias as significant barriers to recognizing female talent that undermine career advancement.
Do women have to make hard choices to get ahead, meaning does being a woman set you back and having a family stunt your career? Limiting notions of gender can devalue, obstruct, and confine women and men. In a wide variety of job-specific and cultural contexts, we observe male leadership identified as the norm. My own reflection was not to doubt myself, and to challenge limiting notions of gender, as a woman and a potential leader.
Practical and Prophetic Reasons to Have More Women Leaders
Education needs female leaders for four reasons, both practical and prophetic. The first two reasons are practical, revolving around tapping into all the available talent pool and balancing the many unbalanced education policies. The other two reasons are prophetic—in
