I ask this because of the demographics of many of my classes. I am a college student in the US, and part of my degree involves education classes and Spanish classes. In the intensive education program I was in last summer, there were (counting me) four men and close to thirty women. Similarly, in my current Spanish class I am one of two men and there are about 25 women. Last spring I was volunteering at an elementary school, and I was stopped by a (female) teacher I didn't know who said she thought it was great that I was interested in elementary education, because there were precious few male role models for students at the school.

The lack of women in fields such as math, science, and engineering has long been pointed out. Obviously the same attention is not paid to the lack of men studying language and education. I have been told that the lack of women in the above fields is not due to any sort of difference in genders, but rather that women are systematically told, directly and indirectly, that they are not capable and not welcome there. If this is true (I am not saying that it is or isn't; this is merely for the sake of the question), it seems very reasonable to expect that the lack of men pursuing careers in language and education would be due to similar reasons. So I ask: do you or have you felt incapable or unwanted in these fields of study? Tell me your stories.

I think this is an important issue because, while the gender of the person who cures cancer or builds the perfect bridge really doesn't matter, it is, according to the very teachers who are there every day, a problem that this country is lacking in male educators and role models at the elementary school level.

EDIT: Whoops, sorry about the title. I really am an educator, I just don't type like one when I am tired.