why do women dominate teaching?

Basketballjuice · 2023-03-14T00:13:41+00:00

I feel like it's because assumptions are made about men who work with kids.

SpicyMarshmellow · 2023-03-14T02:39:49+00:00

I've seen so many stories of men leaving teaching because they get tired of constantly living under suspicion, and being mistreated by the female dominated setting in similar ways to how women complain of being treated in male dominated settings. My two kids have witnessed multiple cases of female students falsely accusing male teachers of things and putting them through hell just because they didn't like them, and both describe girls in every male-taught classroom blatantly misbehaving constantly and the teacher being too afraid to do anything about it.

Aimless-Nomad · 2023-03-14T11:58:54+00:00

In no particular order:

1) Natural preference of women to work with children

2) Misandrist society doesn't like males being around children. (even tho with proper info you can see it is actually women who are far more of a threat to children)

3) Women tend to viciously guard their own 'spaces'. Wherever there is a female majority, sometimes, they let you know either directly or indirectly that you are not welcome.

4) Fear of being falsely accused

5) Just plain misandry

Same post in few links, but comments are worth checking out:

https://np.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/tcsnga/i_a_male_teacher_will_be_resigning_after_facing/

https://np.reddit.com/r/antifeminists/comments/102lrwq/very_old_video_made_on_the_discrimination_of_men/

https://np.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/otg3yp/male_teachers_of_reddit_what_are_some_unspoken/

https://www.quora.com/Are-you-or-do-you-know-a-male-teacher-leaving-the-profession-because-of-the-risk-of-sexual-impropriety-accusations?share=1

https://np.reddit.com/r/education/comments/1g6yi9/man_up_where_are_all_the_male_teachers/

https://np.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/5n9dso/male_teachers_of_rteachers_what_dont_they_tell/

https://np.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/10788bz/why_we_dont_have_male_teachers/

https://np.reddit.com/r/antifeminists/comments/td4xgj/lets_take_a_look_at_just_how_well_male_teachers/

https://np.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/662j9c/is_there_really_a_fear_among_male_teachers_about/

Every post regarding male teachers across social media always has examples of guys being ruined by vindictive girls or women. Or parents just do not want men around their children.

ElectricalSoil546 · 2023-03-14T06:32:20+00:00

Privilege. Women don’t face discrimination and prejudice when they interact with children in any manner.

WesterosiAssassin · 2023-03-14T01:20:22+00:00

I think it's mainly a combination of 2 and 3, but for #2 I think it's more to do with how men in caregiving roles are still often looked down upon at best if not treated with outright suspicion, especially if they work with children. And I wouldn't really describe #3 as men being 'money hungry' but men are generally still under more pressure to be self-reliant even if there's not quite as much pressure to provide for others (although that can still be there too), so yeah, they do tend to seek out higher-paying careers.

hshsgdve · 2023-03-14T01:17:29+00:00

On aggregates men are more interested in things and women more interested in people.

Teaching is a people profession.

It’s also low pay, which doesn’t affect women’s dating prospects and status, as it would with men.

VermillionSun · 2023-03-14T07:50:52+00:00

This is one of those multi complex issues. There isn’t any one thing it’s just how a variety of issues has caused momentum towards a certain outcome - men leaving teaching and women dominating which continually reinforces itself

toocoolforcovid · 2023-03-14T11:43:09+00:00

I worked in education for two years, an all boys secondary with a mixed sixth-form. This may colour my experiences and observations so beware for any unconscious bias that may be exhibited.

From my observations, it comes down to a lot of byproducts of one factor (class inequality) that leads to a demographic deficiency which feeds a systemic issue within the field. I am aware of cases of misandry that impact once male teachers are in, but it's not as common as it used to be and teacher retention is already so bad at the moment that I doubt that that's the cause.

The issue with retention is that you have to replenish your losses in terms of staff. This has increasingly lead to the practise of hiring at universities on graduation day because of reasons I won't bother to go into right now as it is tangential at best. Women represent two thirds of the university population. This is going to impact the pool of potential candidates.

This is because female students do much better out of state education than male students, partly because of the lack of male teachers. This contributes to the cycle. The boys in these schools are essentially victims of a new era of rote learning effectively that is a byproduct of cost cutting measures within schools that focus on grades because of the system of perverse incentives and the costs in doing anything aside from exam prep which is where the social skills that girls develop earlier help in.

Another contributing factor is that if you look in the gaps in grades between boys and girls at GCSE, you'll notice a 10% difference on average every year. The average for boys though is actually brought up by a few who disproportionately inflate the average grades. This is a byproduct of the fact that these pupils are more likely to come from well off families who can at the least afford tuition and are more likely to be privately educated. Boys who fall into this category are disproportionately represented in the male University population. This demographic will likely not consider a job in the public sector because the parents have friends who can line them up good paying graduate jobs for right when they leave university. This means that the pool of male candidates is even smaller.

Between the fact that girls do better out of school because the social skills they develop sooner help them better operate in the environment that schools now are due to cost cutting, are more represented in university because of this and the fact that the men in university are more likely to get a day one job out of university due to the family connections that come with being more affluent which helped them survive the system, coupled with the fact that education is having to recruit from day one graduates more ad more due to the rate at which the profession is hemorrhaging teachers, you end up with a pool of applicants who disproportionately represent what the education system accidentally perpetuates leading to more people who inadvertently perpetuate the issues that lead to fewer male teachers and lower male academic attainment.

Sorry that this is already quite long. I've done my best to cut out whatever fat there is already. Consider the biases that I may have as these may also impact misconceptions that I have thatchave lead to the view that I have and have subsequently espoused here.

Stephen_Morgan · 2023-03-14T10:10:56+00:00

1 and 3 are definitely not correct.

Teaching hasn't always been a majority female profession. Primary education became majority female at about the time that the Tender Years Doctrine was established, as a specific result of proto-feminist advocacy for the assumption that children are better off with women. Secondary education has only been majority female since the 70s. The number of male teachers in both primary and secondary education continues to trend strongly downwards. So unless the biology of men has fundamentally changed over the last fifty years, nothing innate to men can explain the difference.

As for pay, teaching is better paid than a number of male dominated lines of work. These figures from Britain:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2022

Median annual pay for full-time employees was £33,000 for the tax year ending on 5 April 2022

https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/salaries-and-benefits

All qualified teachers will have a starting salary of at least £28,000. This will be higher for teachers working in London.

So teachers have a first-day pay rate of about 85% of the national median, only work in term time, and more experienced teachers can make more than twice as much as that, according to the pay scales on that Government website. That's not bad pay.

So that leaves misandry. Misnadry that leaves boys desperate to get out of education, young men less likely to go to university, and then the experiences that men have in the teaching profession.

Cheesy_toe · 2023-03-14T15:44:03+00:00

I wanted to become one whilst studying at uni but changed my mind.

The salary is around £30k which may sound good at first but you will be working outside your paid hours, marking work, preparing lessons, etc. so you're really working between 10-12 hours a day and possibly on weekends as well. So for me, the salary wasn't enough.

Plus I noticed that my male secondary school teachers had cameras in their rooms, which I later assumed was to protect themselves from accusations. I'd rather not put my self at risk.

MathematicianNo4277 · 2023-03-16T11:40:31+00:00

One factor that I did not dee mentionned and might play a part is negative experiences with schools.

We know boys are not treated well by schools. Why would you want to go work in the place that ruined your self esteem in the first place? Many boys can't wait to leave school forever.

GrindcoreNinja · 2023-03-18T05:18:24+00:00

It's unfortunate because growing up all of my favorite teachers were men.

BungyStudios · 2023-03-14T00:48:43+00:00

Teaching is a good way for uneducated Karens to feel intellectually superior for once.

another-cosplaytriot · 2023-03-14T06:30:01+00:00

The subject material is trivial. Almost no thinking is required. When a woman is arguing with a child, they have less chance of being able to call B.S.

These are all very attractive things to narcissists.

Ratttman · 2023-03-14T04:15:03+00:00

at least in the US, its because when more schools were starting to be built in the 1800s, the prevailing line of thought was "why pay a man twice as much for half the job?" ie, women were seen as more capable and not in need of as much pay

devasiaachayan · 2023-03-14T11:11:44+00:00

Women being into people and Men being into "things" Is definitely false. Teaching is something Men have dominated (idk about dominated tbh but unlike myths of other fields being dominated by Men, teaching and mentorship was definitely something done a lot by Men) for years until the industrial revolution came. Industrial revolution and it's commodification of Education made teaching into the job we see today and at this moment, Women prefer it more. Of course there are many more reasons. Also mentorship was a very important role that Men played for various boys. It's sad to see that we're losing that culture everywhere and personally I'm really struggling without a Mentor.

odysseytree · 2023-03-14T06:17:38+00:00

Women are interested in people and men are interested in things.

arkhamnaut · 2023-03-14T04:29:04+00:00

I think you listed the answers accurately in descending order. They're all real and variously affect people, but there's a general lack of interest among more men, plus bad social prejudices.

2023-03-15T19:30:13+00:00

[permanently deleted]

fuckinpiss · 2023-03-24T03:27:18+00:00

I think u should teach if it’s what u want. Change the mold. I volunteer with kids and today they were begging us to find male volunteers so male children could feel more comfortable. So there is a need for you!!

I know that’s not what you asked but had to say something

Stunning-Bat-7688 · 2026-05-12T04:00:48+00:00

In canada, it's a fact that boys are underperforming. higher drop out rates and lower academic scores. the school system is biased towards girls.

Title	why do women dominate teaching?
Author	rochesterslim
Upvotes	58
Comments	38
Date	March 13, 2023 7:35 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/11qj7ig/why_do_women_dominate_teaching/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/why-do-women-dominate-teaching.1176362 https://theredarchive.com/post/1176362

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