How Does Gender Affect the Teaching Profession?

The first male teacher I had was in the 6th grade. Because of this growing up I always assumed that teaching was more for women than it was for men. This confused me growing up because people with higher power like principals and superintendents were almost always males. It took some time until I realized that the reason for this was because men are more respected as teachers than female teachers are despite females making up the majority of educators. Women are seen as caregivers in society which is the reason why 97% of preschool teachers are women and with each year the percentages get lower until there is only 47% of women teaching beyond highschool level. It isn’t fair for women to be the only ones expected to be caregivers and not fair for guys to be rejected from jobs that involve caregiving.

I believe that since teaching is seen as a prominent female job that this could be the reason why the pay is so low. Also despite the low wages, women typically still willingly look into teaching as a career because it’s a job that involves the most child bearing responsibilities which is a reason why women usually go for lower age grades. I believe these factors are just some of the man reasons why gender plays a huge role in the teaching profession and I think we still have a long way until it will be equal