Ideally, the university classroom is a place where information and knowledge are dispensed evenhandedly to all students. However, research at a number of institutions - including Barnard, Berkeley, Dartmouth, Harvard, Oberlin, Wisconsin and Yale - indicates that both male and female instructors may behave in ways that demean women or exclude them from full participation with men in the classroom.

Much discriminatory behavior towards women is not deliberate, since most teachers consciously wish to treat all students justly and fairly. Yet faculty have the power to control many events and interactions in their classrooms, and in doing so they transmit not only objective information but also attitudes and emotions. In this process, teachers who tacitly or overtly devalue women students can diminish students' confidence and enthusiasm for learning and create long-lasting impediments to academic, professional and person growth.

The damage is the same when the discrimination is based on race, religion, age, sexual orientation, or any physical or cultural characteristics. Thus, a useful test for determining whether behavior is sexist is to imagine addressing similar kinds of behavior to members of a racial or other minority group. Conversely, professors have noted that an awareness of sexual discrimination in the classroom also has made them more conscious of ways they may discriminate against other kinds of students.

Studies at many universities reveal that sexual discrimination in the classroom takes two basic forms: discrimination against women in general terms and discrimination against women as individuals or as part of a classroom group.

Some Examples

Examples of discrimination against women in general terms include the following:

• Explicit use of derogatory terms or stereotypic generalizations, such as "Older women don't belong in college" or "Women don't think geographically."
• Use of "humorous" images or statements that demean or trivialize women, such as jokes about "fat housewives" or "dumb blondes." In many instances women are portrayed primarily as sexual beings, as when slides of Playboy centerfolds are shown to illustrate lectures in an anatomy class. Women who do not laugh at such jokes may be told (and believe) that they lack a sense of humor. However, this accusation ignores the fact that such humor is directed toward men and at women.
• Reinforcing sexist stereotypes through subtle, often unintentional means, such as by using classroom examples in which professional people, such as psychologists, managers or politicians, always are referred to as men (even though many women students plan to enter these fields).
• Continual use of generic masculine terms like "he" or "man" to refer to people of both sexes. While such construction are technically correct, there is evidence that they evoke masculine images in students' minds and effectively eliminate women as subjects of discourse, even though the elimination may be unintentional. For example, one student called attention to a textbook statement which she paraphrased as saying "culture affects all of man's activities, including the food he eats, the gods he worships and the person he takes as a wife." Clearly this statement shows how easily women can be rendered peripheral or invisible by equating the generic "man" with "men."

• Habitually recognizing and calling on men more often than women in class discussions.
• Interrupting female students more often than males, or allowing others in the class to do so.
• Addressing the class as if no women were present by using statements such as "When you were boys" or "Ask your wives".
• Listening more attentively and responding more extensively to comments made by men than to those made by women. One UCLA student said of her professor "he didn't 'hear' women students."
• Treating women who ask extensive questions and challenge grades as troublemakers when men are not treated this way. Re-entry women at UCLA report that some professors seem to feel threatened by their presence since they are more likely than younger women to challenge and question.

Techniques for helping to eliminate sexual discrimination in the classroom

A number of specific techniques are available for helping to eliminate sexual discrimination in the classroom. These include the following:

• When making general statements about women (or any other subject), be sure that they are accurately based on reliable information. Universal generalizations about any social group, such as "Women don't think geographically," are likely, at best, to represent uncritical oversimplifications of select norms.
• Avoid "humor" or gratuitous remarks that demean or belittle women, just as you would avoid remarks that demean or belittle people because of their race, religion or physical characteristics. Respect the dignity of all students.
• Avoid as much as possible using generic masculine terms to refer to people of both sexes. Although the effort to do this may involve some initial discomfort, it may also result in more precise communication and understanding.
• When using illustrative examples, try to avoid stereotypes, such as making all authority figures men and all subordinates women.
• Try to monitor or get somebody else to monitor your behavior toward men and women in the classroom. As, for example,
  • Do you give more time to men than women students?
  • Do you treat men more seriously than women students?
  • Are you systematically more attentive to questions, observations and responses made by men?
  • Do you direct more of your own questions, observations and responses to men than to women?
  • Encourage your department to add a question concerning discriminatory behavior in the classroom to teaching evaluations.
  • Choose course material which does not ignore or deprecate women or use sexist language.

We are grateful to the California State University, Northridge Women's Studies Program Committee for allowing us to reprint their publication, "Avoiding Sexual Discrimination in the Classroom."