Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 13, 1992 TAG: 9202130321
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By NEAL THOMPSON EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`SOCIAL MOLDING' IN SCHOOLS CITED
When Hollins College President Maggie O'Brien was in school, she'd often get A's on her science tests.But when she had to stand in front of the class and explain something scientific, she never felt as smart. She felt self-conscious. In fact, she felt like an idiot.
That's because girls aren't supposed to be smart in science or math. That's guy stuff.
O'Brien calls that type of stereotyping "social molding," and it's a nasty foe to a woman's self-esteem and self-confidence.
Efforts have been made to correct the problem, but O'Brien and a few other educators in the Roanoke Valley say it still exists.
The American Association of University Women issued a report this week, based on two decades of research, that shows how "gender bias" is more pervasive than people realize. It found that curriculums ignore females and reinforce stereotypes, that standardized tests are biased against girls and that teachers pay more attention to girls than boys.
O'Brien said she has seen the problem in videotaped classes that show boys doing the activities while girls watch. And teachers make more one-to-one contacts with boys - 20 times more, in the study of one fourth-grade class.
"Almost everyone will tell you, `Oh, I don't do that,' " O'Brien said. "But I can tell you that I've done that myself."
Gary Kelly, Roanoke County's guidance director, said the county trained teachers in the late 1970s to avoid longstanding biases. For example, girls in vocational education were traditionally pushed toward beautician classes and guys toward auto mechanics.
It's a rut teachers can easily slip back into. And Kelly suspects they have.
"In all honesty, I think some of that probably does go on," he said.
Schools probably need to update some of those awareness programs that had some success in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It might take another generation before that type of sexual and gender awareness can stand on its own without an occasional nudge, Kelly said.
Kelly thinks the AAUW's report may prompt some overdue attention to the problem, as will a March 28 seminar at Hollins by the Roanoke AAUW chapter on gender bias in schools.
Roanoke Superintendent Frank Tota, who will speak at that seminar, thinks schools have balanced the sexes in recent years. Boys and girls fare equally in such categories as graduation and dropout rates. And attendance at the Governor's School for Science and Technology has reached a rate of nearly half boys and half girls in recent years.
"I think that while it may be a problem, it's not a problem that has been unattended to here," Tota said.
Peggy Pearson isn't so sure.
"We have the illusion that everything is fine and dandy," said Pearson, a financial analyst for Carilion Health Systems.
But things are not fine and dandy when America turns on its television to see the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, Anita Hill's testimony against Clarence Thomas or Mike Tyson's conviction on rape charges.
"There's something wrong with the way we're treating women," Pearson said.
Pearson, a member of Roanoke's AAUW chapter, said culture is part of the problem. Schools also are to blame, but "I don't think the schools realize there's a problem."
Unwittingly, perhaps, schools discourage women from careers in banking and finance, she said. That limits the options women feel they have - and many give up on a career altogether.
Schools address other inequities, by trying to balance minority, immigrant and low-income students. But they overlook gender inequity.
"And we're saying, `Wait a minute. There's 50 percent of the people that we don't address,' " Pearson said.