Online teachers get higher ratings when students think they're male

Personally, I don’t think you should have to. However, it seems like this study is claiming that you do have to. @Elusis offered some explanations for this bias up a few posts.

I saw that, and I think that @Elusis is right on the money, at least from mine and my colleagues experiences.

The problem is that I don’t like having to be not only good at what I do, but the best to get the same level of respect as my male colleagues. It’s exhausting, and I’m too old to deal with this shit, you know? I don’t want to “lean in”… my male colleagues don’t have to lean in, they can just do their jobs. And they don’t get chided for taking time away from their families and they actually get a gold star for being more involved. When I’m doing normal family things, no one pats me on the back for that or even notes it - it’s the expectation. It’s so very tiresome, having to go the extra mile for no other reason but that I am a woman. :frowning:

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There might be even more reasons, I suppose. I’m sure none of them are any better.

When I was younger it used to annoy me that some people wouldn’t take me seriously because I don’t have a doctorate. I used to try to make those people eat their bias, and gained some satisfaction from it that probably wasn’t good for my karma. But you know, at least elitism by PhDs has some basis in actual achievement, rather than being some absurd birthright privilege?

Both my sisters teach, one here in the US and the other in the UK.

The article doesn’t say (I don’t think), but do female teachers have the same problem with female students, or is it worse from male students?

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No, they aren’t and they really come down to gender bias. As for PhDs and real or perceived elitism, people who get phds often work hard for that - you have to be careful, because often we give more respect to men, especially white men, are given more respect for that work than women and people of color. I can see people, especially women and people of color, who got a phd, and then they STILL have to deal with racist/sexist BS, and that can be so exhausting, when our colleagues are treated with respect for the same things we’re doing. And so when we’re met with undergrads who think they are more clever than we are, and work to actively tear us down, sometimes IN CLASS, it’s hard not get a little miffed, at the very least.

What grades do your sisters teach?

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Young men, in my experiences, but I can’t speak to the general trend. I think this is especially true of young men who are history buffs, and they think they know it all about history…

My younger sister teaches high school music and band in the DC area; she has a masters from Westchester. My older sister teaches University in southern England; she has a doctorate from the Sorbonne.

Sometimes someone with a doctorate will address me by my first name, without asking my permission. I always immediately respond using their first name, and if they are OK with that, no problem. I’m American, and we’re like that. But, if they say “that’s Doctor such-and-such”, I look surprised and disapproving and say “Oh, I’m sorry. But I’m afraid it’s Reverend [Medievalist], then.” Since I am legitimately so titled, this can get very funny (for me) very fast!

But as I’ve gotten older and further from academia, I rarely encounter this situation any more. Once you’re over 40 even physicians call you “mister”.

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I was probably one of those irritating young men, although all my history professors were male. I was pretty hard on the philosophy prof, too, but he was also male. Luck of the draw I guess.

Hubris may be a normal stage for soldier age males. Or maybe it’s a cultural thing, I dunno.

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I prefer people to call me by my first name… there is only a few profs who seem to care, and I call the vast majority of the profs by their first names and have since undergrad (in the history department), but I can understand wanting people to call you dr. You worked hard to get there. There is one who will yell at people for calling him Dr. I’ve seen hm slam his hand on the desk and yell about it.

I suspect it’s cultural, and has much to do with upbringing, and how the culture addresses you as a person.

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I’ve had a professor who prefers that students call her by her first name, but that always feels awkward to me. However, the alternative is title + surname, and she’s Dr. Smith. Thanks to Lost in Space I could never say that with a straight face.

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So, is this the wrong thread to share my dream of putting this on a teacher evaluation form:

Instructor was not as hot as ratemyprofessor led me to believe.

Rate my professor…

Since I don’t know the show, I’m not sure what you’re getting at, unless of course that really is your professor…

I teach in a field in which 80-90% of the MA-level students are women, and 60% of the PhD-level students are women. I assure you, it’s not just the male students.

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Yes, yes it is.

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Well, that’s no fun. It kills the (supposed) humor to explain but really the joke’s more at people who check ratemyprofessor (for hotness anyways).

I know this is all “humorless feminist” of me, but it’s really hard for me to find the humor in something that really happens to me and my colleagues.

(OK I have probably never been rated as hot on Rate My Professor but I know I’ve suffered for being a fat goth chick who’s also a mouthy SJW type. Fortunately, I sat down with myself and swore a blood oath that I would never, ever, ever look myself up on RMP when I first heard it existed, and though I have given in to some less-than-smart cyber impulses here and there, I have never given into that one, because I know what is seen cannot be unseen.)

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He didn’t say the study was flawed, he said that the comment he was talking about said that the study was flawed.

That said, small sample size = flawed study.

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Ah yes. So they did. My apologies.

I say 43 students with four groups is enough to show statistical significance. Prove I’m wrong.

I dunno… I think the expression says it all. But maybe Mr. Bean can clarify things… Keep in mind, this is aimed at rate my professor…

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