FEATURE
UNTAPPED POTENTIAL Women leaders in education By Michelle Despault and Katrina Wheaton
According to Statistics Canada, 75 per cent of educators in Canada are women, including 89 per cent of elementary teachers, and 59 per cent of secondary teachers. But leadership positions in education, from department heads, to principals, to local and provincial union leadership, do not reflect these demographics. For example, of the 16 unions affiliated with the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, only five are currently led by a woman. In OECTA, the leadership history has been a little better than the national average. Twenty of 46 provincial presidents have been women, and 50 per cent of the current local leaders are female. But this is still a far cry from being representative of the membership. Furthermore, on the current Provincial Executive, only three of the 11 elected positions are held by women. Leaders need to be connected to those they lead; they need to reflect the same principles, priorities, and values. The perspectives and contributions of women matter. So why are there not more women in leadership positions? What is the issue? As you read the next paragraph, try to create a mental picture of the activities being described. You wake up late for your flight. You throw on your clothes and grab a cab to the airport. While on route, the cab driver makes idle chitchat, asking you where you are headed and for what purpose. Once you arrive at the airport, you rush to your gate and make it just in time to catch your flight. It is a fairly short and uneventful flight, and as you disembark, you thank the flight attendant and pilot before you exit the plane. You grab another cab to the conference you are attending on the latest tech in education. Before the conference breaks for the day, you hear the keynote address from the CEO of a company that is utilizing new disruptive technologies to engage at-risk students. You meet a couple of other teachers from the same city as you and head out to dinner. At the table next to you is a couple who are clearly celebrating an anniversary and the wait staff bring them a complimentary glass of champagne. When dinner is over, you head to your hotel room and call it a night. Now thinking back, when you pictured the cab driver did you picture an elderly woman? When you pictured the pilot, did you picture a Black man? When you pictured the CEO of the tech company, did you picture a woman wearing a hijab? And when you pictured the couple celebrating the anniversary, did you picture two men? Perhaps you did, but for the most part we
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imagine what we think is “normal.” We all have stereotypical and often unconscious views of gender roles that are reinforced by societal norms – and these stereotypes are being unconsciously passed on to the next generation. In a 2019 online survey of 2,200 Canadians aged 14 to 24, commissioned by Plan International Canada and conducted by Nanos, only 10 per cent of young Canadians said they picture a woman when they think of a CEO. Further, while all genders listed confidence as the top trait a leader should possess, only 55 per cent of respondents who identified as female said they would describe themselves as confident, and 81 per cent said they at least occasionally doubted they had what it takes to be a good leader. Saadya Hamdani, Director of Gender Equality at Plan International Canada, said in a statement, “The disconnect between ambition and how girls and young women in Canada perceive their capabilities to lead is complicated – but it begins to make sense when focus is placed on the systemic barriers and the role gender socialization plays in shaping attitudes and perceptions from an early age.” Systemic barriers We tend to think that because we now have labour and equity laws, somehow we have eradicated any systemic barriers for women. When Justin Trudeau appointed a gender-balanced cabinet with the reasoning of “because it is 2015,” people scoffed at the idea that there needed to be a deliberate emphasis placed on the appointment of women. Many believed that the appointment of women necessarily meant that more qualified men were passed over. If there are qualified women in government, or any industry for that matter, should they not naturally rise to the top? In an article titled, “On Women and Leadership,” the Harvard Business Review noted, “Research has moved away from a focus on the deliberate exclusion of women and is turning toward ‘second generation’ (sometimes more subtle) forms of gender bias as the primary cause of women’s persistent underrepresentation in leadership roles.” Second generation biases Second generation bias refers to the powerful but subtle and often invisible barriers for women that arise from cultural assumptions, organizational structures, practices, and patterns of interactions that inadvertently benefit men while putting women at a disadvantage.
