Matt Yglesias

26 Responses to “Department of Things That I Think Would Be Worth a Systematic Study”

1. Marshall Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

   Ugh, I’m about to enter a Ph.D. program and I am not looking forward to having people approach me with their problems. Thank God I’m a man!

2. fostert Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

   My mother was one of those female professors. And, yes, she got approached often by students with life issues. Many of them sat at our dinner table, and two of them actually lived in our house for a month or two (both foreign students). The most difficult life issue? One of my mom’s students got recalled to Ireland by the IRA. He gave up a promising career in finance to become a terrorist. Too bad, he was a really nice guy and very intelligent. But I’m sure he eventually finished his degree (MBA) and became successful. As for the terrorist acts he did, I don’t even want to know. As for the study, why bother? We already know what the results will be.

3. ossicle Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

   I assume you mean “sex” rather than “gender,” but won’t expect to see you correct your usage any time soon.

4. fostert Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

   “I assume you mean “sex” rather than “gender,” but won’t expect to see you correct your usage any time soon.”

   I want to make it clear that I’m not attacking you in any way. But can you give us a more clear explanation of the difference between ’sex’ and ‘gender’? I’m very accepting of anyone’s gender and pretty much believe in the Thai concept of three genders (or sexes), but how is ’sex’ different from ‘gender’?

5. Ohio teach Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

   fostert-
   sex refers to biological fact: were you born with a penis or a uterus
   gender refers to cultural expectations and learned behaviors: born with a uterus at the end of the 50s I learned specific ways to be female: I learned to be poor at math, to play with baby dolls, to expect to grow up to be a nurse, teacher, or librarian, until I could get myself safely married and have a real baby.

6. No Comment Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

   Theoretically, “sex” means biological sex, and “gender” means the cultural significance and social expectations attached to it. But because “sex” has another meaning, people have used “gender” as a euphemism for “biological sex” for a long time now.

7. glockenspiel Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

   I think that there’s a few issues bound up in this. There are gender differences in behaviors that convey things like empathy. These behaviors also correlate (obviously) with the actual emotion like empathy. So, yes, i believe that students are more likely to approach any faculty that exhibit empathy and emotional engagement. The fact that these are behaviors that are more associated with females than males, i’m certain that it takes less such display to get students to believe that the woman is a person that could be talked to about this.

   This is similar to the situation that has long been known about how students perceive self deprecating humor in the class room. If a male professor makes a joke at his own expense, students are likely to think “ha, ha, he’s humble about being so smart…” If a woman attempts the same type of behavior, students think “Ha, Ha, she really is incompetent.” It is faced with this kind of sometimes subtle but quite pervasive difference in how men and women are perceived that made me very sympathetic to many of the claims that Clinton supporters made about HIllary’s treatment. Note of course, that many of these kinds of things are very subtle and very difficult for any individual student (in this case) to articulate or even know about their reactions.

8. peaceweaver Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

   The only way I can think of to systematically study this would be by surveys, which I can’t help but think would give skewed results.

   Here’s more anecdotal “evidence.” As a female professor, I have had many women students crying in my office, and I have had at least two male students discuss their sexual orientation with me as a difficulty they were having with their academic or personal lives. Students have discussed their financial situations, their medical histories, their psychiatric difficulties, their family difficulties, their relationship issues. There seem to be no boundaries to what they feel a female professor should know about their lives. I doubt most male professors get regaled with such detail.

   Of course, students may need the counsel of a trusted adult when they are far from home. That is a good thing. The problem is that such sessions are time and energy consuming, so the female professor in such a situation cannot devote that time to what will get her tenured or promoted. Advising students is way down the list of activities that count.

9. hedgie Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

   As a male prof I do get people in my office telling me their life stories. In part this is because I teach writing and I have regular contact with them, and in part it’s because I meet them in a very stressful time of their lives. In general I find that women are more open then men. I actually wish that the men would open up more, because I think it would help them.

   As for my female students, it’s true that when there is the least hint of flirtiness, I tend to shut it down. By this I mean that I become very emotionally unavailable. This is not so much fear of lawsuits as some (perhaps misplaced) sense of mispropriety. It’s awkward as hell to be in a closed office with a student who is attracted to you, and even worse when the attraction is mutual (which happens). So I just act in a way that says “me teacher you student.”

   And yeah, I imagine it’s very different for female profs.

10. hedgie Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    umm, I meant “propriety.”

11. fostert Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    “sex refers to biological fact: were you born with a penis or a uterus
    gender refers to cultural expectations and learned behaviors:”

    Okay, but what if you’re born with a uterus and two penises? Sex isn’t a very clearly defined concept, and sexual organs don’t really help that definition. And genetics doesn’t really help if you’re XXY. What’s that? In the end, neither gender nor sex are really definable. I’m willing to go with the concept that gender is what’s socially definable and sex is definable by genetics, but that’s not really helpful, is it? I have always gone with the concept that a person is whatever he/she/other says they are, but the distinction between ’sex’ and ‘gender’ doesn’t seem to be significant in that concept. And nobody on this thread has cleared that up for me. So I see no reason for someone to get offended by the difference between ’sex’ and ‘gender.’ A person has whatever physical characteristics that they have and they have whatever gender identity that they have, and those may or may not be the same. In the end, I don’t care at all. They’re people either way. But if someone wants to make a big stink about whether I use the term ’sex’ or ‘gender’, they need to clearly explain how I should use each term. Until that day occurs, I’m not going to worry about it.

12. fostert Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 7:20 pm

    “They’re people either way.”

    I should add that, regardless of any sex or gender issues, everyone deserves to be treated the same way. Male, female, katouey, or other, we are all human beings and deserve the same rights. That may be uncomfortable for some, but we all need to suck it up and treat everyone fairly. That won’t happen in my lifetime, but maybe some of the younger readers will experience it.

13. godoggo Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

    Has anybody tried looking up “gender” the dicktionary (hey, it’s Yglesias’s blog, gimme a break)? 2nd definition of gender is “sex.”

14. ohio teach Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 9:20 pm

    fostert says:but what if you’re born with a uterus and two penises?

    And that happens with what frequency?

15. Bloix Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 1:23 am

    I’ve got nine years of post-secondary education – I must have had forty professors – and I never once had anything like a “life issues” conversation with any of them. And I wasn’t particularly well-adjusted, either. It just never occurred to me – they weren’t my friends and they weren’t my therapists. I was friendly enough with a few of them to exchange chit-chat – but “life issues”? that would have been weird. It sounds like exhibitionism to me.

16. Pesto Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 11:07 am

    I spent 2 years in a PhD program before dropping out, and I had one professor, a woman, who actively sought this kind of personal bonding with students. I found it unbelievably inappropriate and fundamentally dishonest.

    Of course, students may need the counsel of a trusted adult when they are far from home. That is a good thing. The problem is that such sessions are time and energy consuming, so the female professor in such a situation cannot devote that time to what will get her tenured or promoted. Advising students is way down the list of activities that count.

    The problem with it, from the student’s perspective, is that there is a massive power imbalance between professors and grad students, especially when those professors are tenured. One of the people in the conversation can essentially determine the course of the other’s professional career. The other has virtually no impact on the other’s professional career.

    I grew up in an academic household, and I understand the social dynamics of academia innately. I can’t speak too much about disciplines in which grad students get degrees and go to work outside the academy. But in the humanities, which I am familiar with, the habit of grad students and professors treating each other as proto-colleagues, in the job environment that’s existed since the mid-70s, is ugly and corrosive.

    Students: if you need to work out your personal issues, talk to a genuine peer, like a fellow-grad student (or someone not in the academy!) who’s a friend, or get a therapist. Although it is your job to impress professors and make them like you and your work, treating them as personal intimates is a huge mistake.

    Professors: you are not your students’ friend or confessor or pseudo-parent. You are the person who will determine whether they get a degree and a job. Teach them, help them with their work, but do not get into personal stuff with them. You can bond with them once they’re on the tenure track.

    On the M/F question that Matt posted on: you’d need to control for the professor’s age. There have got to be many more younger-cohort women professors than older-cohort ones, and it might well be the case that grad students are more comfortable treating younger professors this way than older professors, both M and F.

17. eszter Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    Wow, fascinating to compare the dialogue here to the one at CT about this.

    I would also like to see a systematic study, but it wouldn’t be easy. For one thing, as glockenspiel points out above, there are a lot of subtleties going on here and those are often very hard to uncover not to mention measure in a way that makes systematic study possible.

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