By MARTY LEVINE
Working and learning at an institution of higher education has much in common with the rest of life when it comes to needing gender-inclusive environments. And yet it presents its own issues, too.
In the new class from Pitt’s Faculty and Staff Development Program, “Fostering Inclusive Environments: Gender Diversity in Higher Education,” instructor Carrie Benson noted specific challenges in higher education:
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An Association of American Universities (AAU) survey in 2019 showed that 28.7 percent of students who identify as transgender or non-binary reported experiencing sexual violence.
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A U.S. transgender study found that 24 percent of respondents experienced verbal, physical and/or sexual harassment on campus and 16 percent of those students left their institution.
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A 2017 study showed that 19 percent of trans first-year students reported major concerns about financing their college education, compared to 12 percent of students overall.
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Women are 60 percent of higher ed professionals but hold only 40 percent of leadership roles.
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Articles authored by men average 4.8 more citations than those written by women
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According to a 2017 AAU study, 20.5 percent of female graduate students at Pitt reported experiencing sexual harassment.
Benson — prevention and education coordinator in the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion — pointed out that “for years we have talked about gender in binary terms,” but suggested everyone could find themselves somewhere inside a continuum from male to female. “If we charted our continuum, we’d have 60 different spots” for the 60 different class participants, she said. “Today, we are here to discuss how we can make (Pitt) a more inclusive space with a real focus on gender.”
Benson displayed a photo of her own daughter, right after birth, in the hospital: “Within seconds of my baby’s birth, what do you see?” she said. “They put a pink hat on my baby.” Individuals are thus taught to socially behave in accordance with their sex assigned at birth, she said. Only later do some individuals realize that their personal sense of sexuality and gender differs from this immediately assumed sex. In the meantime, the mass of society, with its binary divisions in everything from baby clothes to bathrooms, reinforces the two options of male or female.
Participants offered instances in which gender-based mistreatment interfered with their work lives. One faculty member, for instance, recalled being advised not to choose to enter the tenure track because they would need time to have a family. “I feel like that advice would not have been given to a man,” said this faculty member — who refused the advice in any case.
Another participant recalled asking a boss whether they could arrive and leave half an hour later each day to accommodate a daughter’s needs. “I was accused of setting my work life on fire” by making that request, they said.
Cheryl Ruffin, institutional equity manager in OEDI, said that, still today, “there’s always a huge difference in the language used in letters of recommendation” arriving for potential new hires. Letters for males contain “strong words such as ‘trailblazer,’ whereas for women the words are ‘compassion’ and ‘dedicated’ ” — no matter the gender of the letter writer.
And other participants reported that they still get misgendered by professors in class, even though the use of “they” and “them” for one person has been officially recognized by style guides that set the standard for journalism and academic writing, such as the Associated Press in The Chicago Manual of Style.
One participant, however, who was raised in a Latin American country, pointed out that the relatively new genderless plural form “Latinx” must have been created by a non-Spanish speaker, since it feels foreign to the language. Spanish speakers are now debating using an “e” rather than an “x” at the end of that word to signal the genderless plural.
Asked whether “they” was OK to use as a default pronoun for everyone, Benson suggested that, instead, “I would actually default to using someone’s name.”
Possible ways of creating gender-inclusive spaces in classrooms or offices, she said, may include:
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If you are leading the office or class, convey your values and expectations for proper behavior.
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In a classroom, review your teaching methods to see who has a voice within your class, and what examples you are using in class: Is it only “she” and “he” or also “they”?
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Be knowledgeable about resources you can use or point others to, which at Pitt includes the University’s nondiscrimination policy, its policies on restrooms and chosen names, its guidelines for inclusion and its transgender working group.
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Make sure everyone is being mentored: “Who are we spending time with, who has a chance to develop and grow?”
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Be certain you have representation in decision-making from people all over the division.
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Review internal policies and practices, not only to determine whether they contain gendered language but whether there are institutional prejudices in the policies.
Ruffin added that: “We often think about the big 'P' Policies, but probably the ones that are the most harmful are the unwritten policies.”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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