Gender and headship in the twenty-first century

3. What is the impact of gender on the working life of headteachers?

The headteachers were asked about gender in relation to:

• attitudes of their peers and colleagues

• feeling that they have to prove their worth (as a man or woman) in a
leadership role

• reasons for their being successful

• advantages experienced as a man or woman headteacher

Attitudes of their peers and colleagues

As with promotion and appointment, it is secondary women heads who are most
likely to have experienced sexism from peers and colleagues. Although the
proportion is less than it was in the 1990s, it is still about half of the sample who say
they have experience of sexism in their work as heads. In the primary sector, women
once appointed are working with mainly women staff, so it is less likely that they will
experience sexism. All the same sexism in work is reported by about 15 per cent of
both women and men in the primary sector. In the late 1990s and today, women who
have children or who are divorced or separated are more likely to report experience
of sexism. However, as mentioned in relation to promotion and appointment, women
in the secondary sector are less likely to be stereotyped than before into pastoral or
caring roles. Although stereotypes are less common, there is still a tendency to
judge women by different yardsticks to men.

Within my LEA, there are situations in which I have had to push for the needs
of my school and am seen sometimes as difficult where a male head is seen
as firm and assertive, but I can live with it! (woman secondary head, early
50s)

Women headteachers are operating in a context where they are not 'supposed' to be
and one where at least some of the stakeholders would overtly prefer a man. A
woman special school head in her late 40s recalled that: 'my inherited deputy told me
on the first day that he wasn't working for a woman, especially one younger than
him.' There is still resentment and/or surprise in finding a woman in the position of
headteacher. In the 2004 data, specific groups are named in relation to this:
governors; parents; male teachers and builders, who tend to be patronising. One
woman secondary head in her late 40s commented about examples of sexism at
work:

Too many to enumerate - mostly in the way parents/other professionals speak
to women in my position - I've got 100s of anecdotes!

As with appointments, governors’ attitudes to a female head can also be a problem.
One secondary woman head in her 40s stated that: 'I am presently being 'bullied' by
the chair of governors as I am the first female headteacher at this school, but I am
coping and fighting back!'

There were other comments from women secondary heads specifically in relation to
male colleagues:

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