Where are the men?: The ongoing gender problem in early childhood education

Features February 15, 2017

There’s this idea that something is inherently wrong with a man who wants to work with children. But to work with children, a male in early childhood education (ECE) must accept that he will be making less income and know that he will be working in a field that isn’t viewed as respectable by some. While he will be valuable in his field, society often sees the role of an early childhood educator as unnecessary. There’s no doubt: his skills and abilities will be undervalued.

Considering the patriarchal society we live in, it’s a bit hard to believe that a male would need to break into a predominantly female field. But that’s exactly what men have been doing. Registered dental assistants, nurses, and early childhood educators are just three examples of careers that are still considered “women’s work” despite a gradual increase in the number of men joining their ranks.

Our society being what it is, men bring credibility with them. And that means jobs like ECE aren’t “women’s work” at all; they’re respectable career choices. With talk of unions, a demand for an increase in wages, and a more rough-and-tumble style of play, men are changing the face of while keeping it what it always was—nurturing.

But if men in ECE are so important, where are they?

GETTING PAST GENDER NORMS

“Dadthusiasm” may not be a widely used word—and it’s definitely a made-up word—but the men who exude dadthusiasm genuinely love being around their kids. These positive male role models are unafraid to show off pictures of their kids, tell stories, and just generally gush. They rush home to support sick partners or children and take an equal part in raising their kids. So why is it so hard to believe that there are men out there who would like working with children?

Camosun College Social Science chair Daniel Reeve says that he associates the primary values of ECE with children having a balanced—and varied—perspective on what it is to be nurtured and cared for.

“I know there’s a fair bit of research that suggests that children need to see caregivers who identify as male or female who are nurturing and mothering,” says Reeve. “And it’s especially important for children to see typically male characters as nurturing and loving, because that has long-term benefits for the children. I think it’s important, in terms of socialization, for children to see adults—of whatever gender identification—as caring, nurturing, loving, playful. You know, whatever quality you need for children to be raised in a healthy way. Not just one gender-identified group, but from a variety of them.”

This story originally appeared in our February 15, 2017 issue.

Local early childhood educator Steph Butler, who is a recent graduate of Camosun’s Early Learning and Care (ELC) program, says that even though there are advocates for men in ECE, there are a lot of reasons why men would shy away from the field.

“I’ve talked to other male ECEs,” says Butler. “Not that I knew them—it’s just because, over the years, Camosun students have brought up the subject of gender in the field of ECE, and there are three or four of us that can always come in and out, and I’ve been a staple. I’ve got their viewpoints of why there’s just so few. One of the things is it’s never really an option. No one really goes, ‘Oh, yeah—you can be an early childhood educator.’ I remember when I was younger and I did career and personal planning, it never came up. The things I got were police officer, janitor, and teacher. But nowhere in there was early childhood educator.”

Butler says that even though most of the men he’s talked to over the years love kids, few of them considered becoming an early childhood educator.

“All my friends that are dads love their children,” he says, “and, literally, were like, ‘Yeah, given the choice, I would take pat leave and let my wife go to work, so I could hang out with my son or daughter.’”

Traditional gender roles teach children different things. Girls are taught to be nurturing, submissive, and quiet. Boys are taught that they are entitled to what they want—and to hide that they have any emotional capacity past anger. So is it impossible for men to be nurturing, caring, and loving? Reeve sure hopes not.

“I think not only is it totally possible, it’s vital and extremely important that children are raised by men or women or whatever their gender identity who demonstrate a variety of characteristics,” says Reeve. “I’m not so quick to identify characteristics with gender, and I’m not quick to replicate those in my children. It’s important for young children to have experiences with men and women in a variety of emotional capacities. It’s important, especially I think for young boys, to have the capacity and the environment to express a wide array of characteristics that maybe traditionally were associated with being ‘girlish,’ but that construct is not meaningful anymore.”

Reeve says that it’s important to liberate our kids from the gender constructs that we’ve made as a society, and he hopes that with men entering ECE we’ll become more aware of some of those constructs.

“I think we’ve made progress in allowing women to play hockey. I don’t know if we’ve made as much progress allowing boys to experience activities that were traditionally gendered,” he says. “What I’m trying to avoid saying is, ‘Yes, you need men in there so they can teach these kids to be rough-and-tumble.’ You do, but that’s not the only quality that men can and should bring to the table.”

LACK OF DIVERSITY

As it stands now, diversity in ELC isn’t the norm. Camosun College offers priority seating for those with indigenous ancestry and teaches students to be inclusive, but the industry continues to be filled with white females.

“They really want to be inclusive,” says Butler. “They’re like, ‘You need to be inclusive,’ and they teach you how to be inclusive. But I remember sitting there and being like, ‘Our program in and of itself is not inclusive. There’s only one male here in the program. There are no male teachers, and there are not a lot of teachers of colour represented in the faculty in this program. This is a program run by all females, all white, and all of them [from a] middle-aged demographic.’ But the program itself was teaching how to be inclusive; I got my specialization in inclusive care. It did teach inclusion, it just didn’t practice what it preached. At the same time, it probably couldn’t. There are just so few male ECEs that there probably weren’t enough male ECEs who then went back to school, got their master’s, and were able to teach at Camosun, to be fair.”

Eryn Krieger is a second-year ELC student; in his first year in the program, two male ECEs spoke with his class. Krieger is hopeful that times are changing, but he says that the lack of men interested in joining ECE is disheartening; he, for example, is the only male in his program.

“Unfortunately, myself, I haven’t had any experiences with younger students that were interested, or younger men that are interested in joining the program,” says Krieger. “I’ve only met people who have already graduated. I think it’s kind of a commentary. Not all of my friends are necessarily your stereotypical males; I think a lot of them would be perfectly suited to the job and would make great educators, but I think there’s such a huge economic stress on them, and a lot of social stigma and stereotypes that they probably don’t feel comfortable in confronting and challenging.”

Krieger says that ECE is not something that very many males are encouraged to look at when trying to figure out a career, which he says is a social problem. He feels there are many benefits to males being in ECE.

“Crime rates, recidivism rates, just how it would affect society if we did have positive male role models for children—I think it could change a lot,” he says. “And I think a lot of countries in the world already know that, and that’s why they do spend a lot of their money on early childhood programs and making sure they’re quality programs. They know there are economic benefits to it, there are social benefits to it, there are cultural benefits to it. There’s no reason that you wouldn’t want to invest in that. I can’t think of a reason not to.”

Camosun ELC program leader Enid Elliot agrees that there are benefits to having men in the field.

“For children, it’s wonderful to have men working with them, partly because it’s just wonderful to have a different kind of energy,” says Elliot, “and I think we could probably talk about all the different issues around gender roles and things like that. But as it is now, children need to have a diversity of relationships, and I think men can offer perhaps a different type of relationship, or a different perspective on the world.”

Elliot says that she doesn’t think people understand how difficult it is to be a good early childhood educator, and that the lack of understanding contributes to a lack of respect for the line of work, as well as the low wages early childhood educators get paid. She says that she wishes she could take people to well-run programs and show how an early childhood educator has to be thoughtful, flexible, creative, and energetic… and also how it’s not just women who can do it.

“I think people think it’s babysitting,” says Elliot, “which is really, I think, a dismissal of children and their amazing abilities and their intelligence. To just assume that anybody can do this job, and that somehow it’s also innate in women that they can do it, as opposed to men? I’ve been doing this over 40 years, and I find it discouraging at times that people would assume that.”

“SOMETHING MUST BE WRONG WITH HIM.”

One big obstacle stopping men from wanting to become early childhood educators is the wages. The lower pay for what has historically been women’s work means that men are less likely to sign up for the job. Elliot says that might change if the wages go up a bit.

“I mean, they shouldn’t be low for women, either,” says Elliot, “but I think maybe women are more used to that.”

Elliot also points to the aforementioned stereotype that if a man enters this line of work, his motives should be questioned.

“I don’t think it’s so prevalent now, but I think maybe in our society, we have a bit of suspicion of men who might want to work with young children, and we don’t want them working with babies and toddlers and there’s a worry about that, although we have a couple of wonderful men in child care who have worked with infants and toddlers. But on the whole, I think there are probably social and economic factors that work against men in our field. The perception is, ‘What is he doing, working with children? Something must be wrong with him.’”

Considering that the first five years of a child’s life are fundamentally important in the development of a child’s brain and future abilities, having a diverse group of people for children to look up to—and relate to—is important. When asked what he gets out of working with younger kids, Krieger says that although it sounds cheesy, it’s the joy of learning.

“The children are always pointing stuff out to me that I had no clue about,” says Krieger, “just things that they’re passionate about—say, dinosaurs, or different types of trucks, like a cement mixer and how that works—stuff that I don’t even think about, every day, that they’re so passionate about. They really just remind me how to look at the world with curiosity, and the love for learning that they naturally have, which I think is what we need to cultivate, especially as educators. I think it’s just helping them figure out what they’re passionate about and finding out how you can extend that for them.”

The role of an early childhood educator is vital, and it’s encouraging to see men slowly entering the field. Early childhood educators work closely enough with children to spot behavioural challenges and learning difficulties. An increase in the number of men in ECE means that children might get the opportunity to test their physical capabilities a little more often, and it gives men someone to talk to. It can help break down gender stereotypes and traditional gender roles. It can show the children of today that men can be sensitive and that work doesn’t have to be so segregated. And it can give men the chance to see the world through the eyes of a child—a chance that women have long had as early childhood educators.

1 thought on “Where are the men?: The ongoing gender problem in early childhood education

  1. As a women who does not think like a typical woman but has a thinking style more like a man (verified by neuro-psychological testing after a car accident but I’d always suspected) I am of the opinion that women, who primarily control the E.C.E. field, simply don’t like the way that men, and masculine women, think, reason, play, nurture and teach. As a result they impose a series of rules and expectations that virtually assure that only a few men will survive through schooling to be hired.

    Granted, on the surface, they claim very strongly to WANT the diversity, and therefore the men who do survive the weeding process will be quickly snapped up for employment, but what they really want is the APPEARANCE of diversity. Lots of men, but men who think and act like women (or appear to in order to succeed) and presumably applicants of colour who think and act according to white social norms. No one really wants the status quo to be disturbed by ACTUAL diversity.

    I still remember in Child & Family Class, I was the only student who even thought to do their study on the changing role of fathers, and the outcomes of male primary parenting on child development. My classmates were scandalised to learn that child development was not only not harmed, but was actually improved by greater exposure to masculine parenting styles, particularly with regard to cognitive development.

    Basically anything that doesn’t “fit” with how a typical women would do it, or how one would think it ought to be done, is assumed to be inferior, and the notion that it might not be inferior is viewed as threatening.

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