When I started teaching, I was given some advice to use my first name with my students. The idea was to be more friendly and make things more comfortable in class. Many of us, perhaps nearly off of us, got that message. I didn’t think about it too hard then, and I did that for many years, all the while not knowing that what I was doing was making things harder for women in academia.
Last month Dr. Jill Biden was the target of a disdainful WSJ op ed, basically saying she’s not a real doctor and full of sexism and anti-intellectual tones. It’s one example of a long history of sexist put down of successful, smart women in the academy.
Men get to be Dr. ___, even if they use Stan or Paul in class, but women get called Ms.___ or Alice, and it’s not always respected or assumed that the woman is a Dr. ___ and an expert.
This is how systemic biases can work. We do things without knowing that it undermines a group of people. A well intended suggestion I received early in my career, which sounded like good advice at the time, actually had some hidden( to me) negative aspects that oppresses women in higher education. Later I learned about the biases that make it so that women have to work harder and deal with more, and the extra challenges and burdens women have to deal with.
Consequently, I decided years ago to use Dr. Y or professor Y with my students. It’s out of solidarity with women and minoritized groups, and it’s with the long-term goal of contributing to shifting norms towards equity and social justice. If we all did it, then that’d be the standard way students would address *all* faculty.
In countries like Japan, all teachers in elementary and secondary schools, professors, medical doctors, other leaders are given the title, “sensei.” It is an honorable title for those who teach or help others in society. Japan is not a society that earns high marks for gender equity, so I’m not trying to say that the term is some magic bullet. Thinking about what sensei means in Japan, however, does provide useful insights. Doctor can mean more than one thing, and we generally lack norms that could help our education system be more inclusive and equitable for women.
The closest thing we have to sensei is professor, although professor has been earmarked as a rank. For those who are lecturers and without a Ph.D., we do not have a professional title. Given all this, I argue that it is appropriate for all college instructors to use the title “professor” in classes, just as sensei is used by K-college instructors in Japan. Words and titles can mean more than one thing, and their meaning can be easily understood in context.
Thus, I invite all my colleagues to consider using Dr. or professor with our students, if you haven’t done so already, because it contributes to shifting norms in a decisively positive direction. We could explain to our students why we are using our titles, and why it’s important to respect all educators for gender equity. Where possible, we can use our titles, identities, and positions at our institutions to level the playing field for women in higher education.
