Women less likely to lead ‘difficult’ debates in higher education, study says

A recent US study has found that female lecturers are less likely to encourage discussing ‘difficult’ topics of conversation compared to their male counterparts.

Clinical psychologist Dr Helen Miles defines ‘difficult’ here as “any situation where the needs, wants, opinions or perceptions of those involved are diverse or opposing, and therefore strong emotions may be elicited from the parties involved.”

This is especially tense in the higher educational setting, where students and faculty are expected to be professional and behave sensitively towards sociopolitical issues.

However, a study conducted by InFORM reported that female tutors had “significantly less confidence” when discussing issues such as anti-semitism, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Islamophobia.

Researchers explored whether other contextual influences – such as religious affiliations or political ideology – might play a role, but found that gender was the clear dividing factor.

The study suggests this could be because female faculty members must consider any “professional risk” and backlash more than men.

I think it’s more to do with an imbalance of perspectives between what is considered a ‘difficult’ topic by men and women participating in the seminar

University of Warwick student

A study by Association for Psychological Science found that, for women, speaking forcefully can be interpreted as aggression, and challenging colleagues carries costs. This doesn’t only apply to tutors and lecturers, but also students in seminars who are often expected to lead and contribute to group discussions.

In response to a question posed by The Boar about gender disparity in seminars, one student shared that “women are less likely to open debates and join in discussions […] I suspect this is due to socialisation differences and thus a lack of confidence”.

Another respondent said that the contribution gap is often reliant on whether the classroom is male-dominated or female-dominated, rather than the issue being that women are not contributing at all.

They told The Boar, “In my more male-dominated seminars, women often don’t even raise their hand to contribute, whereas in my female-dominated seminars […] women raise points freely.”

Em Ellard, a Linguistics student argued, “I think it’s more to do with an imbalance of perspectives between what is considered a ‘difficult’ topic by men and women participating in the seminar.” She also speculated that male lecturers might feel more open to encouraging emotionally-charged debates, whilst female lecturers are inclined to ‘keep the peace’.