CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS
Superintendent 1 Tired of All the Good-Ole-Boy Crap
Having served for years as a female superintendent, superintendent 1 understands the nuances and intricacies of the educational landscape for women in leadership. Her story-telling conveyed a confessional jab at men oppressors; she spoke sharply and without explanation for what it meant to be “tired of all the good-ole-boy crap,” sending an unspoken message that she knew the researcher empathized with her experiences. Simultaneously, her narratives appeared to unconsciously highlight how women both hide and hurt themselves to advance into leadership, all in the name of selfless service for children. Accordingly, she employed a narrative strategy elucidating how preparation, silence and role-playing were used not simply for career
advancement but for employing a new form of female leadership. In leveraging this narrative strategy, superintendent 1 makes meaning of her leadership.
Maybe I’m Overcompensating.
Throughout the narration of her experiences, the superintendent leveraged a narrative strategy explaining how a keen focus on preparation was required for success throughout her career. When the researcher arrived for the interview, the superintendent had already printed out the interview questions and had made notes on her handout, explaining to the researcher, “I just wanted to sort of prepare my thoughts for you.” It was the first simple yet poignant indication of a success tactic she was overly accustomed to in female leadership.
The narration of the superintendent’s first interview for a superintendency position set the stage for what she would continue to experience in her career. When she was in a high level central office position in a district, she interviewed and was a finalist for the superintendent vacancy in the district. Simultaneously, she was a superintendent finalist in another district. Torn by what to do, she sought advice from her boss:
79
Well, I went to my [District B] finalist interview,
and the next day I got a call from the Board attorney offering me the job.
And so I went into my…boss, the outgoing superintendent who was getting ready to retire and I said,
“What do I do? Should I wait? I’ve got two more days until [District A’s] second interview.”
And he looked at me and he said, “Bird in the hand?” And I said, “Yes, sir.”
And he said, “You need to take that job…and oh, by the way, [District A] wasn’t going to hire you because they weren’t ready for a woman.”
Her boss, the outgoing superintendent, tells her directly that the district is not ready for her leadership or any woman’s leadership. When prodded by the researcher about what her boss had meant from the comment that the district was not “ready for a woman,” the superintendent highlighted the discrimination she had faced by her explanation of what he meant:
…[he meant] that they were going to hire the other [candidate]…. he was…
he did not have a doctorate degree or even a master’s degree. He had just an undergrad….
[he] lucked into school[s] and then that’s how he got into the school system… that Board thought it was more important to have…
a numbers, finance guy than a school person.
Instead of hiring her, the board determined another male candidate who was a better fit for the district’s superintendent position. The superintendent’s description of this man who secured their district’s superintendency indicates not only her feelings about the loss but also illustrates how preparation has affected her in her school leadership work. Superintendent 1 is highly educated, experienced and knew the work of the school system. Yet, because the board was not ready for a female leader, her male counterpart with less education, less curricular-knowledge, and less preparation secured the position before she did.
This professional wound in which her level of preparedness was overlooked because of her gender helped prepare her to work alongside male politicians later in her career in a
80
superintendency. She explained that being a female superintendent has required an unrelenting focus on preparedness to assure men she knows what she is doing:
When I would interact with [politicians] or elected officials over there, I would find myself doing way more preparation.
And what I mean by that is studying facts and figures.
Whether it was the budget or number of teachers or…graduation rate.
All those kinds of things because all of those—consequently—gentlemen that were elected officials,
whether the commissioner or the mayor or councilmen, umm… treated me very differently….
Employing such a tactic of over preparation allowed her, only over time, to gain some credibility with the men she was required to work with as superintendent. She explained how much time and preparation it took to finally change their conception of her as a female leader:
There…you know, it was just the good-ole-boys.
And it took several years for those elected officials to look at me and say, “Oh, well, gosh, that…female actually does know what she’s talking about.” You know for the first two years I got a lot of the,
“What are you doing here?” “What do you know?”
You know, kind of expressions. So my…
my defense mechanism to that is just knowing my information and being able to answer questions and solve problems and really provide you with as much factual or data-driven information…
particularly while making decisions.
As the superintendent stated, because she was a woman working with nearly all male politicians, she had to develop a defense. That defense was ensuring she knew as much information as possible to prove she was smart enough to be part of the conversation. Yet even with this amount of preparation, it took significant time for them to recognize her worth.
In reflecting on this narrative strategy of preparedness, the superintendent’s narrative is mixed with varied emotions. She explained why she used this “defense mechanism”:
Just to… you know…
81 and maybe…
I don’t know.
Maybe that’s overcompensating. (Laughs.)
But you know just to show you…. yes I really do [know what I’m doing!]
The superintendent’s hesitation explaining the tactic reflects the doubt the men have placed on her. The superintendent herself stated she was overly prepared for each interaction with the male elected officials, knowing every tiny detail about the school system in case she was questioned. Even with this level of preparedness, her diction of “maybe” and “I don’t know” highlights her inability to break through the male-dominated politics. Also, the superintendent explained that she was “overcompensating” through her preparedness; yet, to overcompensate is to make up for something that is missing. But what is it that she is missing? She has the highest degrees,
decades of experience, and enormous amounts of preparation. As the superintendent illustrates, she has leveraged a narrative strategy focused on preparation in order to make meaning of her experiences as a female leader.
How Much Stink Do You Raise?
In addition to preparedness, the superintendent employed a narrative strategy highlighting various forms of silence throughout the narration of her experiences as a female leader. As described in Chapter II of this study, Skrla (2003) explains how women have been normalized to be “silent” and “unambitious” to be considered appropriately feminine (p.254). For the
superintendent, this manifested in her self-described haphazard entry into leadership, the explanation of her experience with a tremendous gender pay gap, her response to inappropriate comments from men, and her explanation of why women may not choose to engage in the superintendency.
82
When asked about her ascension into the superintendency, the superintendent described her entry into education beginning with the role of classroom teacher. She explained how she moved from the classroom teacher role to a facilitator role and then quickly into an assistant principalship:
My principal…at the time said,
“I have an opening for an assistant principal next year. Would you be interested?” And I said,
“No, no, I love what I’m doing, I love being close to the kids and working with teachers.”
She looked at me and she said,
“You didn’t hear me, I have an opening and you’re going to do it”… … and I of course said, “Yes, ma’am!”
Her movement into the assistant principalship is narrated by the superintendent as something that occurred to her, not something she sought. She described her movement into central office similarly:
So when I left and finished my doctorate and went back to [the district] and was at an elementary school for a year,
[the superintendent] came in and he was visiting schools and he said to me, “I’m going to decentralize;
we’re going to open these area offices. We’re going to make big feel small,
and there will be an area superintendent and an executive director. You’ll have a team of curriculum people,
and you’ll support and serve X number of schools depending on where the geographical area was.”
Well of course at the time I said, “Well I just love being a principal.” And he said,
“You’re not hearing me!” So, I of course said, “Yes, sir.”
Undoubtedly, the superintendent was a talented, high-performing employee, and that was recognized by leadership. The narration around each episode highlights the societal expectation placed on women to not intentionally seek, want, desire, demand leadership; rather, her
83
successful movement towards the superintendency appears coincidental, as if she gracefully fell into the right place at the right moment. Additionally, in both narrations she describes her
reluctance to take the leadership position and her compliance with those in authority, confirming their desires with a “yes, ma’am” or “yes, sir.”
The superintendent’s narrative also highlighted silence as an approach of female
leadership in her explanation of a tremendous gender pay gap she experienced while in a central office role. She explained:
I was the fourth highest paid person in [the district].
It was the superintendent, [another high-ranking central office position], a [school based] principal, and me, the other [high-ranking central office position].
There was a $30,000 spread between my salary and the [second highest paid position] salary,
and I managed more people, I managed more departments… But you know at what point…
how hard do you push?
You know, how much stink do you raise?
Knowing down the line I wanted to be a superintendent…
I didn’t want to be known as you know the woman who is all about money… And you know….
once a year everybody’s salary is printed in the paper and the whole community is a-buzz and you know every year when that happened in [the district] that was always the big talk:
“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe [she] is number four… she should be, you know, [in a higher position]”
And that there’s such a big spread between my salary and the [other high-ranking central office person’s] salary.
The tremendous difference in pay between the superintendent and her former colleague, a male, who ranked equal to her on the organizational chart provided clear evidence of unfair treatment. The superintendent’s telling of the community’s response to this pay gap as one of shock shows acknowledgment that there was inequity in their pay scales. As has been normalized for
appropriate feminine behavior, the superintendent explains she was hesitant to call attention to such a problem because she did not want to raise a “stink.” She had been inculcated to know that
84
speaking up may lead to her inability to move ahead, as she acknowledged her actions may affect her ability “to be a superintendent.” Also, her response to the gender pay gap she experienced illustrates how men and women have been socialized to devalue women’s financial worth: that women feel a sense of moral obligation to their work as educators and, in turn, they have been manipulated to believe that their pay is not an indicator of their worth to the work.
Another way the superintendent’s narrative strategy is illustrated through issues of silence is illustrated through her experiences with sexism. The superintendent acknowledged sexism was a part of her experience as a female leader, and she described this sexism as manifesting mostly in terms of what men would say to her:
You know there are some,
and again it goes back to knowing your context of where you’re working and where you’re serving…
There are some people that it doesn’t bother me.
For example, when I was in [a former district] there was this very elderly [elected official] …
he would call me sweetie—I don’t think he ever knew my name. But the man is 85 years old.
So you know, that didn’t bother me. And I knew he wasn’t being….malicious. Or he wasn’t doing it on purpose.
Now some of those other gentlemen who were very with-it in their 50s. You know, when they would call me sweetie, hunny, sugar, I would say, “Now, you remember…”
And I would tell them my name or come up with some little witty saying. In these descriptions, men were using terms of endearment towards a female colleague, the superintendent, something that men would generally not do to other men in the workplace; however, towards the female superintendent, it seemed socially acceptable. The superintendent’s description of her response to what she herself described as an example of “sexism” was to attempt to redirect their comments by supplying her name or a funny comment. She is
85
silent the naming of what the comments truly are: inappropriate, sexist behavior. The superintendent understands that naming the comments risks her opportunity to remain at the table.
Superintendent 1’s narrative strategy of silence was also illustrated in her explanation of the gender gap in the superintendency. When asked to explain her own understanding of the gender gap, the superintendent hypothesized that age may pose a barrier. Due to the short “life span” of the school superintendent, she explained how women may be perceived if their superintendency contract is not renewed and they need to continue to work:
So I wonder and worry that you know,
What happens if you get a contract and you do this for 2 or 3 years and for whatever reason if goes awry and you’re 40 years old…
you know what do you do?
If you’re confident enough you can go back to a principalship or a central office job,
but not everyone has that level of confidence…
then you run the risk of your colleagues branding you a failure which, you know, I don’t think is the case at all.
I’ve got a friend who was a superintendent…
and she realized she hated the politics and she’s back [as a different education job and] she loves it….
For a year she battled that image –
“Oh you were terrible; you got run out of town,”
Which is so unfortunate, because that doesn’t happen to men, you know. For them it’s just:
“Oh I made this choice, I needed to spend more time with my family, or I wanted to do this thing.”
As the superintendent explains, it can be the fear of failure, rejection, or public humiliation that keeps women from moving towards the superintendency. While women are publicly scrutinized for their failures in the superintendency, superintendent 1 believes this level of shaming “doesn’t happen to men.” It is the fear of a potentially public failure that keeps women in their roles and, accordingly, keeps them silent. As illustrated through her entry into leadership, the experience of a gender pay gap, her dealings with sexism, and her explanation of why women do not enter the
86
superintendency, superintendent 1 illustrates how the narrative strategy of silence affects how she makes meaning of her leadership in a male-dominated role.
I Made Myself One of Them.
In addition to preparation and silence, superintendent 1 narrated how role-playing affects the understanding of her leadership. The superintendent is cognizant of the ways social
expectations of female and male roles and interests affected her behavior leading to and in the superintendency. Her narration of experiences explained how marriage, motherhood, and
engaging in stereotypical male interests were all ways she navigates the female superintendency. The superintendent recognizes that the demands of the superintendency requires
tremendous support from one’s spouse and family. She describes the perception placed on her as a woman superintendent when people consider her support system:
That was another thing that sometimes people will say to you as a female superintendent.
The first question is: “What does your husband do?” and the second is “How many children do you have?”
And in my case when they find out your husband [doesn’t work] they’re all kind of like, “Oh, wow, must be nice.”
And I’m like, “You know what? He worked 25 years really hard…and nothing came easy to him, and you know what?
No, we don’t have children but like I say now, I am a mother of [large number of] students.”
The superintendent described how her husband’s current lifestyle allowed them the flexibility for her to consider the superintendency because it allowed them the flexibility to move but likewise provided her support in other ways, including cooking dinner at night. Yet while this support is necessary when considering the demands of the superintendency, the female superintendent received judgment for having a husband who does not work and no children, as if her role as superintendent were easier because she did not fit into the appropriate societal expectations of wife and mother.
87
Also, the superintendent’s narration of the relationship between the superintendency and motherhood revealed its complexity. She stated of motherhood:
[Participant]: You know, I am not a mother, not by choice. It just never happened.
Umm… but looking back now I think, had I been a mother, I probably would not have gone all the way to be a superintendent because the demands are so great in this job:
The time demands, the stress demands, the family demands, you gotta move, you’ve gotta have a good support system….
[Researcher]: Do you think that….this is an unfair question….do you think that