‘Sexual Hasslement’ : Huntington Beach Woman Travels Nation Instructing Teachers on Gender Bias Issues

Phyllis Lerner recalls the first time she heard about Flip Day while speaking to a school group in Northern California. “A woman told me that was the day it was OK for boys to flip up a girl’s skirt at school,” Lerner recalls.

A short time later, Lerner related the incident to another parents’ group hundreds of miles away and was shocked to find that Flip Day was being held at that school too. “A parent said, ‘That’s OK, Phyllis, the girls know it and they wear shorts under their skirts,’ ” Lerner says. She was aghast.

In San Jose, Lerner discovered that schools there have Flip Day, too.

“That’s frightening,” she says. “I guess there is this under-the-table culture in schools that makes this OK.”

To Lerner, Flip Day is just one more example of “gender equity” problems, including sexual harassment and discrimination, that take place every day in the classrooms, corridors and playgrounds.

As a “gender equity” expert, Lerner, a resident of Huntington Beach, travels the country putting on workshops that teach educators how to recognize and eliminate gender bias in all its subtle--and not so subtle--forms.

“People see gender bias as a white feminist issue, but we are not just talking about girls making it into Berkeley,” she says. “I’m talking about young women in the neighborhood who are going to get pregnant, who are going to get harassed, and maybe even battered. And I’m talking about young men who may put their own lives and the lives of others at risk in an attempt to earn their manhood.”

Lerner says gender bias is important to girls and boys--and men and women--of all ethnic and racial groups. “Gender bias does not just deal with women’s or girls’ issues,” she says. “When people talk about gender bias, they think about math and science skills and girls getting shortchanged, but males have it tough too. I don’t believe in male-bashing. This stuff about gender is not just about girls; it’s about boys, too.”

On March 13, Lerner will spend three hours showing Orange County teachers how to make sure their classrooms are free of gender bias.

The program is sponsored by the Fountain Valley, Westminster and Huntington Beach branches of the American Assn. of University Women and will be in the Pacific Mutual City Centre Conference Room, 17330 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley.

Registration deadline is Feb. 20. For information, call (714) 963-4153 or (714) 894-6170. Admission is free.

The AAUW has been at the forefront of the gender bias issue, according to Laura Hathaway, education equity chairman for the Huntington Beach branch. “We’ve been researching this area for a while,” says Hathaway, a school administrator, “and we are really trying to make sure that teachers are aware of it.”

That’s why the organization is footing the bill for this seminar aimed at elementary and high school teachers. During the program, participants will learn how to recognize the more subtle aspects of sex discrimination, according to Lerner, who serves as a consultant to the Gender Equity Office for the California State Department of Education.

Lerner says that few educators consider themselves biased, but many are surprised to discover that they often treat boys and girls differently.

For example, Lerner points out that recent educational research shows that:

* Boys are more aggressive than girls in calling out answers in the classroom, and teachers react accordingly, responding more often to boys than to girls.

* Boys get harsher discipline than girls, even when the offense is the same.

* Boys are expected to follow directions and do work on their own but are often expected to intercede and help girls finish their work.

* In college, professors call on women less often than they call on men.

Lerner also cites a recent videotaped exercise in which an elementary teacher was observed interacting with her pupils during a two-day period. During that time, observers found the teacher paid a great deal more attention to the boys in her class than she did to the girls.

The tape showed that:

* Boys get called on more often than girls.

* Girls were more likely to get vague responses.

* Boys seemed to get the message that what they said was important.

“Teachers can really make a difference,” Lerner says, “and subtle things do make a difference.”

Teachers should make sure that boys and girls are integrated for activities and assignments, that the same behavior expectations are required for boys and girls, that boys and girls are disciplined with the same methods, according to Lerner.

And stereotyping should be avoided, she says, so that boys are encouraged to develop qualities of caring and sharing, while girls are encouraged to react more assertively and competitively.

Lerner says educators not only need to look at what they are doing in their schools, but they also need to look at what they are not doing.

“We have to begin to see what is not there,” she says. “For example, walk into the high school and see the huge trophy cabinet. Is it filled with items representing the boys’ sports teams? Pay attention to where the debate trophy is. Is it on a shelf in the library? So educators need to start to notice what is not there.”

In addition, teachers should learn to recognize the many different forms of what Lerner calls “sexual hasslement” that occur in the mundane, daily matters of school life. “There’s a lot of stuff going on in our schools that I term sexual hasslement that matures into sexual harassment,” she says.

Although the title of Lerner’s seminar is “Gender Bias in the Classroom,” she says she refuses to talk about sexism without talking about other forms of bias, including racism and homophobia.

“I believe that homophobia is at the cutting edge of gender bias,” she says. “Most adolescents question their sexuality, not necessarily whether or not they are gay or straight, but they have questions about sexuality.”

Lerner says fear of homosexuality keeps some boys and girls stuck in stereotypes. “Girls don’t want to do certain things because they might be labeled” lesbians, Lerner says. “And our males in the 1990s are more stuck in their stereotypes than ever. They are worried about getting labeled.”

“We’ve had what I call a ‘Rambo-fication’ of the American male,” she says.