An insight on the interactive created to analyze the different adjectives stereotypically associated with male and female professors on RateMyProfessor.com
When students write a review on the popular website RateMyProfessor.com, they might not think too carefully about words that they’re using.
However, the adjectives that students use could be linked to the professor’s gender. For example, a professor who is kind toward their students could be described as “nurturing” if female and “supportive” if male, said Patty Stokes, a women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor.
“As far as men and women being differentially affected by this, I think men have their insecurities too, but there is more of a leeway for them to have a strong personality without getting the bitch label,” she said. “So I don’t know if it’s so much that it really builds men up as much as there is less to tear men down.”
A recent searchable database compiled by Ben Schmidt, a professor at Northeastern University, allows people to enter a certain word and see their use per millions of words of text. The visualization is created out of 14 million reviews from the site.
When searching “nurturing” and “supportive” uses per millions of words of text are higher for females across most disciplines. However, words like “successful” or “knowledgeable” pop up more in reviews for men than women, according to the database.
Stokes said she doesn’t think people spend their time reflecting deeply on the kind of language they use on Rate My Professors.
“The (words) that are most available are often those that line up with gender stereotypes too,” Stokes said.
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Abby Walter, a graduate student studying cultural studies, said she does not go on Rate My Professors often. She said, while the site might seem to be a valuable tool at face value, anonymity definitely plays a part in reviewing.
“People just might say things without thinking about it,” Walter said.
She added, however, there does seem to be gender bias in critique.
“I think women are sometimes more harshly critiqued, especially in politics,” Walter said. “So oftentimes when women are seen as mean it’s like maybe they’re just being about the same as a man.”
Susanne Dietzel, director of the Women’s Center, said she’s more familiar with gender bias in formal teaching evaluations as opposed to forums like Rate My Professors.
A recent 2014 study published in the journal Innovative Higher Education, found students were more likely to rate a professor for an online course higher if they thought they were male instead of female.
“Women are more often perceived as to be opinionated as opposed to educated,” Dietzel said. “They’re probably seen as less sure about what they’re saying because we grant women less authority both as a teachers but also as someone who creates knowledge.”
Stokes said a lot of professors, including herself, care about students and doing right by them, which makes them “vulnerable.”
“Most days most of us are just fine,” Stokes said. “We do our job, and we enjoy it, and we’re good at it, but every once in a while those ugly doubts come in.”
Dietzel said she thinks many chairs and deans are well aware of research that points out these gender differences and factor that into the evaluation responses.
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