gender discrimination is alive and well.

Today I went for an interview at a supposedly forward thinking academy, the recent great idea of what schools should be.  I worked hard at planning a lesson to teach and to write all the documents they asked me for, I spent hours preparing and booked nursery and childcare for the small people so I could attend at eight am this morning.  I was not late and I was prepared but I really shouldn't have bothered.

A meeting with the deputy department head where she said, I thought jokingly, that they were looking to recruit more men to the department because there were always too many of the women on maternity leave, should have told me something about the place especially because the eight strong short list was seven men and me.  Twenty minutes sat in the staffroom while four men complained around me, and discussed with other candidates, the problem of women and their constant baby talk and being distracted from their work by being kicked in the ribs should also have given me a clue but who thinks that schools of all places still discriminate against women? That just isn't what you expect.

The class enjoyed my lesson, they learnt something and they interacted with me, not much more you can ask for a twenty minute lesson with children you've never met before on a topic they have never seen before.  They must have enjoyed my lesson and someone must have thought it was good because they didn't cull me at the first hurdle (maybe I was still playing token woman?)  another half hour of abuse, sorry conversation around me, by the other candidates and members of staff including 'they can't possibly give you the job  now you've sat in the pregnancy chair!' before a meeting with the mentors,  this one went really well, jaw droppingly good reports from all my previous schools had them smiling and asking me if I'd done some teaching before the course because the reports of outstanding teaching and 'what would we have done without you?' were not what they were used to seeing, at least not from the schools I had worked in.

So the final cull before interview, down to three candidates and I was still one of them, strangely I thought this was a good sign and tried to put the comments of earlier in the day out of my mind because surely they wouldn't put me through a whole day if they were just going to employ two men to even up the numbers in the department. 

Final interviews were with the chair of governors, the head, head of department and NQT tutor,  only the chair spoke and he made reference to my children and my role as a mother in every question he asked,  all seven of them including  'It must be hard when you have been just a mummy for so long but try and remember what it was like to teach a class and describe a lesson you taught'.  Oh and 'I know it must be hard to think about children who are at risk when all you can think about are your own but what would you do to help them' (I have not been out of the classroom that long and I have been keeping up to date)

I answered every question without reaching across the desk to hit him (I thought about it but it would have been very unprofessional so I didn't) and I was very polite about everything even though it was a very uncomfortable situation to be in. 

The two men got the jobs!!

I was called in for feedback and told I was to 'mummyfied' in my reaction to questions and not professional enough in my answers.  I had not mentioned my children once but the chair had mentioned them about ten times. 

I hate to think that anyone in this day and age would really make the decision on a job based on Gender but sadly I can only conclude that this school did.  What a waste of my time!!