The recent announcement that Charles Gibson (ABC evening news anchor) will retire at the end of this year and that his replacement will be Diane Sawyer (Good Morning America co-host) came as a pleasant surprise to me this morning. What didn't surprise me was the talk about her 'breaking the glass ceiling' in the television journalism world. I wasn't surprised but I was disappointed.
Please do not misunderstand me. That 'glass ceiling' does exist, but it comes in different forms in differing work environments. It is time put aside the term and the corresponding attitudes that accompany the 'glass ceiling'.
I can personally attest to the glass ceiling. I first felt it in 1968 when I sat before my advisor at a Big-10 University. My male advisor tried his best to steer me to Music Therapy, not Instrumental Music Education, where I would be a FEMALE band director. FEMALE band directors were very rare in the 1960's......and '70's.....and '80's....and 90's....get the idea? When I did my student teaching in the fall of 1971, I was supposed to spend equal weeks at the high school as well as the junior high. Of course, both directors were males. The junior high director was a wonderful, patient and skilled educator who taught me so much and with whom I kept in touch until his death in the early 2000's. The high school director was the typical male band director - one who felt that FEMALES had no business with a baton in their hand. (As an aside, at my Big-10 University, FEMALES were not allowed to be in the marching band until the fall of 1972, after my graduation.) So the fact that the high school band director, with whom I was supposed to student teach, refused to allow me in his classroom or on the athletic field with the marching band, wasn't an unusual attitude for the time.
Was I furious? Of course.
Over the years, in my field of education, tiny changes did occur. More women were accepted as elementary directors by the male-dominated field, a few more were seen in the middle school/junior high arena, but high school? Forget it.
I felt and saw the disapproval at music festivals where, in the directors' lounges, the tables were full of men - only. Women, if they ever came into the directors' lounges, sat at their own table. I finally became tired of this segregation and started sitting at the 'guys' tables, where I would be patently ignored. If I dared to speak, no man would acknowledge that I spoke at all. I would come home fussing and fuming to my family, as they can attest. Never mind that my students fared just as well, if not better, than my male counterparts. I was a female. A stranger in a strange land.
Katie Couric has forged a path for Diane Sawyer, hopefully making her less of a pundit and critical target than Couric has been. Good is good, great is great, mediocre is mediocre, and bad is bad.......regardless of gender. I say that we should send the ceiling to recycling for women and men and recognize quality. Period.
Ancora imparo
