Think Your Credentials Are Ignored Because You’re A Woman? It Could Be

NPR:

When I first became a professor, I was 26. And female. (I’m no longer 26 but still female.)

The combination made me anxious about whether students would take me seriously as an authority on the material I was trying to teach. I made a point of introducing myself as “Professor Lombrozo,” and I signed emails to students the same way — especially those addressed to Miss/Ms./Mrs. Lombrozo or those that simply used my first name. I bought some collared shirts from Brooks Brothers; I made a point to never wear jeans when meeting with undergraduates. If I looked more like people’s mental image of a professor, I thought, maybe I’d be treated like one, too.

Ten years later, I’ve stopped trying to dress like a 50-year-old man, but I still receive plenty of email directed to the imaginary Miss/Ms./Mrs. Lombrozo, who apparently teaches my courses. I’m still the professor whom people wandering the halls choose to interrupt to ask where the bathroom is. When students ask for an extension on preposterous grounds, I can’t help but wonder: Would they make the same request of my male colleagues?

Read the whole story: NPR