Fact-checking Mediatized Gender Perceptions: Women University Teachers and their Classrooms in Pakistani Universities

Abstract

There is a construct of mediatized apprehensions implying that presence of male and
female students in university classrooms creates difficulties in teaching process,
especially for female teachers. To put a reality check to these mediatized
apprehensions, the researchers evaluated media reports and conducted intensive
interviews of female faculty leaders, mostly in top universities of Islamabad.
Questionnaires for these intensive interviews addressed the gender apprehensions and
were unconstructed. An analysis of these intensive interviews shows that female
teachers in most cases do not take into consideration gender barriers in classrooms
and in their offices. Female teachers not only focus in classroom and lab activities, they
also actively gave advice and did mentoring of their students to make them successful
in their practical lives. The second dimension of their profession is that maintaining
balance between their domestic and organizational obligations makes their job harder
than men. Hence, the mediatized apprehensions about female faculty members being
subject to gender discriminations were found to be removed from reality as far as
teaching in classrooms is concerned. This study is governed by the theory of
mediatization of gender and is qualitative in nature.