Bret Devereaux

Reflections on #genderbias in student evals from a new professor - like every academic I’ve read the literature on all the problems with evals. But this semester has made real just how serious those problems are. 1/

As a TA in grad school, my evals didn’t have any obvious cases of sexism. No comments about how I dressed or behavior. So I always counted myself lucky. 2/

But wow has that changed as an assist. prof! Well over half of the comments were sexist and/or personal attacks. Students described me as aggressive, mean, rude, arrogant, and “on a power trip.” 3/

Many complained that I wasn’t nice enough and that I lacked enough empathy. 4/

My students seemed to struggle especially with being disciplined by a woman. Since so many students took the class as a requirement, getting them to read was a challenge. At one point I dismissed most of the class for the day when they hadn’t read the 3 pgs of reading assigned 5/

This incident-and my general effort to encourage students to read-cam up a lot. The most colorful version concluded that I shouldn’t concern myself with things that aren’t my job (re if students read), and I should go back to teaching high school. 6/