Mapping misogyny at school: a feminist cartography of spatial (in)justice according to women teachers’ testimonies

Abstract There has been renewed recognition of the challenges that women teachers face in their day-to-day work. Recent research has found that women are quitting because of the harassment they face from boy students in the classroom, with the rise of social media misogyny contributing to boys’ sexist behaviour. This paper draws on testimonies from four women that were interviewed for the project Women’s Work: The experiences and challenges of being a woman teacher in the twenty-first century to demonstrate that women teachers experience sexism beyond the classroom and from more than just boy students. Drawing on Kern’s feminist geographies, Soja’s work on spatial (in)justice and Braidotti’s theory of critical cartography, this paper performs a literal and figurative mapping of the misogyny that women teachers identified. By mapping 57 testimonies of sexist interactions across a school site, this paper’s feminist cartography demonstrates that sexism towards women teachers is deeply embedded in school institutions and in broader societal attitudes. Women experienced sexism in the classroom, from female and male students; in the staffroom from colleagues; in the schoolyard from parents; and in the schoolyard from students. This paper intervenes in existing discourse by demonstrating that the ‘problem’ women teachers face is not solely located in the classroom or in boy students, but across the school more broadly. Therefore, a multifaceted approach to addressing sexism in the education sector is required to make these spaces safe for women teachers across the entire school site.