I am a high school teacher and I currently mentor someone new to the profession. They and I were working in our shared office when a senior administrator (male) came into to talk to my colleague about a student. The administrator mentioned that he had already arranged for one of our (male) colleagues to tutor this student. At this point I perked up because my department has a history of assigning plum tutoring assignments to certain men. I informed him that I was next in line for a tutoring job. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Oh, no. I’ve already chosen Pedro (another colleague in the department) for this job. The student that needs to be tutored is a big guy, and so is Pedro. I want Pedro to teach this student how to be a big man, physically, on campus. He needs to learn how to be a big man.” I was left at a loss for words, so I sat there with my mouth agape. The administrator walked over to me, put his arm around me (we are not close), squeezed, looked at the person I am mentoring, smiled, and said “(my name) didn’t like my gendered comment.” And then he left my office. I reported this exchange to another senior administrator, and was told that “it is being addressed.” I don’t know what that means.
