Out of Range

This week seems to be my week for reacting to the ideas of others...I don't do it particularly often so I don't feel bad about doing it twice in a row.

In this case it's a Taiwanese woman who moved to Europe and writes about feeling stifled in Taiwan and not wanting to return (a country that, despite my rant a few days ago, I do call home and have found to be a good place to live, though we'll see how long that remains true).

And here's the song that underscored this post.

I was locked into being my mother's daughter
I was just eating bread and water
Thinking 'nothing ever changes'
and I was shocked
To see how the mistakes of each generation
Will just fade like a radio station
You just gotta drive out of range.

My thoughts on this, already written up on the Facebook thread where I found the article (and edited a bit for clarity on a blog format with no context):

I do think she's over-romanticizing life in the West (I have spent very little time in Europe but everything she says could have been said about the USA, if someone were over-romanticizing life there), but I get her point. She is likely shielded from the worst of Western culture, which shares a lot of the same problems stemming from over-conservatism as Taiwanese culture, simply because she is not a part of that culture. Just as I find life in Taiwan somewhat freeing, exactly because I am not Taiwanese, so I'm not beholden to their cultural expectations of people, or women specifically. 

I agree with her that expectations placed on 'your place' in society, with so much emphasis on your background, and expectations specifically placed on women, are stricter and more difficult to navigate in Taiwan if you don't fit the mold. Certainly I've felt the 'man must approach the woman, who is preferred to be 溫柔, and must be the breadwinner while the woman looks good and bears children' is a thing here.

But I'm not sure she's right that the West is soooo different. 

It's true people tend to care a bit less what you do or who your family is, and it's true that they are less likely - though not entirely unlikely - to openly judge women's looks or men's earning power (or differentiate the two expectations by gender), honestly, Western men DO judge women, sometimes openly! And there IS a big expectation to conform to 'pretty girl culture' - I felt it in college too and as an eternal 'not so pretty girl', I can absolutely tell you it affects your social life. Perhaps in Taiwan the guy makes a comment about your weight. NOT COOL, whether or not you are actually fat, but in the USA the guy doesn't make any comment at all...he just doesn't call you if you don't fit a culturally-expected mold of 'pretty and slim'. Even if he would have otherwise been eager to continue going out with you if you were just that much more attractive. Is that really much better? 

In Taiwan your mother criticizes your looks - in the USA your mother thinks you're beautiful but if you want to go out to a bar or club with your friends and aren't pretty, the guy at the door finds any excuse not to let you in.

In Taiwan perhaps your friends comment on your skin, hair etc. but in the US if you have both a vagina and an openly expressed opinion, you are fairly likely to be the subject of online harassment and trolling, or, not quite as threatening but also annoying, having men comment, in a seemingly 'well-intentioned' way, 'helpfully' explaining basic concepts to you that you have already referenced and clearly understand (yes, we call this 'mansplaining', and yes, it has happened to me. I just don't publish those comments). Or - and this has also happened to me - having guys try to tell you what you should write about, as though they have some sort of say in what you choose to publish online.

And we DO have social expectations - I felt some members of my family didn't treat me like an adult until I married - it showed in little things like being included in Christmas cards to my parents even though I was in my late 20s and lived on another continent, which abruptly stopped being a problem after my wedding. So far people have been basically OK about our decision not to have kids (though I do occasionally hear a stray judgmental comment about people like us), but I can't even express the social pressure I feel in the US because I'm openly atheist. It's like I murdered everyone's children, just because my (lack of) religious beliefs differ! The snarky comments from family etc...they wouldn't make such comments about being from a single-parent family but they absolutely will if they don't like your belief system. 

It's true that US few will comment on a man's earning power (some will - I just don't talk to those people), but there is this weird expectation that you just always have money, and if you don't, it's somehow your fault...even when it's completely not your fault. You may meet a few retrograde thinkers who expect the man to be the breadwinner, but more often than not it's a simple blanket judgment that if you're scraping by, it can't possibly be the fault of a problematic system that now elevates the wealthy while pushing down the middle class and poor by denying them key opportunities. It's because something is somehow wrong with you. And if the profession you love pays well that's fine, but if it doesn't, that is also somehow your fault and you're a failure no matter how good you are at it, just because you don't earn enough money. And gods help you if you are in a job people are expected to do cheaply or for free because they 'love' it (like, oh, teaching, where "teachers aren't in it for the money" is a ridiculous excuse to not pay teachers enough money).

And it's true that while gender discrimination in the workplace is as illegal in Taiwan as it is in the US, it's much more common in Taiwan (at least that's what Taiwanese women tell me, and I believe them), even as women have made greater inroads here in industries such as finance than they have in the USA. I also seem to be on a roll this week in talking about my former employer, but I have to say sexism was something of a problem there, too, with inappropriate comments about personal relationships and teacher-student interaction made more than once by the owner to various coworkers of mine.

But...that doesn't mean there is no gender discrimination in the US. Although I know this was not intentionally orchestrated (yes, I do know, as well as anyone can), I couldn't help but notice at my employer in the US from 2004-2006, that all of the back-office 'support', secretarial and administrative work was done by women.

So, yeah, I absolutely get her point. And it does bother me that even the really good, nice, educated local guys I know in Taiwan occasionally come out with a sexist humdinger (but then in the USA that happens too). It does bother me that more than one of the more progressive guys I know in Taiwan say it would actually bother them if their wives earned more than they did. It bothers me that one declined to support his wife in her argument with his mother over the 'cry it out' vs. 'hold and nurture' styles of caring for babies, because "it's not my business, that's between them and for the women to figure out."

And yet...you also meet seemingly 'nice' guys with these views in the USA. I have real-world experience with loving, progressively-minded married men with children who, despite supporting equality, still let their wives do most of the housework (and not because the wives 'want to', though they'll claim that's the case). 

Considering all that, I'm not sure the author would feel that much different if she were actually from a Western country. The idea that people who move abroad and like it don't like it because the culture suits them better, but because their 'outsider'-ness allows them an element of freedom that being a part of neither culture would.

Ready, Set, Go

Edited to add: I forgot to include a link to the song that underscored this post. Here you go.

They keep us at sea level so I'm stayin' on my A-game
They're local like the C when I'm express like the A Train.

I had wanted to get back into blogging smoothly, with a few softball posts about traveling in Kinmen and the East Rift Valley before yet another family emergency (this one turned out OK though) sent me back to the US for a good portion of the summer and Delta Module 2 began.

But this article in the Straits Times caught my eye - I do think it's worth a quick reaction post with some thoughts on racism and the ghettoization of foreigners in Taiwan.

I don't feel, up to now, that I have been limited in my career by living in Taiwan - if anything Taiwan helped me launch my career. But, I say that as a career English teacher: of course it would be easier for me than for a foreigner in literally any other field. With the exception of a few really bad years toward the end of my time at my former employer, after they treated my husband like dirt but I stuck around just to get an APRC (and had to pretend just to get through each day that I didn't think what they did was so heinous - when it was heinous, and unforgivable), I've generally had positive working experiences. I have been able to move on to freelance with two very good schools that, while they may technically be buxibans, are places that actually prioritize education and look after their people. I've been able to get a Delta - at least I am basically sure I passed and will have that baby in my hands soon. English teachers can do that. Nobody else, save perhaps an editor or journalist, can.

However, I have to basically agree with this:

The challenges that Caucasians face are more in the form of being "ghettoised", said Mr Michael Turton, 52, an American who has lived in Taiwan for two decades.

"Everyone is very polite to us, but try finding a permanent position in a university or business in one's own skill," said Mr Turton, who teaches English at a local university and said he knows of only two Caucasian deans among Taiwan's numerous universities. "Tension is ameliorated because everyone knows foreigners have no power."

One reason is, unlike Singapore or Hong Kong, Taiwan is not a regional financial hub that would have as many job opportunities.

Language is another barrier.

That said, Taiwanese women do tend to find Caucasians to be desirable matches, said Mr Turton, who is married to a Taiwanese woman. They have two children.

"How many local girls want to marry foreigners? Lots. That is because foreigners are an escape fantasy," Mr Turton said, referring to familial obligations women married to local men have to fulfil, and a perception of a better life in a Western country.

First of all, I feel that Taiwan has been a really great place to live this past decade. Up through getting my Delta it's also a nearly ideal place to work. While salaries are stagnant, generally speaking the pay is better than in much of the rest of the world and the lifestyle makes up for the fact that we really all should be earning more. Locals included. Flexible work allowed me to get that Delta while doing three modular courses. Taiwan is relatively well-connected to the outside world so I was able to access books I needed for my coursework. I've been able to travel a lot because of affordable airfares to the rest of Asia.

However, I have to say I've started noticing cracks in the facade of our great lifestyle here.

First, I know someday I will get a Master's - the issue is paying for it, not the actual work. I was born in a country where higher education is prohibitively expensive, I can't just say "Imma go to grad school!" the way Canadians, Australians and Europeans (and many Taiwanese) do. Once I do, I have to admit that I see the end of the line. At that point will I really want to be working in private language schools, as good as my two current employers are? Probably not, to be honest. But what else can I do? International schools aren't ideal (plus I'd also have to get a teaching license most likely) as I don't particularly want to teach teenagers full-time. Universities simply don't pay well enough (salaries are in the range of NT$60,000/month I've been told, and frankly, that's not enough even with paid vacation). But we foreigners really are limited in terms of moving up if we actually want to teach. There are a handful of schools that hire foreigners as academic managers or teacher trainers, and those positions don't always pay particularly well either (plus your job is often to be the 'bearer of bad news' between the teaching staff and Taiwanese upper management if it's a locally-owned school, which sounds like my idea of hell). The schools I work for don't do this, but a LOT of schools see foreigners as foreign monkeys to put in classrooms to get students in, and just take for granted that they should never be anything more. So, when that time comes and I'm ready to move up in my career...where exactly is there in Taiwan for me to go, when the only 'better' jobs are not actually better?

In short, Taiwan has been great for my career up to now, but I can see clearly down the road where it won't be forever. Someday that's a problem I'm going to have to grapple with, and it would be a lie to say it's not causing me stress now.

Secondly, I (well, we, but this is me writing) feel absolutely ready, once I rescue my finances from the clusterfuck that was late 2014-2015, to do adult things like, oh, actually own the place where we live so we can modify it to our liking. Have a credit rating in the country where I actually live! Have a job with benefits! Good luck doing any of those things - getting a credit card without a big fight, getting a mortgage (if you're not married to a local, forget it), finding that higher-level job without running into a pervasive feeling that foreigners shouldn't be considered for such positions (again I'd like to point out that neither of my current schools have that attitude, but they are the exceptions, not the rule).

Speaking of marriage, Michael makes a good point that a lot of foreigners here do marry locals, but I didn't - and in fact that's a bit of a male-centric phenomenon. Some foreign women do marry Taiwanese men but the balance is squarely in favor of foreign men and Taiwanese women (marriage equality is not yet law here but one can hope it will be soon as most Taiwanese support the idea). Nothing wrong with that generally (though that does mean there is a problem in the expat community with the slimier kind of fetishizers, but that's for a post I don't think I'll ever write). There seems to be this blanket assumption - and I'm not saying Michael is guilty of it, just that it exists - that 'expat' means 'straight male expat', like Plato's ideal form of Expat definitely has a penis and definitely wants to put it in a vagina. What that ends up meaning is that male expats, if they marry locals, are more likely to stay because they get the local benefits of that union. They get the mortgages and credit cards because their wives can co-sign. They get the guanxi. They get the sense of permanence. Other than the few foreign women married to Taiwanese men, female expats are just that much more marginalized. And yes, that is a problem. I happened to marry a white guy, and as a result, we can't get a freakin' mortgage in the country where we live. That's not OK.

Which brings me to my next point - yes, I do feel increasingly ghettoized as a result of all of this. As a professional English teacher - yeah shut up I have a Delta now :) - I feel stereotyped with all of the Johnny McBackpackers who just got off the plane and think that teaching (good teaching that is) is an easy and fun way to make a few extra bucks and requires no special skills. I feel marginalized because I can't even consider becoming a homeowner in the country where I live. I feel limited because after I get a Master's there won't be many growth opportunities career-wise, and it will become increasingly hard to push my salary up (as it is for everyone: see stagnation, wage). It does create the feeling that 'you're a foreigner, we allowed you to do a lot, but this is all you are allowed to do. Know your place." 

This is not an attitude I can point to in anyone in particular, but a general sense I get. It's compounded by the fact that it is commonly believed that foreigners - at least English teachers, obviously this is not true for largely Southeast Asian laborers - are treated better than Taiwanese. And in many cases we are - pay for teachers who don't know TBL from TPRS, or scaffolding from subordination, and teach weird things like "I'm well" rather than "I'm good" because they don't know what a copula is let alone how it works - is higher than actual qualified teachers who happen to have Taiwanese passports (which brings in the other discussion of how good teacher training is in Taiwan - not something I want to get into here). We get away with not following work culture expectations because it's not our culture. We get to take longer vacations, generally speaking, as long as our employers aren't too terrible. We generally get a lot of leeway.

But I can't say wholeheartedly that we actually are treated better. We don't get annual bonuses, which most Taiwanese expect as a matter of course. We don't get paid vacation generally (although this is partly why we can take longer vacations so there is a trade-off). We can't get a pension even if we pay into the system. We don't get paid Chinese New Year, although technically by law we ought to. We have trouble asserting our basic rights - non-discrimination, labor insurance, even a contract not full of outrageous illegal clauses including very illegal fines for "quitting" even with proper notice (again I'm lucky in that regard but a lot of people aren't). We can't become citizens unless we give up our original citizenship - a rule not imposed on Taiwanese who get citizenship in other countries. My husband got screwed by our former employer because they had entirely too much control over his visa, for someone who had been here for nearly five years. They should have never been allowed to do that to him, and yet they were. And again, we are limited in the jobs we can take because a lot of locals don't consider foreigners as serious candidates for real, skilled, high-level work. We'll always be outsiders.

A final thing that bothers me is how many Taiwanese - rather like Americans in this way - deny that there is any racism at all in their country. Here is a near exact excerpt from a conversation I had with a neighbor (translated into English):

"Well, there's racism everywhere, so of course there's racism in Taiwan."
"No there isn't! We treat you well."
"Sure, you treat ME well, but that itself is a form of racism - in some ways you treat white people better than locals. But really the problem is that you don't treat EVERY foreigner well. Only the Westerners, and often only the white ones."
"No, I don't treat others badly."
"You personally don't, but do you think Southeast Asians in this country are discriminated against?"
"Well, yes, there's some racism there. But it's for a reason. They come from poor countries with a lot of crime, so we have to be careful!"

UUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHHH HULK ANGRY HULK SMASH is all I have to say to that.


So, while I personally have never experienced the sort of racist rant that Christopher Hall did, and likely never will, I definitely feel it in big ways and small, and I have to say it's become more noticeable in the past few years, especially as someone not married to a local. I don't know what the end result will be, but I can't deny it's an issue. 

Outsiders

There's been some change
But we're still outsiders
If everybody's here
Then Hell knows we ride alone

Franz Ferdinand, "Outsiders"

Around the same time that I wrote my long diatribe on sexism in ELT in Taiwan (and generally, but my experiences are Taiwan-focused), there was a presentation going on at IATEFL about women in ELT, especially in the upper/academic echelons. And, a new special interest group, Teachers as Workers or TaWSIG, was submitted and rejected by IATEFL.

IATEFL gave a reason for the rejection that makes a lot of sense, but I still feel there is value in an organization aimed at promoting teachers as workers globally, even though such an organization could never really interfere in labor issues at any sort of local level (local, perhaps affiliated organizations would have to do that). But English teachers around the world share enough common issues - from low pay to a tolerance of untrained newcomers to management that knows nothing about ELT to a lack of CPD to outright workplace abuse - that a global organization would serve the useful purpose of awareness-raising and knowledge-sharing, so that local associations (unions, really) would have an easier time of forming.

Note: I am not a member of IATEFL. I will probably become one at some point, but for the moment I'm not.

These two points - teachers as workers and women in ELT - are more interrelated than you might think.

I want to now go wildly off topic with a tangent point. I'll bring it back, I promise. If any of you watch Mad Men (if you don't, you should), you'll be familiar with storylines in the show where men (Don and Roger mostly) who otherwise look out for their female coworkers (Joan and Peggy) fail to support them in crucial ways at crucial points. For example, when Joan was being harassed by a copywriter and Peggy went to Don with the problem, only to be told to fire him herself (a great response in 2015, but not in the mid-1960s where a woman firing a man was fraught with gender politics that have faded a great deal today), or at points when Peggy was ready to move ahead but needed a leg up from Don just because that's what the working world demanded at the time - and didn't get it, leading to her leaving the firm for awhile. The most notorious of these plot points is when Joan was pressured to sleep with an executive from Jaguar's dealership association. She doesn't want to do it. Neither Don nor Roger want her to do it. And yet, she sees her options: go through with it to secure the account, or don't and see no immediate fallout but watch her horizons dissolve at work through watching herself be blamed indirectly for losing a major client.

Peggy and Joan mostly look out for themselves, but they live in a world of deep institutional bias: the male characters often take this for granted and expect that looking out for oneself sometimes means you can do it all the time. This is true in a world with no, or little, institutional bias. But that's not the world we live in. So, Don goes to Joan and tells her she "doesn't have to do it" (except it's too late), and she smiles sadly and says "you're one of the good ones".

It's clear what she means: you mean well, but when it comes down to it, you aren't going to support me in not doing this in the way I need you to if I am going to have any future at this company. And she was right - she needed the strong support of a person in an influential position to even take the option to not sleep with the Jaguar exec, and she knew she wasn't going to get anything more than words.

That's how it works when you're on the bad end of systemic sexism. You can look out for yourself most of the time, but there are times when you need people at the top to get the conversation going so your interests can really be put out there.

Note to regular readers: I will be referencing this scene again in a future post. Keep an eye out.

Back to the point of this post, for now.

If I were to distill my last post on this topic to its core elements it would be:

1.) Female English teachers are stereotyped as teachers of children, and as such it may be easier to get those jobs (in many cases employers offering them outright insist on female teachers), but those jobs tend to be poorly-paid, or at least not as well paid as teaching adult English, creating a push toward lower salaries for female teachers. Beyond lower salaries, it's harder for people teaching ESL to children to access basic CPD (continuing professional development), let alone the more academic levels of ELT.

2.) The majority of CELTA course attendees may be women, but it's actually fairly rare to meet a female Director of Studies. A lot of books in the field were written by women, but the majority of big names do tend to be men.

3.) ELT as a profession may be more egalitarian than others (and I believe it is), but as an international profession, we teachers come in contact with a lot of non-Western cultures that have their own ideas about gender and the role of women. It is quite common to be treated as an equal through your training only to come up against a deeply sexist boss.

4.) When women do get jobs teaching adult English, we still face discrimination: learners often mistake the "guy in a suit" for the lead trainer on any Business English course. I have had to prove to students that I am, in fact, the lead teacher and that guy in a suit over there may well be a trainee! That aforementioned sexist boss may shunt us over to soft-skills classes (which pay less) because he thinks they're more "suitable" for women.

I mean, I went into freelance teaching because I was sick of the rampant sexism at my former employer, starting with the director but really just going all the way down the pike. I felt that, as a woman in Business English, the only way I was going to get paid what I was worth would be to go it alone. And lo, I was right.

(Note: outside of my private classes, I have no problems with my current part-time employers. But I've been burned and so for now, Hell knows I ride alone). 
This poses its own problems - as a freelancer, I have no access to CPD unless I make it happen myself. Nobody invites or sends me to conferences, nobody gives me access to important ELT journals so I can keep up on the latest research in the field.

All of these issues are related to teachers as workers - from systemic sexism to choosing freelancing to escape bad working conditions. Sexism in the workplace is a worker issue. Salary differentials due to being pushed down different career tracks is a worker issue. Overcoming learner bias is something of a pedagogical issue (I am not sure what it falls under - affective filter?), but also a worker issue as to a lot of us, our learners are also our clients. Being present in large numbers - majority numbers! - on courses like the CELTA but not nearly equal let alone a majority in plenary speaker or director of studies roles is a sign of institutional bias, and as such is a worker issue.

Gender in ELT may be just one aspect of being a teacher who is a worker, but an important one that merits debate.

And debate it people did. I do recommend listening to the IATEFL talk, and Scott Thornbury's blog has a very long comments section (many comments are by me, but not all!) on this and related topics.

But, I have to say, I still feel disappointed. Debating this at IATEFL is great, but let's be honest - IATEFL has limited reach. Most of the private language schools that perpetuate these problems in the industry don't even know what IATEFL is, let alone care what they say about workplace conditions. Hell, most don't even know or care what the CELTA is and that's the most basic TEFL qualification there is.

So, in a way, TaWSIG not going through IATEFL may actually be better for it in the long run. Working at a more grassroots level where it can have more of an impact for workers whose employers couldn't give a toss about IATEFL may well turn out to be an advantage.

I'm also disappointed because, if you read Thornbury's post, well, he basically says that while there's room for debate on women's issues, that non-native speaker teacher (NNEST) issues are more important. It's great that he's getting the word about TaWSIG out there. And I completely agree with the need to also focus on the inclusion of NNESTs.

But, I was disappointed with the horribly cliched way he pivoted the discussion away from women in ELT in order to talk about NNESTs. First mentioning that the incoming and outgoing presidents of IATEFL were women (which is a good point, but comes across as not much different than "why are we talking about racism when America has a Black president?"), and then saying that the discussion of women in ELT was "distracting" people from a more important issue. Which reeks - reeks - of the same thing being done every time women's issues come up for public debate. "Yes, yes, we can talk about that, but not now, this other thing is more important, just wait, we'll get to you."

1848: "Yes, we know you ladies lack suffrage, but what's really important is slavery, you'll get the vote someday." 1963: "Yes, we know you feel dissatisfied and shut out of the chance at meaningful careers or even to be taken seriously as anything other than a housewife or mother, but what's really important is civil rights." 1970s: "There's a lot of shit going on right now so will you women's libbers please shut your traps for awhile? We'll get to you." 2015: "We already have equality even though many people deny that a well-documented pay gap exists, we have bigger things to deal with, we can talk about this later...or never."

It's not that those other issues weren't important - they all inarguably were. But they all shunted women's issues to the backseat time and time again, to the point where we are still waiting for equal rights explicitly stated in the constitution, we are still waiting for a roadmap to equal pay, and we are still fighting to retain control of our bodies and health care rights.

I know this wasn't his intention, and that he wouldn't disagree that both issues merit a discussion, but that's not how it came across, and that's not, I am sure, how most readers will take it. They'll take it as yet another "sure, we could talk about that, but let's not. This other issue is more important."

Which, if anything, was a blow to the discussion for those of us who see women in ELT as a major issue: we might have been better off if he'd mentioned TaWSIG and not brought up women at all. At least then there wouldn't be an established figure in the ELT world telling everyone our conversation isn't as important, or is distracting people from real issues.

So...the whole thing left me with a big "gee, THANKS" feeling.

Which brings us back to Mad Men. In a world of institutional bias, disadvantaged groups need a leg up. Thornbury - arguably the most prominent name in ELT at the moment - had the opportunity to give women one. A discussion started by him might have had some impact, at least in awareness-raising or inspiring people to think a little more about their situations and the situation of women in the industry.

Instead he told everyone to move right along, nothing to see here.

Posts like this are made by...the good ones. And that's a damn shame.

It's not that a person of influence is obligated to start discussions about whatever people might want them to - certainly everyone has the right to their pet issues. But, it's disappointing when someone of influence actually makes things worse for your own pet issue.

I want to add here, though it will be discussed at greater length in another post, that I not only feel like an outsider in adult ELT. I also feel like one being in the private sector, a freelancer even, in an industry where access to higher echelons is through academia. IATEFL folks can talk about these things at length, but it doesn't really affect us on the private side. There needs to be a bridge, because otherwise it's academics talking about academia, with little real-world effect. I'd like that to change as well, and I'll explore it at length - at great length, because you know me - later on.

Sexism in ELT in Taiwan and Abroad

...or, gender discrimination in English teaching in Taiwan. Especially, but not only, in buxibans.

I know what the average reader is probably thinking: "why are you writing this? There's no gender discrimination If there's any sexism in the industry it's in favor of women! Sometimes schools will say this outright!" (which is true - on some Facebook groups I'm in to keep abreast of what's going on in the job market, I have seen a few "female preferred" or "female teacher wanted" ads). But after years in the industry it's become clear to me that this one area in which sexism runs in favor of women doesn't tell the whole story, and we still have to deal with discrimination in other ways. You might think you've escaped it once you've escaped office work, but surprise! Like invisible airborne fecal matter, sexism is everywhere! Like death, there are no known, foolproof ways to escape it.

Why this post now? Because the other day, I was in a taxi and the driver had ICRT on the radio. A commercial came on - the English translation of the Chinese ad was "sign up today and learn English from beautiful Teacher Emily or clever Teacher Ben!" (Note: at least I am 99% sure this is what I heard, but I only perked up toward the end. If someone else has heard the same commercial and can clarify, I would appreciate it). And because I just read this collection of infuriating stories about soft sexism and thought to myself: that's it. That's what I've felt about the ELT industry for years but not been able to clearly voice. It's not that we're actively or openly discriminated against (which I admit men, in jobs that involve teaching children, often are). It's that when we get there we're faced with all sorts of "soft sexism", from assumptions about our strengths to expectations of how we'll act to overhearing blatantly offensive remarks.

I mean, think about that ad. First, what do Emily's looks have to do with her teaching ability? Second, note the comparison of the woman noted for her looks, but the man noted for his brains. Which do you think will get more inherent respect as a Real Teacher, and which will not be taken seriously as a teacher but find her classes filled with a bunch of dudes looking for a masturbatory fantasy?

So, some thoughts:

1.) It's true that women are preferred candidates for some positions, but not all.

As I noted above, I hear this pretty often: "there's no sexism in English teaching, or if there is, it's in favor of women and against men, because buxibans prefer female teachers!"

There is some truth to that. A lot of cram schools do prefer female teachers. And yes, that is also sexist. If something favors women and hurts men, that also falls under the rubric of "sexism", even if men are generally privileged in other (read: almost every other) way.

That said, this particular way of looking at things only goes a short way to describing the kaleidoscope of gendered expectations in the industry.

-    The underlying assumption isn't that we're better teachers, it's that we're "good with children"

I have to laugh at people who think women are preferred for certain jobs because owners think we're better teachers generally. It's not really true - teaching is seen as a women's profession, but just as in the USA, when most people picture a schoolteacher (i.e. someone who teaches kids) they picture a woman, but when they picture a corporate trainer (which is a kind of teacher) or professor, they often picture a man. We're not seen as 'better teachers' - if anything, the areas of teaching where the default expectation is a man at the head of the class get more respect, and the areas where the expectation is a woman get less. Schoolteachers definitely get less respect than corporate trainers - to the point that I made it clear for years that I was a *corporate trainer* (assumption: I work in companies and teach adults, both true), not an *English teacher* (I was, but the assumption is I work at a school and teach children - neither of which are true).

We're seen instead as 'good with children', which plays into a whole host of sexist assumptions about innate talents of men and women. Even if those are true on a general scale, which they may be (evidence is inconclusive enough that I won't say either way), on an individual scale they're hogwash. I am not good with children. I'm OK, about as OK as any non-creepo guy. We're seen as 'nurturers'. Generally speaking, across entire populations this may be true. Individually, again, hogwash. I am not really a nurturer. I like kids for a few minutes. Then they poop on something or start crying and I can hand them back to their parents because NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.

So we're stereotypically placed in classrooms where people imagine women, generally, are suitable. Children. Kids' books. Colorful rugs. Toys. Whatever. We get those jobs, sure, but we get them based on a whole host of sexist assumptions about women's natural talents with youngsters.

These jobs also tend to pay less - more on that below. 

-    Have you taken a look at the staff rolls of some of the more hardcore buxibans?

Seriously, have a look at Aces' website. I'd laugh if it weren't so sad - all those branches, and one, just one, female teacher. A whole thread popped up about this on Taiwanease - the assumptions inherent in that, I will cover further down in the list. Needless to say I do not buy the argument that Aces had literally no female teachers (and I have it on good authority that Mo Da Wei is the same way) until recently, and now has exactly one, because they want "qualified long-termers and those tend to be men". I don't think those tend to be men - I can rattle off about 10 names of qualified female teachers, long-termers even, in Taiwan, without thinking. I doubt the "there are more long-term qualified men" line is true if I can name that many without even having to think about it.

An upshot? The qualified female long-term teachers I know would never settle for the kind of work and pay offered at Aces or Mo Da Wei. We tend to look for something better. The women I know who are serious about this work tend to go to international schools, universities, or do government work. Yay us!

Hell, don't even tell me that women dominate in ELT when I am only one of two women at two of my three jobs (I am one of two female IELTS examiners at my center here, and one of two IELTS exam class teachers at the school that employs me to teach them). How can you say women dominate when, once we find ourselves teaching adults, not kids, we often find ourselves alone among men?

-Teaching English to adults - especially Business English - is something of a sausage fest.

I don't want to say anything bad about the school where I currently teach one or two classes (depending on how busy things are) - they're actually quite good: the pay is fair, the DOS is knowledgeable, the support staff tries hard, they respect our schedules and personal lives. But, I can't help but notice I'm the only female teacher, and that they don't seem to be trying particularly hard to do anything about that. The last place where I worked, we did have quite a few women, to their credit. But, my fairly extensive knowledge of the adult English landscape in Taipei leads back to this: my experience at my current school is more the norm than at my former "management consulting" company. If you get out of teaching kids (i.e., out of the section of the industry that people mostly think women are 'suited to') you don't meet many female teachers at all.

One might argue that this is because female teachers would rather teach kids, but I don't really think that's true. I know quite a few female teachers, and none would prefer teaching kids. Even among not-so-qualified teachers and former teachers, the preference is almost always for teaching adults. Not just for men and women alike: the women seem even more gung-ho on wanting to teach adults.

Regarding business English specifically, I have definitely noticed that I had to work harder to earn the same respect afforded without question to male colleagues. The director and some clients seemed to automatically assume that, for example, "Good Presenter" = "Man In Suit", and even if she were wearing a suit, a woman just couldn't live up to that. I have seen Men In Suits coast in and have it be assumed that he knows what he's talking about, where I have to spend the first half hour of every seminar proving that I do, often moreso than that Man In Suit. There was really no question. It was just assumed - women = good with children, men = good at business.

That's extremely anecdotal, but it is my experience.

- When we aren't thought of as better candidates because we're good with kids (even if we're not), we're considered for teaching positions based on our looks. Often openly.

You have not truly worked in ELT until you've been around when the owner and manager are trying to decide who hire and the conversation goes to which woman was better looking. Sometimes this will be couched in terms of what will draw students (which is still lookist bullshit). Other times it's just more blatant lookist bullshit.

2.) Just because we get jobs doesn't mean we're treated as well as male teachers or that sexist assumptions and expectations don't come knockin'.

It's something like this - nothing that can definitively be proven as sexism, but problematic nonetheless.

- Expectations that we'll be "easier"

...because we're female and therefore demure, meeker, quieter, more easygoing, more willing to get along even if it means we get an unfair cut. I can't tell you how many times at various former jobs, bosses seemed surprised to find that I was just as confident as my male peers, that I could not be sweet-talked into accepting unfair circumstances, that I'm probably the least meek person you'll ever meet, that I'm willing to fight if I have to, that I'm no less demanding than a man, and that while I see the merits of "go along to get along", it's hardly my life motto. "Go along to get along, unless you're getting screwed, in which case flip some tables!" is more like it.

And yet, even when my boss or manager knows this about me, I have definitely experienced continuing surprise that I don't fit the stereotype in their heads of how a young female teacher should act (I'm not that young anymore, but I look years younger than my age - I can often pass for 25, but I'm 34 - so I still kind of count as a "young woman" to many people).

Here's an example: the director (read: guy who called himself the director but acted like a more apt title would be Wandering Office Buffoon) of my former company would routinely show up 20, 30, 40, 60 minutes late for meetings with teachers, like we weren't important enough to be on time for. We all complained about this. One day after being left in a meeting room for 20 minutes after our scheduled meeting time, I got up and walked out. Nobody saw me leave. They called me - "where are you?? [Director] is waiting!"

Me: Our meeting was supposed to start at 10. It's 10:25. I left. I will wait ten minutes when we have a scheduled meeting - everyone's late sometimes. I will not wait 20. If you do it again I will walk out again. Keep doing it and I will quit."

Them: "But...the director! He was busy! He's waiting!"

Me: "I don't care. My time is important too."

They didn't do it again - I'm kind of scary when I want to be - but at our next meeting (on time!) I got treated to a long passive-aggressive screed by the director that didn't target me specifically but went on about how he liked 'ladies' because we were 'patient' and 'we always understand that everyone is busy' so we 'don't mind being flexible'.

Because my reaction to passive aggression is to pretend it isn't there - if you aggressively refuse to understand, then that tactic simply doesn't work - I reacted with "Really? I don't think so. In my experience women expect others to be on time just as much as men do."

That didn't go over well, obviously, but I'm not one to take that sort of attitude without resistance.

-    Sexist things either said to us, about us, or that we hear floating around

Either from other teachers, or from local staff or the owner of the school/institute/department/whatever.

In my decade plus in ELT, I have either personally seen, heard or heard about:

-- Male teachers, including partners in seminar teaching, ogling and openly discussing the physical attributes of female students.

-- Male teachers openly making sexist remarks about women - possibly other teachers, often students, most often, random women they've met, gone out with, slept with or just know.

-- The male director telling a female teacher not to leave her husband because "men cheat, that's just what they do, it doesn't mean he doesn't love you, it's a woman's job to forgive the man".

-- The younger brother of the owner of the school where I worked in China comparing me (sort of tall, curvy, very Polish-looking) to my coworker (slightly taller, slender, Western European looking) based on looks and therefore who "took care of herself"

-- Talk about how "ladies" will like or not like this or that: including one friend's experience of a male student saying the class should not discuss American politics because "the ladies probably want to talk about fashion!"

-- Female support staff interrogated, belittled and forced into unpaid overtime. Turnover among male support staff, what few were hired, was higher, even though they got less of this treatment.

-- Watched as the owner of the school where I worked in China, Ms. Huang, sat back quietly and pretended to be an employee while her partner, who was most definitely not an owner or co-owner, pretended to be the owner and director in front of parents, because "parents expect to see a man at the head of the business". 

-- Watching every female teacher receive a gift (a Zojirushi thermos) that was small and pink, when all the men received full-size silver thermoses. I gave mine away and went out and bought my own silver thermos, because fuck that shit, I hate pink.

-- Having crap mansplained to me: "Hey, in the sentence 'We're all excited about the party', what part of speech is 'excited'?" Me: "Past participle adjective. It's like a past participle like you'd see in a passive sentence, but functions as an adjective." Guy: "Well, you KNOW that words can change their part of speech based on how they are used in the sentence." YES. ALSO, EAT ME. Or, "you know, it's best to make sure with each activity that you have the students do something. Not just read, but read and fill in the gaps, something like that." "Have I ever put together an activity that was not student-centered?" "No, I just..." "You just nothing. Stop it."

--Being handed a new work dress code that, while generally acceptable, is much more 'specific' in terms of women's clothing, noting shoe types, hem lengths and more, while saying very little about men's clothing: not even that it should be 'tidy'. Women were told not to wear "tight" clothing, without regard to the fact that men often wear sloppy or too-tight clothing. We did manage to fight this successfully and have a more egalitarian dress code implemented, but the fact that it was included in its original form at all was a problem.

--Having to fight through rolled eyes and obvious sighs of impatience as we, the two female teachers, did fight for a fairer dress code.

--Fighting with people posting obviously sexist job ads (e.g. "young female teacher wanted") and having their retorts and other replies shore up the sexism ("the students want a female teacher", or "it's for young children, women are better with young ones, I would want a female teacher for my child too") rather than helping you fight it.

- We tend to work abroad or outside the West, where sexism is more overt

I don't want to say it's a cultural issue, but it is. It is more acceptable in many of the countries where we work to be overtly sexist, especially in the work sphere. Hell, despite it being against the law, it is still considered somewhat acceptable in Taiwan to advertise for a 'female' teacher, or to ask for a picture with one's application. It is more acceptable for the boss to openly discriminate, though that too is illegal. Female teachers encounter more sexism in everyday life - though there are also advantages. For example, I do feel that casual sexism is worse in Taiwan than the USA. But, random violence against women (e.g. being shoved in a car and raped) is far, far less common. It's harder for us to date, form relationships, make friends or put up with bullshit from bosses who come from cultures where their behavior gets more of a pass.

So if you wonder why at times there seem to not be many of us in ELT, there ya go. The guy gets a local girlfriend, marries her, starts his own school or gets out of ELT and settles down in his new country. The woman encounters sexism at work, has trouble dating, gets sick of casual everyday sexism and leaves.

That's a massive simplification but I've seen the pattern countless times. 

- Not being taken seriously for our professional capabilities

Ever worked in an office where you felt that not only did men talk over you, but when you did speak up, that you weren't really listened to? But that when a male colleague said the same thing, that it was automatically greeted with serious nods of approval? Or, as above, ever feel that your male colleague in a suit who doesn't know much about a topic or the methodology of how to teach it gets the benefit of the doubt whereas you, knowledgeable as you may be, have to prove yourself? Ever have a seminar full of students actually refer to you, before they figure things out, that you are the assistant teacher and the man is the lead teacher, when in fact you are training him? Ever propose an entire redesign to a crappy e-mail English seminar and offer to revamp it yourself (for a fee of course) and have to fight for the director to see that the seminar as-is really is crappy (even when every other teacher agrees with you), and then have them refuse to use it until the director 'checks' it? All this after seeing a male trainer mention that the English for Meetings seminar needs a revamp and have that accepted without question, offered money to re-do it, and then have it used without the director having the faintest idea what's in it? Ever seen a male colleague request changes to material, and then watch the director ask a female teacher to make them for free, and when she refused, offering to pay the man to do it?

I have.

3.) We may not suffer from lower starting salaries for the same work, the well-documented issues surrounding negotiating strategies and sexism still hang over our heads.

Ellen Pao is quite right about this: if a woman doesn't negotiate aggressively and as such, doesn't get raises on par with similarly-capable male peers, she's told to lean in, be more aggressive, step up her game,  it's her own fault she didn't get those raises. If a woman does negotiate aggressively, she's told she's "difficult" or "a bitch" or "hard to work with" or "greedy and cares more about money than her work". And still doesn't get the same raises. You're screwed if you do, screwed if you don't. As Pao says, it's like being told to thread a needle that has no hole.

It's not much different in English teaching. My current part-time employer is pretty good about this: I was hired at an acceptable rate on par or higher than male colleagues' starting pay. My former employer? Male colleagues would go in, say they want a raise, negotiate a bit, and get it. It all happened in one meeting and it was a given that they had every right to expect a certain amount just as the company could make a counter-offer. I would go in, say I want a raise, and get "oh we have to think about it, let's have a meeting in a few weeks, we'll see what we can offer you". I would say outright "well, it's a two-way street. I have ideas and expectations too". I wouldn't have said that if we all got the same treatment, but the fact was, we didn't. I had to be blunt because I was getting sub-par treatment. I would get the screws put to me - talked down to about how I don't really deserve it but they're so kind to consider it, asked for concessions male colleagues weren't, told I'd get fewer classes if I got higher pay.

As far as I can tell, and it's not like we didn't talk about these things, male colleagues got none of that.

4.) We do suffer from lower starting salaries when employers stereotype us as teachers of children, not adults.

It's a fact of the industry: jobs teaching adults, being seen as better, more challenging jobs requiring stronger qualifications, tend to pay better. So when women are stereotyped as teachers of children and the adult classes are overwhelmingly taught by men, we earn less to begin with.

5.) When you point out these issues, the same dismissiveness applies, often from other expats.

I went into this above, noting that when I pointed this out on an online forum I got all sorts of nonsense back about how there are just more qualified long-term male teachers, or how "well the owners can do whatever they want, this is Taiwan, they own the business, deal with it". You get nonsense like "well *I* don't think there's any sexism" (coming from white men usually - not exactly the voices of personal experience on issues women have noted as affecting their lives) "because *I* have some female friends who say there isn't". Or worse, "maybe you're having those problems because you're just a bitch/not a very good teacher/not likable". Even if you are speaking more generally about issues you've seen impact people who are not just you. Oh no, if your experience doesn't conform to their assumptions about what your experience should be, the fault is automatically yours. It couldn't be that their assumptions are wrong.

So, the same old nonsense - if you notice a systemic issue affecting a group, especially a group you belong to - the problem can't possibly be the system. It has to be YOU. You're just terrible. You're not competent. You are "difficult". Or "but I saw an ad once that said 'female teachers preferred' so it's actually sexist against men!" without bothering to unpack that statement. Yes, ads that specifically ask for female teachers are sexist. But that doesn't mean the entire industry is biased in favor of women.

6.) Despite all of this, ELT/Applied Linguistics/TEFL at the academic level is a remarkably gender-egalitarian field.

Ever read McKay's English as an International Language?

Lightbown and Spada's How Languages are Learned?

Ur's A Course in Language Teaching or Discussions That Work?

Hedge's Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom?

Bailey's Learning About Language Assessment?

Graves' Designing Language Courses?

That would be Sandra Lee McKay, Patsy Lightbown, Nina Spada, Penny Ur, Tricia Hedge, Kathleen Bailey and Kathleen Graves.

The world of ELT in academic circles is littered with women. Nobody would argue that it is not an egalitarian field, at that level (or if they would, I'm not sure why).

There's no evidence at all, then, to support the idea that men are more drawn to teaching language, or teaching adults (the two most popular and respected certifications that are not Master's degrees or something like a PGCE are specifically aimed at teaching adults). There's no reason the field has to be as problematic as it is. There's no reason why the issues within it have to so closely mimic the ones women face in offices and business culture. It just doesn't have to be this way.

7.) Keeping all that in mind, do you really think teaching is a low-paid field because it's not valuable?

I hear a lot of "well women make less money than men not because there's a pay gap, but because they work in professions that tend to pay less. That's their own fault for choosing those professions!"

First, even the US government acknowledges, via actual real data and not the opinion of some butthurt Whitey McDude ejaculated onto a computer screen, that this is not true, the pay gap exists even when you account for this issue.

Second, it doesn't seem to occur to these guys that perhaps professions women tend to enter pay less because they are female dominated. It's not like nurses, teachers or care workers for the elderly, for example, are not valuable. Society certainly needs them all. A lot. Almost certainly more than they need hedge fund managers and almost anyone who styles themselves a "consultant", "in marketing", "in finance" or "a social media expert". Pretty much that entire spat of well-paid jobs could go and the world and its economy would keep in ticking, but try keeping the world going without any teachers or nurses. 

I honestly do not buy the idea that these jobs are poorly paid because - or only because - people go into them with a sense of 'calling'. People also become doctors because they feel they have a calling, and doctors are very well-paid indeed. These professions are poorly paid because a lot of people see women doing work and inherently feel that that work is not valuable. They probably don't consciously realize this, and would certainly deny it if called out, but it's there. There's a long history of expecting that yeah, women should do work, whether that's in the home or not, but that that work should be free - gratis, voluntary, out of the kindness of their hearts. A lot of the organizations (some valuable, some not) that rely on free labor are female-staffed. If you got men into those positions, just see how fast they turn into paid work.

This was also a phenomenon in mid-century America, one that Betty Freidan chronicled in The Feminine Mystique. I can't find an online quote of this, but it noted in some detail the tendency of newly-built suburbs to be held together by women: PTA women, women acting as counselors, women setting up public services, women building playgrounds, women setting up makeshift chambers of commerce. All for free. When those suburbs became established towns, those jobs started to become paid jobs: economic development, guidance counseling, town planning and zoning, the local chamber of commerce - - and went directly to men.

So, why is English teaching such a poorly paid profession? Not only because at the very bottom there's a slew of twentysomething know-nothings (no love lost: I used to be one) willing to work for crap wages, and not only because we're seen as disposable dancing foreign monkeys to a lot of cram schools. Not only because people who want to travel are willing to go into it without many benefits, and many are temporary. Not only because you can get your start with nothing but a Bachelor's degree and literally no experience. 

But also because it's a profession where women, even if they don't dominate (again, look at Aces' website), are preferred. 

Move that over to corporate training/Business English, where men dominate and are preferred, and see how quickly the pay goes up.