Triple Threat Female Expats

The Cool Trailing Spouse

Last week, we ended the traipsing-about part of our massive summer adventure, rolling up at our friends' flat in Greater London for five days in the city. We started in Athens at the end of May, wound our way across Armenia and Georgia wandering in ancient churches, enjoying gorgeous vistas and drinking succulent wine, looking up at the monumental stone edifices of Yerevan and hustling up and down the steep hills of Tbilisi old city under carved wooden balconies. Then we hopped a Tbilisi-London flight to start the British leg of our trip.

My friends are what you might call traditional expatriates, though they are not traditional people in any pejorative sense. They're both arty types, young fun liberals, far more similar to me than to the businessmen and trailing wives of Tienmu who send their children to international schools. Who can even consider affording international schools.

We had a lovely time with lovely people, both them and my in-laws, at times comparing aspects of the expat experience. This is a life not at all new to me and Brendan, but still two-years new to them. I remember well that even two years in, my life still had that new expat smell and it was interesting to trade proverbial notes.

I couldn't help but notice, though, that despite being more like us in personality, values, predilections and life goals, that their expat situation was far more like those of the Tienmu international school crowd than ours. They could afford a decent-size flat near a tube station, something two teachers most likely could never do, even with salaries adjusted to reflect the British economy. They could afford for one of them to be the 'trailing spouse' (and as always seems to happen, the trailing spouse was the wife). They could afford this and to raise a child (to be fair, in the UK one needn't worry so much about where to send a child to school).

We both knew the new expat smell, but their model was far more luxurious. It had upgrades.

I wouldn't say I was jealous - I chose my circumstances. I don't mean to criticize either: this is the opportunity life handed them and it was fair to take it as-is. If anything, it served as a lesson to be avoid drawing such thick lines between 'Us' and 'Them'. People in Their situation may very well be people like Us who just found themselves there.

That said, I do find distinctions that are worth a quick exploration. A lot of people assume 'expat' means excellent relocation package (something my friends got and I didn't, because I moved without a clear job offer - and even had I had one, nobody was going to pay my relocation costs let alone cover them generously). They often assume it means serviced flats, possibly domestic help including a driver, very high pay, being able to send their children to international schools and attending events, clubs and associations designed for networking with other expats (and almost never locals - though that is likely more common in Asia than, say, the UK). They often assume it means a trailing spouse, usually the wife, and nobody ever seems to question why it always seems to be the wife supporting her husband's career, or why more women don't get these sorts of offers to move abroad from generous employers.

That's all fine - other than pointing out the gender gap in who gets the plum offer and who is the trailing spouse, it's not a criticism. However, it seems to be the predominant view Westerners have of expat life, which is why articles like this fistful of garbage are spawned. The writer of that thing only has a point if the only kind of expat is the well-paid kind who has a serviced flat and a driver, and the only kind of immigrant is the poor kind. If this is true, what am I? A well-off immigrant or a poor expat? What about those of us for whom neither term fits?

It means that all of the advice you see is geared toward a demographic of foreigners abroad I've never been in. It's all coffee mornings and no 'how to make it work as an independent woman abroad'.


Mercy in a new place

It was interesting, then, to read Janice Y.K. Lee's The Expatriates while on this trip. Yes, it deals with exactly the demographic of well-paid expats and their stay-at-home spouses that I just spent two and a half paragraphs saying I wasn't in, but it was a worthwhile read (and I recommend it) for two key reasons: one of the protagonists is more like me than the well-to-do women who make up the rest of the book, who are also portrayed very sympathetically.

Mercy, a young Korean-American Columbia graduate, moved to Hong Kong on her own, without a job in hand. She more or less makes it work, until it doesn't any more. I don't have her bad luck, but the feeling of moving to a new place with a small savings account and a suitcase and making one's way without a corporate helping hand - and working a job to make it all happen - that's my expat experience. I gather that is the experience a lot of us have, but few people seem to write about it. Its depiction of the Korean community in Hong Kong further reminds one that those who live abroad cannot be packaged up into tidy communities of (white) expats and (everyone else) immigrants. And, of course, the character of Olivia serves as a reminder that even the wealthiest expat cannot compete with a successful and well-connected local.

Swashbuckling tales of adventure and derring-do of handsome men aside, the focus on expat women, not men, in The Expatriates further reminds us that lives of women abroad are often just as interesting as those of men, if not more so.

However, it was also a reminder that, as much as we ought not to create divisions between us as expats, some cannot be ignored. I may do better than a typical cram school teacher, but I'm still an English teacher and have, despite my professional status in the field, resigned myself to forever introducing my work as "an English teacher...but a real one." That, as much as I might make more money and have a better lifestyle than the sort of fresh young blood I was in 2006 - no crappy rooftop apartments for me - I will never, as a teacher, be on the same financial level as the Tianmu set. Brendan and I will always have to do things ourselves, we won't have a company connection setting anything up for us, likely ever. I'm 36 and still a liberal artsy-fartsy night owl type, more like the fresh young blood than the greying businessmen; this is not likely to change either. Every piece of advice is geared toward them; none seems aimed at me. Most of them won't stay long. Most will never learn Chinese or integrate locally. There simply are not that many overlaps in the issues we face.

And I might not be a trailing spouse like so many expat women, but the majority of long-termers I've come to know here, who were birthed into expat life as I was, are male.

My first real arrival in Taiwan took place late at night. I dropped my bags in my cruddy-but-temporary Gongguan perch, collapsed into sleep, and woke up the next day to explore the city. I had a vague offer of a teaching job, a few thousand dollars and a backpack. I navigated work, language, finances, socializing, paperwork and visas and adjustment to a new country and culture on my own. I don't think it takes away from the experiences of more well-heeled foreigners to admit that I'm proud of this. I'm proud that I did it on my own, and that I was never a trailing spouse (I am also confident enough in myself now that, if a fantastic opportunity arose for Brendan, after all these years I finally wouldn't balk at the idea of being one for a temporary period).

Like Mercy, I had no help, and like my brand-new idol and also crush, Janet Montgomery McGovern, I had financial concerns. I had to generate an income to make it all work. I was a woman doing what most people associate with young men doing. Like them both, I'm not the typical 'Go East, Young Man', well, man. 


English-wallah

On our last day in Tbilisi, I turned the final page of my last book for the 'intensive travel' portion of my trip: Justine Hardy's Scoop-Wallah: Life on a Delhi Daily. Although I hadn't planned it this way, my reading tour across the Caucasus was also a reading detour from books about Taiwan or books about teaching, linguistics and education into a short list of books about women living abroad.

Hardy's story also resonated with me, not only because I used to live in India, but because she too chose to return to Asia, sought out work, found it and made things happen for herself. She, like Janet McGovern, had the sort of adventure most people associate with men. She, like both me and McGovern, had to make money to stay afloat. And she, like us, had no employer helping her. She, like us, was perhaps an expat who lived like an immigrant, or maybe an immigrant who knew she couldn't stay forever. I do wonder, however, what kind of visa she was on as it was clear that her employer wasn't helping her with it, but it is extremely hard to get a visa to work legally as a foreigner in India. You certainly aren't allowed to be offered a job in India and then transfer a tourist visa to a working one (I know, because I looked into it).

Hardy describes a hardcore hustling to make her daily bread, to make a name, to make life possible in a foreign land, that I can identify with. What I peddle is different, but we're both working the same street. She has McGovern's mettle, translated to the present day and proves yet again that the stories of women abroad are not limited to managing the help, choosing between Taipei American School and Taipei European School and going to coffee mornings. That we hustle too, that we have stories too, and we all make it work.

That Hardy might have been writing soft features, but under that she's a professional journalist who simply loves India and plies her trade well. That I may be 'teaching English', but I'm also a professional educator who is days away from starting Master's in the subject at a prestigious university.

That we don't always have help. That arguably the most interesting expat in twentieth-century Taiwan was not Indiana Jones, but his mother, and she too was an English teacher.

That even the trailing spouses, who may have never thought they'd be 'trailing'.

With that in mind, during a quiet moment on the outskirts of London, I wrote a short inscription in Scoop-Wallah and, when nobody was looking, popped it into a corner of my friends' book collection. Not the husband's, although I've known him longer and we are closer, but the wife's. He might be the expat with the cushy job, but she has a story too, and under it all we may have different situations but we're not all that different.

Updated post: why are there so few expat women in Asia?

With the publication of an article on Western women dating Asian men that included a large contribution from my friend Jocelyn Eikenburg came a very good point from another friend: one reason why there are fewer Western Woman-Asian man couples is that there are fewer Western women in Asia.

Why is that, I asked to no one in particular.

I returned to my original post from years ago about why there are so few expat women in Asia (I could just as easily said 'Western women' - what working-class foreign women, mostly from China and Southeast Asia,  in countries like Taiwan face is an entirely different topic that I will cover once I feel qualified to do so).

I felt that the piece could use some updating, so I've updated it to add a few more thoughts and clarify or expand some of the original points.

I am not at all sure that everyone will like what I have to say, but since when has that mattered to me?

What would really improve the piece would be more firsthand experiences from a variety of women on why they chose to stay or leave - in fact, after I finish off a few other blogging projects I'm working on as well as get through the first in-person component of my Master's program, I intend to seek those voices out. For now, your comments are welcome.

The bulk of the changes - though not every change - to the original article are as follows:

As for the reasons why [dating prospects aren't great for Western women in Asia], it's hard for me to say, and I'll have to stick to heterosexual couples for now. Someone more qualified than me can write about gay dating in Asia.

My college crush moved to Taiwan, we started dating, and now we're married. I don't really have firsthand experience with this issue to share. It seems to me, though, that the issue is not what most people assume: that Western women don't want to date Asian men, so they stay single. Only a small minority of Western women I've met in Asia feel that way - most are quite open to it, or have dated (or married) Asian men. However, I do think it's likely harder. The culture barrier to dating doesn't work in our favor, as Asian men are often less likely to be clear about their feelings and ask for concrete dates, or don't show interest in the ways we've come to expect. It's easier to be a very clear Western man asking a local woman out than it is for a Western woman to figure out if an Asian man likes her.

Of course, I'm the sort of woman who once asked men out. It doesn't shock me - I think more women should do it! Again, however, that's a contentious topic in the West, though I'm not sure why. In Asia it's even more rare and is more likely to put men off. Take that even further, and it means there are fewer local men who possess the feminist chops many Western women deem a dealbreaker: I wouldn't date a man who would be put off by my asking him out.

After that, the culture barrier vis-a-vis traditional families also tends not to work in Western women's favor. If you are dating the son of Asian parents, while it's not certain that they'll expect him to run his family the way they tell him to, live nearby or use your shared financial resources to support his parents, it is certainly more likely than in the West. The expectations of male and female roles in marriage are also more likely to be traditional (though, again, this is far from universal: feminist Asian men do exist. I count some among my friends). Some Western women might see this as a difficult adjustment. Others, like me, view it as a dealbreaker.

This is not meant to be a blanket statement on the state of Western woman-Asian man dating in Asia, of course. Differing stories and successful and happy couples abound. It's just an issue worth considering. However, if the obstacles to that sort of partnership are greater, fewer women are likely to meet, date, marry and set up a home with a local man. This means fewer have that particular pull to stay (though, again, there are many success stories).

And, of course, there aren't that many Western men to date and the ones that are here might - see below - be oddly hostile to Western women. 

Does it really keep Western women away from life abroad, though, or is the correlation entirely spurious?

A little of both. For women who want to travel, the dating issue (which has no easy answer) is not likely to keep them away, though it may cause them to choose shorter-term trips: a one-year stint as a student or one year abroad teaching instead of staying long-term, for example.

* * * 

It is tiring to work for a sexist boss, have to address sexist beliefs even among friends, go out and meet people only to find that you are again being judged through the lens of gender, asked yet again about marriage and family, having children, having your appearance commented on and treated as the most important part of who you are. Always wondering if you are being paid less, and if so, because you happen to have a vagina. Always wondering if you are offered the fluffier classes (e.g. "Baking in English!") and work teaching children rather than the more challenging work (e.g. "Presenting in English") because you are female. Always questioning why, exactly, most of your colleagues are male, especially if you teach corporate English, IELTS or other adult classes.

Sexism is also a problem in the West - the hate and vitriol I see from some American men is astounding - but coming up against older-school forms of it in Asia is tiring. 

* * * 

I want to add a few more points here to expand this piece. I focused mainly on expats like me above: women who came here on their own as students or independently in search of work. However, there is a whole class of expat that I don't interact with much - nothing personal, we just inhabit different worlds - the corporate expat here on a fancy package. In Taiwan this means the ones who have luxury apartments rented for them, drivers and live-in help, who send their children to international schools we couldn't hope to afford. That sort of money would be nice, though I'm not sure I'd like the life very much. In any case, corporate sexism is a huge issue, and as a result most of the employees being offered these stellar packages are male. They might bring their wives, but they are the ones drawing the salaries. When women are offered something like this, they may find they're in a tiny minority and that when they arrive, the non-Western corporate world is even more hostile and sexist than what they left behind. Professional Taiwanese women have more advantages than almost all of their counterparts in the rest of Asia, but corporate sexism here is no better, and likely worse, than what you'll find in the West.

And, finally, I'm going to add something that may anger a few people, but here we go. It is my personal opinion from observation that women tend to be less tolerant of mediocrity. What I mean by that is, those of us who don't come as students or well-paid, cosseted expatriates often start out teaching English. Few of us are qualified, and we are given a title ("teacher") that we don't exactly deserve. I don't exempt myself from this: I was once this sort of so-called "teacher". Most "English teachers" in Taiwan know this (though some don't seem to have figured it out). Some, like me, decide the work is meaningful and fulfilling and eventually become professional educators. Most don't. Some leave after awhile, others decide that teaching without any real qualification is good enough and stay. Guess which group I have noticed is more likely to not be content being an unqualified "teacher"? If you guessed women, then you get where I'm going. And guess which group I've noticed is more likely to decide that what they're doing is fine?

Let Her and Falsehood Grapple: Women's March Taipei (2017)

Please excuse the lack of insight - this is more like personal experience and a bit of straight reporting -  I'm writing with a headache and trying to get it done tonight.

Anyway, every year I say I'm going to take Lao Ren Cha back to its roots - a blog about life as an expat woman in Taiwan, and women's issues in Taiwan and Asia. Every year I fail, instead doing what I've always done which is just to blog about whatever I want. 2017 is likely to be no different, but at least this one time I can post something in line with Lao Ren Cha's original intent.

Today was International Women's Day, and the fine folks at Indivisible Taiwan put together a march from Freedom Square to Da'an Park Station to raise awareness of women's issues in Taiwan and around the world. Perhaps 80-100 people showed up - I'm neither a great journalist nor a great crowd estimator so I'll just run with that. That's pretty damn good for an expat-heavy march not aimed at a specific issue, and I was proud to be a part of it.



That's big for me - I'm usually not free on weekdays, and I'm not much of a marcher (but ask me to hang out at Jingfu Gate for a good cause and I'll be there), and as the years go by my loyalties really have shifted from US issues to Taiwanese ones. This is my home, after all. I don't really do signs, balloons etc., I just like showing up. You know I care about something if I make time - on a weekday afternoon! - for an activity I am not otherwise inclined to do.

Yu Mei-nu speaks at Da'an Park

I spent much of the march toeing the line between kinda-sorta-reporting-on-it and participating, which I think is a fine liminal space for a spitballing, F-bomb dropping feminist blogger to be for something like this. I marched, and I didn't interview anyone because I am lazy, but I kinda hung around with my journalist and videographer friends. All sorts of different folks showed up - some high schoolers, many expats, many locals, a good mix of men and women of various ages. People had different reasons for marching, from supporting women's issues and causes worldwide to a targeted statement from expats in Taiwan to the Trump administration (my reason for marching - and specifically targeting the assault on reproductive rights in the US and globally) to simply wanting to see more expat-local inclusive events with greater international exchanges in the name of women's rights and progressivism generally.

Anyway here's an actual article on the march from New Bloom.



Before the march, I wasn't even sure right up until I got on the MRT at 4pm if I was going to go - I had a lot to get done and I'm just not a marcher. I had felt like I did my part by helping to put together and edit a Taipei Times letter to spread the word about the march. That I went, and am now writing this despite coming down with a headache, says something!

Once we reached Da'an Park station, there were short talks by legislators Karen Yu, Yu Mei-nu and Jason Hsu (you can watch two of those three - with English, in fact Hsu spoke exclusively in English - in the links above - lazy journalist that I am, my phone was low on power so I could only capture two talks).



All in all it was nice to come out, meet some people I'd only interacted with online and some expats I hadn't known in person (though it seemed like everyone knew me? If it weren't for the red hair and being super loud on Facebook that would be creepy, but okay, cool) and walk for something that matters. I don't have any deeper thoughts than that - and I have a headache - so I'll leave you with this:

Even in Taiwan our really not-that-controversial march attracted a religious nutter. As we passed she, an older foreign woman, stood to the side literally thumping a Bible (like LITERALLY thumping itm you guys, I thought that was just an expression but no!) and shouting "Jesus is the only man who can save you!"

Okay, whatevs, Jesus was cool, but who says I need any man to save me? Anyway, God is dead so that's fine.

All I have to say is that it's weird to come across that specific brand of nutbag in Taiwan. They're all over the US, we practically breed them there (literally - they tend to have a lot of kids. Again, fine, whatever). But in Taiwan? Was she a missionary? If so, she wasn't very persuasive. Was she a garden-variety expat who just happened to also be a Bible-thumper? If so, okay, but...really? It just seems like a rare type out here where the expat community I know trends very liberal.

I suppose she was out there thumpin' that Bible for the same reason we were: to come out and demonstrate for something she truly believed in. Sure. It's just, in the war of ideas, I simply don't buy that her ideas are equally valid. One side preaches equality, the other intolerance. One side preaches not judging and giving opportunity to all, the other preaches slotting people into categories based on their genitals. Like, you have a vagina, you go here. Act this way. Be like all the other vagina-havers. Or something. I don't get it. It goes against any real notion of science or ethics.

So, let her thump. We have better ideas. Or as John Milton put it:

“Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”

Has Taiwan made me more feminine?

Before you start thinking of Betteridge's Law here, I actually think the answer to this one might be a qualified 'yes', or I wouldn't be writing it. It is a bit navel-gazey, so if you're not into that sort of thing you might want to sit this one out. I even post lots of pictures of myself like the narcissist I not-so-secretly am!

Some of you know me in real life. You know I am not, and have never been, particularly feminine. Although I identify and present as a straight cisgender woman, I have gone through periods of questioning not my gender identity so much, but how much I wanted to have anything to do with the whole concept: there are people who don't desire to be either or any gender, and I briefly considered whether that, rather than 'not very feminine but otherwise female', was a better fit for who I was. The Jenna who landed in Taipei 10 years ago wouldn't have started a blog that, at times, focuses on women's issues - it was only several years later that I did so, after what I now feel was a fairly major personality upheaval, though I can't point to what exactly changed.

That Jenna also didn't cut, style or wear her hair down, and mostly wore jeans, khakis, cargo pants, Tevas or sneakers and plain solid-color t-shirts. She certainly didn't wear makeup and she rarely wore accessories. When she did they were small, often single charms on leather chains. Her favorite clothing color appeared to be some variation on brown. She tended to just look at the camera and smile without worrying too much if she looked good.

Does the person I describe - the person I very much was - resemble this?



Other than the no-makeup thing of course. I still don't wear makeup because, as a wise woman once said, "ain't nobody got time for that".*

Because that's what I look like as of this month, at least when my hair is cooperating, which it does more often now that I put effort into it. Effort pre-Taiwan Jenna would not have even considered putting into it long enough to reject the notion. She also would not have worn that necklace, nor would she have taken a selfie let alone posed in quite that way for it. She was a bit thinner (when you get married and hit your thirties you gain some weight, I refuse to feel bad about it although I am working to live a healthier lifestyle overall) but overall 2016 Jenna tries harder, looks a bit more feminine, and it shows. (This photo was cleaned up for color, and I removed a zit, but is otherwise accurate - Other Jenna would not have bothered to clean up the photo at all).

That other Jenna? She looked more like this:


Brendan and I weren't dating yet in this photo from our trip to Beijing, but you wouldn't know it

Or this:


That's not blush or rouge - I'm just sunburned

Or, if she wore her hair down, this, which I'm mostly showing you for the amusement factor:


This is not the outfit or pose of someone who gives a damn about how she looks - also, cheese
(I swear I am not stoned in this photo, but I would forgive you for thinking otherwise)

Note that it's not just the clothing, accessories and hair that have changed, it's the manner of how I relate to the camera, smile and pose. This is not reflected in every character trait I have: some things have not changed - I'm still not ashamed of burping in public if I have to, I've started drinking stronger alcohol (Other Jenna probably would have gone for wine or a sweet cocktail, whereas Jenna Today keeps a bottle of Laphroaig in her home office), I still swear like a particularly surly sea captain, I'm still a bit loud and I laugh like the megaviral Chewbacca mask woman (to the point where a friend pointed out that our laughs are eerily similar and I can't disagree). I still don't wear high heels.

But some things, honestly, have. I own more than two hair products, a round brush and a hair dryer which I actually use sometimes. Other Jenna seriously did not have a hair dryer - what's wrong with regular air? Air works. Those hair products come from Aveda, where Other Jenna would never have shopped. I have a bottle of Chanel No. 5 (it was my mom's, she would have wanted me to use it - waste not want not and all) that I actually wear, I have a bag of high-end makeup that I still don't wear, but break out for special occasions (Other Jenna didn't even wear makeup to weddings or job interviews). I've switched to big jewelry, lots of scarves and bright colors, and actually wear skirts. I own a sundress! Other Jenna never owned a sundress. I do not own a pair of khakis or a pair of cargo pants, which Other Jenna would have found incomprehensible. I used to wear men's jeans but don't anymore. I even buy women's sneakers in more typically feminine colors (not pink - ugh no - but purple, fuchsia and teal are fine. Other Jenna wore gray, navy or black sneakers). I own a pair of heels! They are not very high, and they're boring and black and from Clark's, but I can hear other Jenna screaming. Heels!

There's no proof that this has anything to do with living in Taiwan - people change naturally all the time, but I can't help but think that Taiwan has had some sort of influence.

As much as I write about how Taiwan is a pretty good place for women, how, despite it not being a gender-equal paradise by any means it's the best you'll find in Asia and many of the problems found here are also found in Western countries, I have to say that there is a greater societal expectation of women looking and acting more feminine, and my "Get Out of Jail Free" card because I'm a foreigner doesn't work very well to let me out of it. I've never quite been asked the question I was once asked in China - excuse me, would you mind telling me if you're male or female? in the most polite Chinese the person could muster - but I did have a student once blurt out, after I pointed out that they were teaching me Taiwanese swear words that they admitted they wouldn't say in front of a woman, "you are a man!"

He meant "you don't come across as particularly feminine so I am comfortable treating you like one of the guys", but...heh.

For every makeup-free fortysomething on the MRT and every obasan who will cut you if she doesn't get her way, I sometimes feel bombarded with far more oblique references to expectations that I, and every other woman, should make certain efforts to look and act like stereotypical women. From the office workers at my old job pointedly complimenting me the one day I did wear makeup, to much more open comments about my looks - I know I'm no stunner and I'm not sure I ever cared, but thanks for that - and what I am, vs. what I should be, wearing to students and acquaintances openly discussing how women liked to shop and look pretty, and being genuinely surprised when I said I wasn't a huge fan of either, it's just more out in the open here. All your ideas that Asia is a place where people don't say what they mean and communication is indirect, between-the-lines, high-context culture etc. etc.? Yeah, no. Not when it comes to commenting on looks or gender roles. Not at all.

In terms of looks, it seemed to start fairly soon after arriving. About a year or so in, I went to a wedding back in the US and wore makeup for the first time in years, and a dress which is just nuts:



Then I started to cut and even sort of style my hair, though I didn't keep up with dying it:


It's Margarita O'Clock at the long-closed Yuma!

Then I started paying more attention to my overall dress, hair and looks:



...and then one day I woke up and I was using premium hair products, wearing skirts and statement necklaces and thinking about how I smelled beyond "not like anything which is better than how humid Taiwan weather makes a lot of people smell". And then I took the picture at the top of this post.

Would I have changed as much without the influence of Taiwan - that is, does Taiwan have nothing to do with what would have been a natural evolution of my personality regardless of where I lived? Maybe. But somehow, I don't think so. I just don't see how I would have started to give a shit without the fairly common, open comments on how I and other women look and the constant, always-there, sometimes-tacit-sometimes-not expectations here how how women present themselves. Granted, the US has those too, but I do feel they're not shoved in your face quite as much. People don't openly comment on your skin, eyes, lack of makeup etc. there, at least not as often.

I can honestly say, as well, that I care far less how I look when I go back to the US for a visit. When I moved to Taiwan I couldn't imagine bringing the one fancy pair of shoes I owned - knee high black leather boots, which I still have 'cause they're quality - I couldn't imagine needing or wanting to wear them. Fancy shoes were for the US, I thought. Now I have them here and wouldn't dream of packing them for a trip to the US, because sneakers are fine, who cares? Naw, it's fine, I know I'm in PJ bottoms but I'll run to the store, it doesn't matter, nobody cares, it's just upstate New York.

(To be fair one time when I really don't give a damn in Taiwan is when I'm going to Wellcome or 7-11, because no matter how shabbily I'm dressed someone is always wearing something more jacked up than me and the clerks couldn't give any less of a damn).

It could be that I've gone from a twentysomething cube monkey in a crap office job in the US and no disposable income to a thirtysomething professional with a reasonable amount of disposable income. It could be that I take my job and therefore how I present myself for it more seriously.

And I can say that while I've started putting more effort into my appearance, my core personality hasn't changed much. If anything, I swear more than I used to and am far more frank and, at times, caustic than I used to be (I'm still learning when to shut my trap). I just don't care as much what people think of who I am inside - if they don't like Meanie McSwearalot that's their fuckin' problem - as much as perhaps I do care how I present myself on the surface. So some things haven't changed, or at least, some parts of me have not become more feminine.

But some, most certainly, have. Even personality wise - Other Jenna wouldn't have cared that she doesn't really have a 'BFF' nearby (and it's true, I don't have a bestie in Taiwan, lots of friends, even very close friends, but not another woman I can talk about periods&vaginas&boys&hair-in-weird-places&stuff with). That's not a bad thing, but I do wonder sometimes what is up with the statement necklaces.

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.