That'SLife

Alex Case says:

I doubt anyone is selecting more men for anything, and I certainly don’t think there is any lack of women in top positions in EFL- in London, a straight male DOS or ADOS is unusual enough to be cause for comment. No lack of female TEFL authors either. Maybe it’s just because being a conference speaker and a celebrity chef is the kind of attention seeking that a female ego just doesn’t need.

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Karenne Sylvester says:

Gavin,

Noticed the same thing – of course, and being a woman I would – and been pondering the point.

Also after watching the IATEFL online British Council bashing regarding diversity.

In almost all the institutes where I work 90% of us are women. 50 – 60% DOSes I know are female.

Yet in some of the yahoo!groups I belong to although the highest percentage of members are women they mainly lurk.

This could be because women lurk – yeah, right LOL – or because the men are fairly territorial and yell a lot. They support each other even when they might not really agree with each other and in the end their ‘aggression’ becomes a bit frightening so we girls move on to groups where the female voice is more apparent, listened to and/ or respected.

I suspect this is what happens within major educational organizations and publishing too. Whether or not it is only a mirage, to be honest, it does feel as if there is a protectionist barrier around the boys ‘club’ and if you aren’t white, male and over 45/50 -forget about it!

A lot of us women have been trained to respect the Older Male Voice, the Papa figure since childhood, and there really are a lot of Papas out there in ELT landia!

Nice to visit your blog again – “bro”

Karenne

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Scott Thornbury says:

The male-female distribution may also have geographical, possibly historical, nuances. It’s very much the case that applied linguistics in the UK is male-dominated (Henry Widdowson bats for England) while in the US and possibly Australia, the leading players are largely women (think of the many Deborahs and Dianes). When you attend TESOL in the States, you don’t get the feeling that the plenary speakers have been chosen simply to ensure parity.

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Scott Thornbury says:

You might get a slightly different set of figures if you factored in sexuality, Gavin. But I’m not going to go there!

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Gavin Dudeney says:

Scott,

I suspect you might be right, but that’s a bit of a distractor and another conversation altogether! I’m still struggling to rid my head of the ELT cricket team image…

Anne – ‘The Daddies’…. hmmm, what a term! It’s interesting, though, that the ‘young competitors’ you mention are both male. I’m not sure I like the idea of a ‘women only’ conference any more than the current status quo, though.

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Barbara Sakamoto says:

There may be a couple of additional reasons behind the disparity (and yes, I agree there is a gap).

The first is a perception problem that’s a work in progress. 20 years ago when my co-authors and I (3 women) published our first books, we were asked to use maiden names (we were all married to Asian men) and first initials on the cover. There was some concern at the time that teachers wouldn’t want to buy an English book written by (perceived) Asian women. The fact that this is a non-issue now shows that things are changing, I believe.

Another is logistics. I remember sitting at breakfast one day at ThaiTESOL with another author who was also a featured speaker (we were both part of a book tour with a stop at ThaiTESOL). He told me how much he loved these tours and speaking at conferences because they were like a vacation. I realized at that moment that he probably hadn’t had to pack up a week’s worth of frozen meals and arrange for childcare before he took off for the tour. Now I’m an empty nester, but for a large part of my professional life it was tough to fit in time for conferences in addition to writing, teaching, and parenting. Matter of priorities that change with age, I guess.

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Sara Hannam says:

Hi All,

What an interesting discussion – I have just returned from an ouzo filled sunny Sunday so will now add my bit – apologies of lack of coherence at any point

Egos – well for me its not really about that. It isn’t so individualised. I think plenty of women would welcome the opportunity to be given the “chance” to present their views and voices on ELT stages around the world, but more often than not, as Gavin’s mini-survey shows, they are a bit of an absence (although Scott is right that there are exceptions in certain settings and it is not always the same). Might be worth digging deeper to look at reasons why. Is their wish to do this, or indeed their male colleagues’ wish to do this really about individual ego?? Or about disparity in opportunities for representation?

Straight Males…..hmm…in my experience it isn’t always the case that gay men (as I think Alex was suggesting) get to the front of the queue – need to be careful there to overlook a still very real prejudice in ELT – it’s often seen as being gay friendly, but is it in all parts of the world? Is London really a reflection of anything other than….well London (am from there and love it to bits but realise it isn’t like that in lots of places). It rather depends on the wider society in the country doesn’t it? And that doesn’t even begin the discussion about how lesbian women succeed in ELT or how gay men and lesbians are able to be open (or not) about their sexuality in schools, workplaces etc??

Male aggression – hmmmm – again not sure if it is really about individual aggression as much as men’s voices are often seen as more authoritative and their visibility, by being men, is not so much of an issue i.e. their appearance, style, age, etc is not “judged” in the same way. If they have “strong” opinions, they are seen as acceptable rather than “opinionated” or “difficult” as assertive women can often be judged. Of course that doesn’t take into account factors that cut across what it means to be male like race and class – not the same experience for a black man who speaks as perhaps an accepted white woman – and how does this feature when someone doesn’t fit into the nice middle class stereotype of ELT in terms of accent and “presence”.

Women having to be twice as adventurous….well for me that is about how much more easy it is for men to be seen as innovative and “brilliant” when they come up with ideas. There is a bit of a historical precedent there in science, for example, that it is much harder for a women to promote a new idea, however cutting edge. Critics judge more harshly and seem to be looking around for a man to attach them too (a bit of a case of Shakespeare’s sister??). So…I think a bit of wariness in terms of how much that is women’s responsibility and how much they can influence this by making their ideas more attractive – it is a sign of the unevenness of ELT that it is harder to get ideas to a wider audience if you are a women, than if you are a man (with all the above provisos in mind of class,race etc). Everyone in ELT should be striving for innovative and relevant ideas, but it is definitely the case that some established (and often male) voices are given a platform just cos they are…well that…rather than what they have to say connecting with a wider audience

Agree that separating is not the answer. Men and women of all races, classes, sexualities etc need to sort this one out together.

Well awareness is the first step…..

SH

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Barbara Sakamoto says:

I wouldn’t dismiss the eye-candy aspect of our profession at all

Did you have to provide a photo of yourself when you applied for your last job in Japan? It was common in the 80s, when I first came here, but hopefully things have evolved since then~

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Alex Case says:

The main question I would want answered is: Are there more rejected female speakers than male speakers or more female speakers who are put further down the bill, or are there simply fewer female speakers applying? I suspect the latter would be a larger effect.

Making that possibily false assumption, here’s another theory to throw into the mix:

I find it very difficult to adjust to conference speaking because my classroom persona (and to some extent my outside classroom persona) is the ultimate in helping the students and letting them lead the conversation as much as I can, with any jokes feeding off what they have said and almost no anecdotes at all. I’m male, but if there was more prevalence of that style of teaching from female teachers it might explain it.

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Sara Hannam says:

Alex,

Good questions! Answers maybe not simply yes/no, but possibly a mix of all the things you say. In some settings, there definitely are more rejected F than M speakers – be interesting to do a journal as well as conference trawl on that. In others, I’m sure it’s the case (and I’ve witnessed it) that F speakers are put further down the list (have been cast downwards on some of those lists myself). Women applying – well would need to take into account block on conference attendance and international travel i.e. child care – this has been raised and is a crucial point. Few conferences offer creche facilities after all so that means that many women in what is now termed “mid-career” are less visible as they cannot travel as many are probably not living in a domestic situation where there is shared partner (or co-carer) input.

My understanding was that Gavin was referring to the invited speaker circuit, so you might need a 4th variable there which is are more men, than women, invited to international conferences as “expert” plenary/keynote speakers. I would say, on the whole, that the answer is yes, but that does depend on the conferences and some do have an active policy of ensuring equity. These days it increasingly depends on publishers too, as they tend to sponsor the same speaker to go round many different conferences.

Your last point – are you saying that unless you have a jokey style it is difficult to be a conference speaker? That’s what I understood?? It is true that a lot of the ‘big’ names do use humour as an immediate way of connecting with an audience, but not sure if that is an exclusively male quality (although I think in stand up men don’t have to work as hard for a laugh and are automatically accepted in that position as they’ve always been there really whereas women standing up and make jokes in public, in some cultures, is a recent phenomenon). But there are plenty of funny women speakers out there these days in my experience.

S

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Lindsay Clandfield says:

Thanks everyone for such an interesting discussion. What about men speakers with women’s names? Maybe Vivian Cook and I should start a subgroup…
All kidding aside, when trying to organise the Pecha Kucha for IATEFL this year I wanted a balance of men and women. Getting women to do it proved significantly more difficult. I was able to get four or five men right away. Of the women I did get to do it, at least two pulled out for one reason or another.
So, with plenty of advance notice this time I am going to start recruiting for next year’s Pecha Kucha if it happens. Will women speakers please step up? You can get in touch with me at lindsayclandfield@oxfordtefl.com

p.s. To quote Spinal Tap in answer to Gavin’s title here, “What’s wrong with being sexy?”

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Gavin Dudeney says:

Tarun,

Thanks for your comments! Unfortunately this discussion isn’t really ideal for a newsletter for many reasons – however, the most important one is that you would need to get permission from everyone who has added a comment here.

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Frank, The Divergent Learner says:

Scott… funny! When I go to international TESOL conferences like MEXTESOL here in Mexico, I see equitable gender balance. What is out of balance, however, is that many of the selected speakers are chosen for political/financial interests coming from the big publishers. I see less pure academic contribution (university professors, researchers, theorists, etc.) and lots of speakers backed by big money. They even have little pep teams in the corridors luring attendees into their “sessions” with offers of “freebies” and away from mere mortal speakers from academia. This concerns me much more than any gender issue. Commercial interests have taken over the ELT “party circuit.” Exhibitors are supposed to have separate smaller sessions during conventions, but in fact, they are also heavily blended into the mainstream session slots along side of and competing with academia. I would like to see the these venues return to academia with commercial support and not the other way around.

I did have a great time presenting on “Connectivism, PLN’s for the 21st-Century Teacher” at TESOL in 2008 in Leon, Mexico. http://tinyurl.com/5arj97

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