The Language Teacher

"We need a group like WELL here in Japan because there has never really been an organization that meets both the professional and personal needs of women in a significant manner. Although most of the EFL or other L2 teachers in Japan are women (just a hunch!), the upper echelon of JACET or JALT seem to be dominated by men" (response to a WELL membership questionnaire, June 15, 1997).

The emergence of Women in Education and Language Learning (WELL) in 1995 is a sign that at least some female language educators indeed feel they need their own organization. Such signs can also be seen in other geographical areas. An organization called Women in TEFL, for instance, existed in the U.K. for a number of years and was a direct inspiration for WELL. Women have also organized separately in other professional fields in Japan, and currently groups exist for foreign women lawyers, businesswomen (Foreign Executive Women), and nurses (the Foreign Nurses Association in Japan). (1) As a Japan-based group of women language educators and students, however, WELL most closely mirrors and in small but significant ways contrasts with JALT. An examination of why WELL was formed, its functions, and the needs of its membership may thus shed some light on women's particular perceptions of gender bias and gender politics faced in the language teaching profession, especially in higher education in Japan. The purpose of this piece, then, is to paint a general picture of WELL, and in the process, attempt to bring up to conscious and critical reflection some of the gender issues women language teachers and students may sense but seldom openly articulate. The information and opinions herein are gathered from WELL literature, the WELL membership directory, a survey of WELL members, and my own personal experience as a co-founder, member, and former membership coordinator of WELL.

What Is WELL and How Did It start?

WELL was founded at the JALT95 Conference by a group of 14 women language teachers who expressed the need for a feminist community, a personal and professional support network, and a forum for exchanging information. Although the founders were JALT members and received much encouragement from other JALT members and officers, it was decided not to seek official status within JALT as an N-SIG or any other group. The consensus at the time was that maintaining a more independent status would make it easier for women who are not JALT members to join. It was also felt that the benefits received by N-SIGs would be outweighed by the time and energy probably necessary to obtain official approval. To conform with JALT bylaws would also have curtailed the new group's decision to exclude men from membership.

Although the predominant language of the organization is English, roughly one-third of the 95 or so current members are Japanese, and the second annual retreat in 1997 was held completely bilingually. Most of the members are living in Japan, although several have joined from the States and South Korea. In January 1996, 20 women attended WELL's inaugural weekend retreat, and decided to adopt the following goals from the now defunct UK-based Women in TEFL as its statement of purpose:

• To increase contact among women in different institutions concerned with teaching.
• To raise consciousness and provide professional expertise in order to encourage women to fulfill their potential.
• To improve conditions and maximize opportunities for women in teaching.
• To provide personal and professional support within the workplace.
• To guard against sexism in materials and to help women cope with sexism at work (adapted from Du Vivier, Freebairn, & Garton-Sprenger, 1994, p. 204).

Related services and activities of the group are in fact similar to those of JALT N-SIGs. They include an annual three-day national retreat in January and a get-together at the international JALT conference; occasional workshops and get-togethers in local areas; the publication of a membership directory and a tri-annual newsletter; the maintenance of a WWW homepage and an e-mail discussion list; joint presentation and publication projects; and the exchange of lesson plans, teaching materials, and information on job openings and events of interest.

Why Is There a Need for a Group Like WELL?

What distinguishes WELL from JALT N-SIGS is the fact that all the members are women, its merging of personal, professional, and political agendas, its organizational structure, and the way its meetings are run. Members share four main areas of concern: (a) the creation and exchange of materials and lessons related to women's studies and gender issues; (b) support for oneself and other women in the field of education, including the empowerment of women students; (c) raising the consciousness of society in general in regards to sexism, especially in the fields of language and education; (d) and research, writing, and professional presentations related to women's issues. Members cite a variety of specific women's issues they are interested in from both theoretical, practical pedagogic, and political standpoints. These include feminist and women's literature, feminist pedagogy, women's studies, global issues, human rights, women's health including AIDS education, specific issues of violence against women such as female genital mutilation, gender and sexuality, anti-homophobia work, women's safety and self-defense, hiring and promotion of women in education, and support for working mothers.

Most of these interests are potentially shared by men, and according to a membership survey conducted in June 1995, in the areas of materials creation, consciousness-raising, and research, publication, and presentations, some WELL members feel men should be included, because "they are the ones who will benefit most." Some members would like to hear what men think about women's issues and feel that men who are interested in gender issues should be allowed to join the group.

Why, then, has WELL (at least so far) not chosen the path of an N-SIG of both men and women focusing more generally on gender issues? Such a group may well emerge, and many WELL workshops and presentations are already open to men. However, I believe WELL started as a specifically women's organization because of the other main concern of many of its members for a female support network to help them cope with the isolation and sexism they personally experience or are personally sensitive to as women. Members can have the rare experience of being in the absolute gender majority at its events, can be certain that all organizational decisions are in the hands of women, and are reasonably assured of freedom from sexism and a sympathetic audience for their personal stories of struggle. Further, the use of WELL forums for publicizing job openings and other professional opportunities only among women could be seen as an attempt to create an old girls' network to mitigate the exclusion of women from other recruitment networks (Kameda, 1995, p.118).

The Isolation of Women in Education

One reason for the isolation experienced by many WELL members is that in addition to two-thirds of them being non-Japanese, two-thirds of the membership also teach at university, where women are greatly underrepresented. According to statistics reported in Kameda (1995, p. 117), in 1994 women made up just 38.7% and 9.9% of the total faculty at junior colleges and four-year universities, respectively, including adjunct (part-time) faculty and assistants, compared to 60.4% at elementary schools, 38.4% at junior high schools, and 21.8% at senior high schools. The gender gap widens further when looking at full-time faculty above the rank of assistant. In 1991, at Waseda University, for example, there were just 40 full-time female faculty at the instructor/assistant professor level and above, representing 4% of the total, while 11% of the total assistant and adjunct positions were filled by women (Kameda, 1995, p. 118).

This tendency toward concentration at differential ranks and statuses points to a gender-related gap between men and women in terms of pay, benefits, and prestige. In addition, only full-timers, unlike adjunct faculty and assistants, may take part in their schools' faculty meetings and committee work. The lack of women full-timers therefore creates a vicious circle in which few women have input into hiring decisions and curriculum design and those few women who do may feel very isolated and find it difficult to continue as full-timers (Morgan, 1996). The following WELL membership survey responses illustrate the stress women may experience in an overwhelmingly male workplace or classroom:

"I don't have a voice."

"I feel like a symbol or decoration."

"[There are a] small number of full-time women on our staff or committees (I was recently at one that had about 45 males to 4 females!)"

"Women students are far fewer than male students and those who are there are often isolated in huge male-dominated classes."

"I have heard that I was hired because my department thinks there are too few women teaching at the university level. In our department there are about 40 teachers (give or take a few) and including myself 4 women..."

"I've been barred from activities with colleagues because of being the only woman."

"Within my department there are few women."

"At my former university, I was only one of two full-time women and the only non-Japanese instructor out of some 35 faculty members."

Sexism experienced by women in education

Intertwined in many cases with this isolation, many WELL members have personally experienced or witnessed an array of cases of sexual discrimination, harassment, and even violence. Membership survey responses include:

"I feel I have to work three times more than male teachers to be recognized that I am working."

"I am 45 years old now and was told at one point that the school will renew my contract for at least another ten years. What happens after that? Why are the male gaijin teachers not given this deadline and also why can the Japanese teachers teach until retirement age? Thanks to a female colleague active in our school's teacher union who recognized the discrepancy, I was given tenure and no longer have to worry about my future."

"At my university, women have no positions of power...a feminist proposed a women's studies course the year before I arrived. It was refused as irrelevant to language learning."

"I was shocked when a number of very qualified women scholars applied for an opening at my university and were rejected out of hand by the male faculty and branded as radical feminists because they had studied female rather than male authors. Women graduate students have also told me that their male professors refer to them as okusantachi or wives rather than by their names, and tell them women can't be great writers."

"...I was sexually harassed at my former university and realized that I had few people to turn to for support...The colleagues whom I approached about the sexual harassment generally treated it as a joke or refused to talk about it."

"I've been pawed by drunk bucho, seen younger part-time staff pawed and conned into letting him put his name on their research in hopes of getting "on" full-time. I was raped by a student and was told by officials not to report it (as they were 'already aware of his problem.')"

It is perhaps not surprising, given the extent of sexual harassment reported on university campuses in many surveys, that female faculty are subject to the same environment. 89% of the student respondents to a 1995 Shimane University study, for example, reported having been sexually harassed (MacGregor, 1995). In a 1996 poll of 691 lecturers, clerical staff, and graduates of Kyoto University, over half said they had been sexually harassed, including two who had been raped (Daily Yomiuri, 1996). However, sexual harassment policies and other measures at universities in Japan are few and far between. One exception is the Gender Equity Committee at Daito Bunka University which a WELL member has been active in establishing. One of its aims is to formulate policy, raise consciousness about sexual harassment, and accept and follow up on complaints from students, faculty, and staff (B. Summerhawk, personal communication, September 5, 1997).

Desire for a Nonhierarchical Organization

In the face of this isolation and sexism in the workplace, then, WELL has responded by attempting to create a cooperative and non-hierarchical organization. In Coates' discussion of the theories of Tajfel (Coates, 1986, pp. 8-11), a final stage in a group's rejection of its inferior social status is the attempt to create new dimensions for comparison rather than simply adapting to dominant structures. In the case of women, she gives the example of women reclaiming as valuable interpersonal communication skills such stereotyped female qualities as gentleness, caring for others, and sensitivity. This theory may help to explain the impulse behind WELL's adoption of consensus decision- making process and a horizontal organization in a structure which might be termed democracy by turn-taking (Weiler, 1994). For example, a business meeting is held at the retreat once a year. At this meeting, the conference organizers or other volunteers facilitate and anyone present is entitled to discuss and decide WELL's activities and policies for the next year through consensus rather than voting. This means that the group continues to discuss and refine a proposal until it receives the support of everyone present. New items can be added to the meeting agenda at any time, and existing agenda items can be modified without following any specific rules of order.

At the first retreat, it was agreed to establish different tasks for members to volunteer for on a yearly basis, such as membership coordinator, newsletter coordinator, retreat organizer, and so on. These positions are not in any hierarchy, can be held by more than one person and can be redefined from year to year. If someone thinks of something else to be done, they can volunteer to do it at any time. There is no one person to ask for approval nor a procedure for getting approval for a certain action, except to ask other members for their opinions and cooperation. In principle, no one holds the same position more than a year or two, to avoid burn-out and the organization being associated with any one person or group.

WELL's most important commitment is holding an annual retreat, but the type of workshops and other events at the retreat can change from year to year depending on the interests and beliefs of that year's organizers. However, all three retreats so far have included opportunities for informal support groups and various forms of healthy relaxation such as aikido or meditation, reflecting a feminist emphasis on care for the self and the integration of intellect, emotion, and body (hooks, 1994, pp. 13-22).

Conclusion

One of the main functions of WELL is the study of women's and gender issues, an interest shared by like-minded men. However, another attraction of WELL may be that as a women-only group it provides its members with important contrasts to the isolation and sexism they may experience in their professional lives. The consensus decision-making structure of the group also ensures that everyone physically present at business meetings has an equal voice, an important fact for people who either as women, as foreigners, or as both may feel they lack a voice in their workplaces. In this sense, WELL's dual functions of professional organization and support group complement rather than contradict each other. For example, when asked why WELL was necessary, members answered:

"...it is important for women to share their ideas which they may not be able to talk with men because of their avoiding."[sic]

"...we need to give women a representative voice in Japan, indeed, everywhere in the world. WELL is instrumental in developing this voice."

"Feminist educators need a group like WELL for professional as well as emotional support. We are a minority in the academic world and we need each other for basic classroom stuff such as collaboration and sharing of materials, as well as to bolster each other psychologically: To draw off each other's energies, to feel inspired and at times to inspire."

"We are women. Women have a lot of empowering things they can do for each other and say to each other that help us in this experience of living in a gender conscious world of Japan."

"We need a place for inspiration, for fun, for reminders that the energy we put into feminist work is a valuable thing to do in the world."

"...we need a group like WELL to raise the consciousness of women, to be more aware of gender discrimination, to share experiences, to learn from each other, and to help each other (because help is hardly available when you are discriminated), to have a new vision of future for women, to see other possible choices."

"I need WELL because it allows me to live out my personal, feminist, and educational life holistically instead of compartmentalizing myself and the world."

For more information on WELL, contact Denise Drake, Membership Coordinator, Kitakyushu University, 4-2-1 Kitagata, Kokuraminami-ku, Kitakyushu 802. E-mail: <denise@kitakyu-u.ac.jp>.

References

Coates, J. (1996). Women, men and language. London: Longman.

Du Vivier, M., Freebairn, I., & Garton-Sprenger, J. (1994). Case study: Why "Women in TEFL"? In J. Sunderland (Ed.), Exploring gender: Questions and implications for English language education (pp. 203-207). Hertfordshire, UK: Prentice Hall International.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Kameda, A. (1995). Sexism and gender stereotyping in schools. In K. Fujimura-Fanselow & A. Kameda (Eds.), Japanese women: New feminist perspectives on the past, present, and future (pp. 107-124). New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York.

MacGregor, H. E. (1995, October 23). Though it finally has a name, sexual harassment in Japan is worsening. The Daily Yomiuri.

Morgan, K. P. (1996). Describing the emperor's new clothes: Three myths of educational (in-) equity. In A. Diller, B. Houston, K.P. Pauly, & M. Ayim (Eds.), The gender question in education: Theory, pedagogy, & politics (pp. 105-122). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Poll shows half of Kyoto U. female graduates experience harassment. (1996, November 18). The Daily Yomiuri.

Weiler, K. (1994). Freire and a feminist pedagogy of difference. In P. McLaren & C. Lankshear (Eds.), Politics of liberation: Paths from Freire (pp. 12-39). London: Routledge.