Job Discussion Forums

[rusmeister]

Ever hear of Round-Up Grammar Practice published by Longman?

Has anyone else noticed the changes between earlier editions and the later ones? Specifically, the pictures that support the grammar concepts (and sometimes the text as well). The changes are clearly ideologically based on feminist thinking and systematically removed all depictions of women working in the kitchen, with babies, as nurses or secretaries and replaced them with men, even to the point of eliminating male manual laborers and replacing them with women.

I've noticed similar (though not as radical changes) in editions of Headway, an Oxford publication. One example of such a change in their Elementary book is from a text about for 4 geniuses (for which they seemingly could only find white men) to a text about 4 people who merely excel (a standard multi-cultural/gender mix).

Whenever I show the differences in editions to my students, both men and women, they burst out laughing.

I guess my point is that the driving factor of any topic is that it MUST be 'inclusive' and reverse any 'traditional stereotypes'.

The people who write our textbooks KNOW how they want us to be seeing the world.

Has anyone seem similar changes in other books/materials?

[Mike_2003]

Can't say I've noticed any changes but I know what you are talking about. Mostly I've been dealing with business English textbooks and I have noticed that every high-flying successful boss now seems to be a one-legged lesbian female of colour...

[Justin Trullinger]

Noticed, and don't really mind.

I've taught EFL all over the place, and run into some pretty "traditional" thinking in a lot of places. (By which I mean with fixed ideas about gender, race, and profession that I find rather dated.) I've also seen a lot of textbooks that, discretely of course, share some of these same ideas.

So I don't really object to an effort, on the part of publishers, to become more inclusive. Too many of my students think that "English speaker" means a blond haired, blue eyed person, and "boss" means a white male.

What's wrong with a brown female boss? Mine is!

Best,
Justin

[rusmeister]

[SueH]

Justin, you are far too sensible.

Call me cynical (yes, hello?), but is this another of Rusmeister's attempts to put forward his own traditional world view. I can't help feeling he never complained before when books were full of the most appalling 'Janet and John' images.

Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far in the case of this particular book - I haven't actually seen it - but at least he'll now begin to realise what we had to put up with before if we didn't fit the standard mould.

[Justin Trullinger]

Agreed. It can look ridiculous- though the old stereotypes do as well. I guess that I prefer the "new ridiculous" to the "old ridiculous," because it might provoke thought, or challenge people's beliefs.

If students see a white male doctor in a medical English textbook, it doesn't say anything, because that's what most think that doctors are. A black woman doctor may provoke thought...

Best,
Justin

[John Hall]

I remember when I volunteered to teach newly-arrived Kosovar refugees in Canada. Many of them could not speak English well. The fathers were looking around, trying to figure out who was in charge. The majority of the Canadian volunteers were women, including the people in charge. As one of the few Canadian men around, I frequently had Kosovar fathers coming to me with their family problems, under the assumption that I was in charge. It had just never occurred to them that women could be running such a large operation.

Perhaps these textbooks are not aiming to show us the reality, but instead, what is possible in English-speaking countries. There is a North Star book that shows a woman fixing her car. Is this realistic? No. (I believe I read somewhere that only 1.4 % of mechanics in the United States are women.) Is it possible? Yes. Is it ridiculous? No.

[rusmeister]

[rusmeister]

[quote="rusmeister"]

[John Hall]

Rusmeister,

What exactly do you mean by "ridiculous" anyway? Would your students laugh at the picture of the female mechanic? Would they laugh if they met a woman from an English-speaking country who had a position (businesswoman, lawyer, soldier, etc.) which from their cultural perspective could only be done effectively by a man? Language and culture are intertwined. (Just to give one example, how many teachers reading this now have come across another language which has an exact translation for "Ms.") You can't teach language without teaching culture too.

I don't understand how you made a jump from "exposing to a new culture" to "imposing a new culture" in your message above. Teaching about another culture is not a form of colonialism, unless the teacher tries to argue that his culture is right and the other culture is wrong. I've taught students before who have laughed at the idea of a woman being a manager, and I did not to attempt to impose my cultural ideas upon theirs.

Nevertheless, one part of what some of us English teachers have to do is to teach our students not to be Borat in the U.S.A. Fine, within their own culture they can make jokes about women being mechanics or managers, but if they do that in the presence of a person from an English-speaking country, they are quite likely going to offend that person. Students learn English because they anticipate that they will or might have contact with someone who speaks English in the future. In the vast majority of cases, they want that encounter to go well. It is our job to teach them the appropriate language for those encounters.

[rusmeister]

This seems to assume that they represent our culture. I disagree. They represent what a radical minority wants to impose on our culture, a deliberate reversal of stereotypes and a feminist's dream.

Again if you approve of the changes, fine. I don't want to argue. I did want to point them out and that as the changes are systematic and darn near universal, they actually misrepresent our culture. An alien studying from them would take us to be an Amazonian culture.

If you say 'Yay!, then good for you. I disagree but don't want to engage in endless back-and-forth argument.

[guty]

[SueH]

[SueH]

I'm by no means anti tradition: I'm a traditional musician for one thing, but I do have a slight problem with those old traditions of foot-binding, suttee, and more current ones such as female infanticide and infibullation.

I haven't really got time for a long and detailed post: firstly I can't be ar**d, and secondly I've got to go to football training any moment, but I still wonder why you are so concerned now with these changes. Were you concerned before about textbooks when they were quite the opposite. I'd also dispute your hints about women's freedoms before the 20th century, certainly from the viewpoint of the laws in my own country. As for the views about women in employment, you obviously didn't do much on the British Industrial revolution.

So I take it you don't like this 'deliberate reversal of stereotypes' - as you put it. I never get any sense in any of your posts (this thread and others) that you actually object to the opposite situation. I wouldn't be surprised if you argued otherwise, but that's the _impression_ I get.

I'm off to kick balls.

[John Hall]