Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

Damn it was a nice easygoing job too, and I was only there a month. Then the boss informs me the mothers want (insist upon?) a female teacher, so he gets one and I'm finished. He tells me he might have other work for me, which apparently he has for about 15 other people, who seem to work at various places, like 5-10 hours here, 6-12 hours there per week, or something like that. Running around town, different school(s) each day? Given my current situation I'll take what I can get I suppose, but I would rather have stayed put.

[Bee Positive]

Dude,

You CAN'T let this get you down.

I know, it's easy to say.

Trust me, however, when I say that you will look back and LAUGH.

While I've never had it quite as bad (have not yet been fired for being male!), I've certainly waded through my share of Korean job listings which looked promising until I came upon the must-be-equipped-with-female-genitalia clause.

Ha! I'm LAUGHING!

And here's why:

I majored in English, did graduate studies in English, have spent half my life hanging out in libraries, can diagram sentences till the cows come home, provide etymologies for most any word you can throw at me (yes, I've done the Latin, the Greek, the French, the Anglo Saxon even), scored 760 on my GRE verbal (top 1%), and to top it all off, I've got years of experience teaching in Korea now, and can teach like nobody's business.

I've got the knowledge, I've got the passion, and I've got the presentation down, and can teach any class, anytime, anywhere, and do so perfectly well WITHOUT FEMALE GENITALIA, thank you very much. (Was going to insert a joke here but realized that it was tasteless and out of place: suffice it to say that I don't exactly dislike women, wink.)

Trust me, if you're at all decent as a teacher, you're bound to come out ahead in this game.

Just wait until your replacement, however female she may be, can't tell the difference between a noun and a verb. See how fast those demanding mothers change their fickle minds!

And NO, I do not mean to imply that ALL females are dumb, OK? Just that intelligence, competence, job-worthiness and so on are NOT sex-dependent.

I trust that any fair-minded women who happen to read this will agree with me too. Imagine how outraged you would be if you were denied a job, still worse FIRED from the job you hold now, whatever your qualifications, simply because you're not a man. Different foot, different shoe, same bee ess, if you'll pardon me for phrasing it that way.

Hang in there, Dude! When one door closes, as they say . . .


BEE POSITIVE

[YoungLi]

[jlb]

What about getting a letter of release from him and moving on? There's lots of jobs out there.

[JZer]

[YoungLi]

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

Jajude...

Sorry to hear about your situation. Your boss and those mothers are simply sacks of sh*t. End of story. Letting someone go based on gender alone is peasant behavior... you had the unfortunate situation of dealing with those backwards idiots. You'd be suprised how easy it is to get let go in these hagwons based on your appearance sometimes...I got a couple of complaints from a couple of my students that I was too "middle eastern" looking to be considered American and I think my boss was almost willing to let me go on that premise.

Hope all fares better for your future gig.

[canuckistan]

YoungLi wrote:

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

[JZer]

[YoungLi]

[YoungLi]

[babtangee]

[desultude]

Jajdude, sorry to hear about your misfortune. I was wondering recently how you were doing. Now I see. Hang in there and try not to let this get you down. There are lots of other jobs.


I want to make two points.

First, either here or in the States there is a strong general bias for males, unless there are mitigating circumstances. In this case, fair or not, the guys don't have such a good rep here, and, what with the serious ethnocentricity here, especially in regards to things romantic/sexual, well, some of us have noticed that some schools are preferring women these days.

Okay, Mrs. Kim has a couple of daughters she wants to see married well some day- to a Korean with a good job. She watches the television, reads the papers and hears the gossip about these young waygook guys and their misbehavior. She sees them on the street being publicly affectionate with the neighbor's daughters. Hmmm, does she want him teaching her princesses?

I am not saying this is fair, heavens knows we women have been saying for generations that being judged by our equipment isn't fair, but it is the case that Mrs. Kim is not concerned with being fair to a waygook, not because she is bad, but because she is protecting her daughters, who are her first priority.

So, if it is discrimination, it is new and it has a basis.

My second point is that maybe the director is lying to you. This way he or she can blame it on the mothers and the news, etc., and save face.

Either way, the die is cast, and now you need to think clearly and make some decisions. Good luck.

[PolyChronic Time Girl]