Gender Ed in Shanghai:
Theory Meets Practice

My unit tonight was on gender. I wanted to fuck with my students' conceptions as much as possible. Their level is pretty high, so I took liberties with grammar instruction and tried to just break down conceptions of men's and women's roles.

In groups, all but two decided that toy guns, sports, and model cars were for boys; tea sets and dollies were for girls. Any variation on that might "turn the boys into sissies" and "alter personalities and development" because "boys are aggressive" and "girls are shy." Girls are more suited for housework. Boys make better lawyers and doctors.

By the time we'd finished this small group work, I'd filled the board with constructions like this and realized I was without an exit strategy. I hadn't set this up as a debate and didn't want to take the time to set up all that language.

Of course I had an agenda--fuck with gender--but I had to appear as if I were just the mild-mannered English teacher they'd had the class before.

I asked them which they thought came first, the pressure to play with certain toys or the careers roles they were expected to fill in society.

Silence. But I knew they understood me. More or less. They were thinking.

When I had them do role plays with the men playing typical Shanghainese husbands talking to a traditional Chinese neighbor about their children playing with certain toys, all the men who thought boys should have guns and keep their distance from dolls did brilliantly. They would have made Holly Hues proud.

Shanghainese men are prized as being "our China's best" because they not only work, but cook, clean and look after little emperors. They're regular Mr. Moms.

Of course, I wasn't completely satisfied with what had transpired. I was not the spirited feminist my gender-theory pushing college profs would have expected, but I did complicate the question a bit.

On the subway home with a colleague, I asked him what he would have done differently.

"Oh, that's easy. I would have just said, 'Hmm...nobody in the west believes that any more,' or 'Wow, you really believe that?' Sell it as travel advice. You can't make it look like you've got an agenda. It's gotta be spontaneous. We're not just teaching them English. We're teaching them how to not be fools, what music to listen to. We're teaching them how to be cool."