Non-Japanese Asian Female English Teachers Speak Out: Dismantling White Privilege in Japan

Issues surrounding white privilege have been in continuous debate. In Japan, the subject of white privilege is also not straightforward. Past research has been conducted about white privileged males in Japanese universities. We decided to take a different standpoint and examine the presence of white privilege in Japan through the alternative voices of non-Japanese Asian female university English teachers. By interviewing and analyzing their experiences and identities, we were able to examine incidences of white privilege that happened and influenced their lives as non-Japanese Asian female English teachers in Japan. We hope that our work generates interest and attention to the current gender and racial imbalance of native-speaker university English teachers in Japan—an issue that directly or indirectly relates to all students, teachers, administrators and policy makers.

Japanese market. Not only as a means to protect skin from the sun but also to look more Caucasian. In Japan, Caucasian people tend to stand out visually because of their skin color difference and thus they are called gaijin, meaning outsiders in English. The Japanese media along with advertising often portray gaijin to be attractive where stores like H&M, UNIQLO, and Gap have mannequins with western features as their store models. Fifty-four percent of Japanese ads used Caucasian models, with very few local Japanese models for international brand ads (Li, Min, Belk, Kimura, & Bahl, 2008).
Even Tokyo Disneyland portrays ideal princesses in the amusement park as all being white. Moreover, there has also been a rise in plastic surgery among younger Japanese who wish to change their Japanese features to look more similar to images of Western beauty (Kuwabara, 1983;Shirakabe, 1990). This increase is clear in results reported by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (2016) which show 1.26 million procedures were performed in Japan in 2014, compared to about 808,000 in 2010.

The Gender Gap in Academia
The academic gender gap refers to the different experiences of male and female scholars working in universities including distinctions in job security, disciplinary areas, qualifications, institutional affiliation, working hours, rank, job satisfaction, networks, length of career, salary and future perspectives (Baker, 2012). Despite recent increases in the number of females in academia, there are still significant privilege gaps between men and women (Baker, 2012;Lund & Carr, 2015). The number of female students, graduates and academics increased dramatically after the 1970s during which English speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States made remarkable improvement in postsecondary educational attainment and employment equability of men and women between the 1930s to the 1970s (Baker, 2012). As a result, increasingly more women have received PhDs and permanent positions (Brooks, 1997;Sussman & Yssaad, 2005).
However, despite improvement in employment of female academics, male academics continue to dominate between 76 and 82 percent of more senior positions in universities in the five above countries (New Zealand Human Rights Commission, 2008;Sussman & Yssaad, 2005;AAUP, 2006). Male academics are more likely to work full-time with fewer career interruptions, to publish more articles www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt Studies in English Language Teaching Vol. 5, No. 3, 2017 534 Published by SCHOLINK INC. and consequently be promoted to higher ranks with higher salaries. It was found that female faculty members spend more effort on teaching whereas male faculty members spend more effort on research (Baker, 2012). Unfortunately, many universities continue to prioritize resources and time on research over teaching (Brooks, 1997;Monroe, Ozyurt, Wrigley, & Alexander, 2008).
As male academics continue to have more senior positions and female academics continue entering the academic profession at lower ranks, the cause of the academic gender gap cannot be solely attributed to difference in educational qualifications. Other factors such as gendered family circumstances, household responsibilities, and personal priorities also enlarge this gap (Comer & Stites-Doe, 2006).
Systems of hiring and promotions have also preserved the gender gap as well as institutional discrimination toward women and marginalization by men in collegial networks (Curtis, 2005;Drakich & Stewart, 2007).

The Gender Gap in Japanese Academia
Gender gaps also happen in Japanese academia (Appleby, 2014;Hicks, 2013). According to the "Women and Men in Japan 2015" Facts and Figures, March 31, 2014, the percentage of Japanese male teachers is much higher than Japanese females in higher academic positions in particular universities.
There are more female teachers in elementary school at 60%; however, this figure falls to only 20% at the university level. As stated on Japan's Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office website (2016), compared to other developed countries, Japan lags behind in having an equal status amongst men and women in the workforce. Socially, in this day and age, Japanese women still tend to undertake the main childrearing and household manager roles in the household. Currently, the Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office's goal is to increase female teachers in the university field from 20% to 30% by 2020.
In the Japanese university English teaching field, men are also a dominant presence compared to women. According to Hayes (2013), approximately 80% non-Japanese men are in full-time English teaching positions compared to only 20% non-Japanese women. It has been argued that women who are pursuing academic careers in these situations are negatively affected by white male privilege and by Japanese traditional cultural expectations that continue to accept discrimination between genders in the workplace and home (Hayes, 2013;Hicks, 2013;McMahill, 1998;Simon-Maeda, 2004). According to Kobayashi (2014), it may be an advantage for male native speakers of English to hire other males like themselves for English teaching positions, which is one of the causes for the gender imbalance in the workplace. Appleby (2014) further implied that this imbalance has to do with the full-time male native-speaker teachers outnumbering the female teachers because many male teachers eventually become tied to Japan for financial and personal reasons, and find it more comfortable than if they were to return to their home country and start over.
Not only gender imbalance, but racial imbalance is also clearly apparent because Japanese university native-speaker teachers are mainly white (Kobayashi, 2014

Method
This study adopted an emic approach to research where we interviewed two teachers about their experiences with English teaching in Japan and how their professional and social lives have been influenced by white privilege. Both participants (Teacher A and Teacher B) were non-Japanese Asian female English teachers teaching in Japan. They have both have been teaching English at Japanese universities for more than ten years as native speaker teachers. The interviews were informal and non-structured. We interviewed each teacher for approximately one hour and the interview conversations were recorded. Interview data of Teacher A and Teacher B were transcribed and excerpts from each interview were chosen based on topic relevancy and also the frequency of key words. By analyzing and synthesizing these teacher's experiences, we describe the existence of white privilege in Japanese English teaching academia.

Results
The authors interviewed two participants (Teacher A and Teacher B) on their experiences as non-Japanese Asian female English teachers in Japan and the influences of white privilege on their professional lives. Interviews were transcribed and excerpts of Teacher A and Teacher B interviews are listed below. female foreign teachers are more suitable for Japanese students because they are more yasashī (gentle).

I started hearing from my male colleagues that they think it is unfair for foreign women to have advantages over foreign men in job hunting because universities would need to have some foreign
women teachers to balance out numbers.

Discussion
As evidenced in Teacher A's commentary, there is a gender imbalance at Japanese universities. Teacher A repeatedly commented that she is outnumbered being one of the few female faculty members in her department. Teacher A further stated that she was approached by a white male professor asking her if she would be interested in working at her current women's college because they are desperate to have a woman working in an all-male environment. This imbalance is an issue not only in Japan but also around the world. As noted by New Zealand Human Rights Commission (2008) (Brooks, 1997;Monroe et al., 2008). However, in Teacher A's case, she was discriminated against for being a female and thus she is expected to be disadvantaged for the abovementioned qualities.
In the case of Teacher B, she felt she was treated with prejudice due to her ethnicity, especially in the earlier stage of her career. She did not have the stereotypical white-look that the conversation school and the international kindergarten school wanted. These incidents confirm our previous assertion that white privilege plays a role in the hiring process of these schools. Employers have the tendency to favor teachers with white skin.
During Teacher B's interview for her first university position, her interviewers did not show interest in her but were interested in her white male friend who was not as qualified for the position. With mostly men on hiring committees, favoritism towards hiring the same sex is apparent. This is what Appleby (2014) described as the all men's club of English teaching academia. In order to become a part of it, female teachers would need to have extraordinary appeal (Appleby, 2014).
Teacher B mentioned that universities need more female teachers to bring equity to the imbalanced male-dominated academia in Japan. Kobayashi (2014) explained that there are only 20% non-Japanese female teachers in academic institutions compared to 80% non-Japanese male teachers. Despite both teachers' comments on repeated negative experiences for being non-Japanese Asian female English teachers in Japan, there were also positives. Teacher A shared the incident where her student at the women's college commented that she is more comfortable going to a female teachers' office for help on assignments or personal advice. Students, especially female students, find female teachers more approachable. Female students were willing to confront Teacher A when they had problems such as their struggle over pregnancy, part-time jobs, mental and physical illnesses, social disorders and low motivation.
Teacher B has had an all-around experience, from teaching English to kids in kindergarten to students in university. Each experience added one more layer of confidence to her professional career. At first she felt she had a disadvantage because of her Asian appearance, however that was mainly in non-academic English teaching settings such as English language schools. However, she realized that it is not all looks in teaching English, but the teacher-student relationship that makes a difference. Her students seem to bond with her because she is very familiar with Japanese culture and tradition. The trust that the students have in a teacher will be a stepping-stone to their comfort level and will allow students to take more risks in the classroom. This, in fact, was Teacher B's strong point as a teacher as well as her teaching skills because of her vast experience in the classroom. She mentioned that male teachers are concerned that females have more employment advantages because of the need to balance the numbers since there are fewer females than males as English teachers. While balancing the number of teachers in an institution is crucial, more important is the experience and skill a teacher has. Clearly, Teacher B has developed these skills over the years and she has reached a point in her career in which her Asian looks are not a negative factor when being hired as an ESL teacher in academic settings.
There are similarities in the positive experiences by both teachers we interviewed. By being Asian females, they both felt that they have experienced a stronger rapport with their students, especially with their female students. They also felt they were more approachable to their students and eventually became their role-model. Therefore, based on their identities as being non-Japanese Asian female English teachers, both teachers felt that they have perhaps constructed closer interpersonal relationships with their students compared with other white male teachers.

Conclusion
In this paper, we examined white privilege in Japan by interviewing two teacher's experiences and identities as non-Japanese Asian female English teachers in Japan. Unlike Appleby (2014), who examined these issues from the perspective of white male English teachers, we flipped the coin upside down and looked into these issues through reflective eyes. Both teachers indicated repeatedly in their interviews that there are clear gender and racial imbalances in the Japanese university. Furthermore, they felt they were treated with prejudice because of their ethnicity and gender. They also had uncomfortable experiences at job interviews as they felt they were unfairly discriminated against for not being able to fit into the stereotypical white male teacher image. Both teachers commented on the need to have more female teachers to bring equity to the male-dominated Japanese academia. On the other hand, there were also some positives. Both teachers also commented that it was a rewarding experience when students found them more approachable and they were able to develop closer interpersonal relationships with students.
This paper was an attempt to examine white privilege from the perspective of non-Japanese Asian female English teachers. Therefore, it cannot be used to represent the voice of mainstream English teachers in Japan, nor can it make claims regarding all issues surrounding white privilege in Japan.
However, despite being a minority group, non-Japanese Asian female teachers continue to have their presence in the Japanese English teaching academia and they are adding another perspective for understanding white privilege in Japan. Many issues in this paper remain open-ended and unresolved.
However, this is a start to our work in progress that tries to describe the gender and racial imbalances of teachers in the current Japanese university system.