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Gendered constructions of Filipina teachers in Japan's Skype English conversation industry
Author(s) -
Tajima Misako
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of sociolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9841
pISSN - 1360-6441
DOI - 10.1111/josl.12272
Subject(s) - conversation , masculinity , popularity , sociology , politics , gender studies , intersection (aeronautics) , media studies , political science , psychology , social psychology , engineering , law , communication , aerospace engineering
Drawing on data from a larger project that includes blog entries and interview findings, this paper investigates the ways in which Filipina teachers working in Japan's Skype English conversation ( eikaiwa ) industry are constructed as intimate and romanticized entities through Japanese male learners’ discursive practices. The paper argues that these highly gendered constructions are never unrelated to the male learners’ desires to display their masculinity. The paper also points out that these desires stem from the long‐established sex‐mediated link between Japanese men and Filipinas based on their economic disparities. The paper concludes with a suggestion that the popularity of Philippines‐based Skype eikaiwa cannot be explained by the development of telecommunication tools or neoliberalism alone; rather, it should be understood as a trend that has emerged from the complicated intersection of all pre‐existent and current economic, socio‐political, cultural‐political, and technological components.