Gender Dominance Portrayed in Indonesian ELT Textbook for Junior High School Students

Abstract

In general, people view a man and a woman differently. Crawford (2004)states that women‟s occupations are associated with their gentle and other feminine characteristics, while men‟s jobs are related to their strengths and masculinities. Thus, there is stillexistence of gender inequality practices in society. Due to this, the gender issue is still important to be examined, particularly in English textbooks. Because when there is inequality representation between man and woman in the textbook, then it will contribute to slow down the process of establishing equality among people. To minimize the gender bias portrayed in ELT textbook, the researcher sketches out the literature in analyzing gender dominance in ELT textbook, such as gender equality and its practices in Indonesia, and gender equality materials in ELT textbooks. Gender equality does not mean that women and men should become the same, but that women‟s and men‟s rights, responsibilities, and opportunities will not depend on whether or not they are born male or female. When gender equality exists, a society equally values men‟s and women‟s similarities and differences. However, the practice of gender inequality in Indonesia is found in many sectors according to The Global Gender Gap Report, 2014.Almost in all aspects of life, women are not much better than men. Due to this, the textbook plays a leading role in making a mental image of males and females in society (Greshuny, 1977; Kobia, 2009). As textbooks play a crucial role as the main reference which supports and influence the whole learning activities especially for the students, then a balanced portrayal of gender in ELT textbooks should be improved. The gender dominance was analyzed including female/male pictures, female/male mentioned, female/male roles, female/male games, and female/male role models (Longsdon, 1985).In this study, the content of the English textbook was analyzed through the representation of the images which contain gender dominance by using visual semiotic of Roland Barthes which contain two layers (denotation and connotation).The textbook analyzed was entitled BahasaInggris When English Rings the Bell SMP/MTs Kelas VIII. There were five steps of procedure analysis, they were identification, code, analysis, interpret, and discussion. The result of analysis based on Longsdon (1985) aspects, the findings reveal that the textbook male dominated in three aspects consisting of female/male pictures, female/male mentioned, and female/male roles, while in the aspect of female/male games there was balanced number representation and in the aspect of female/male role model, the representation of female was outnumbered of male. From the visual semiotic analysis, the result of analysis demonstrated that in the textbook selected in this study represented where man had more opportunities in almost all aspects discussed, however the portrayal of woman was appeared as having opportunity such as higher education in some aspects analyzed. In short, the aims of schools textbooks should reduce portrayal of gender bias in society and culture. This would demonstrate both men and women that are competent and can be equally good if both are provided with equal opportunities. Furthermore, the researcher hopes that this study will be useful as information for English teachers, textbook author, and other textbook analysts who want to analyze another different textbook particularly in Indonesia.