TEACHERS AS CARERS: A GENDERED HISTORY OF WORK AND PROFESSIONS IN COLONIAL SINGAPORE

Abstract

By the late 1930s, three main careers for Chinese working women had emerged in Malayan society: nursing, clerical work and teaching. These three careers fell under the sphere of ‘women’s work’ for the aspirant middle-class modern girl, amidst a growing economic climate in late colonial Singapore (1930s-1950s). With reference to a variety of oral histories, newspaper archives, annual reports, and colonial records, this thesis examines teaching as the oldest and “most noble profession” for educated Chinese women amongst the three named careers. In contrasting teaching with other professions such as medicine and law, it will be argued that female teachers were engaged not as bona fide professionals with highly certified qualifications over a prolonged period of specialisation, but rather as ‘carers’ for small children and girls. Entrenched gender biases under a patriarchal colonial administration had given rise to the gendered conception of teaching as an extension of motherhood, well-fitting for the work of women. Despite the increasing feminisation of teaching and the influx of women into local schools in the post-war period, women nonetheless struggled with oppressive policies and workplace inequality. Race, marital status and sex became determinants of the average female teacher’s viability. However, it will be shown that these female teachers did not always remain as passive victims. Instead, many of them demonstrated their agency by persisting in, negotiating or outrightly taking steps to resist their unequal circumstances.