From Expectation to Practice: Gender Influences on Iranian EFL Teachers’ Professional Identities

This study will examine gender-based differences among Iranian English teachers in their work-life perceptions, focusing on social expectations and workplace pressures as explanations for their plight and coping mechanisms for stress. Constructed on concepts of identity and feminist perceptions of action, it questions how males and females define threats to their professional identity and whether gendered coping styles exist. The team employed a qualitative approach and interviewed 11 teachers (six females, five males) who had 5-15 years of experience in the field. The results revealed five central patterns, namely: a division that pits strict versus caring and places people in fixed roles, added pressure and judgment of females just because they are females, devaluation of females skills and leadership, coping as an upbringing process where females tend to follow a shared direction at the expense of men who take an individualist perspective at the workplace and finally, the ongoing balancing process between remaining true to oneself and being a gender role actor at work. Females have to encounter invisible obstacles and emotional labor. Meanwhile, men find it hard to express their emotions and are confused because they are the only breadwinners, which puts them at risk of exhaustion. Such disparities demonstrate the reason why the support ought to be individualized. More intensive training would enable educators to adjust and feel appreciated in the English classrooms in Iran. It also paves the way to more thorough investigations into the nature of teachers outside of the occupation.