Patriarchal Binary Oppositions in Narrative Texts Included in English Textbook for Senior High School in Indonesia

Abstract

Patriarchal binary oppositions, which place men and women in dichotomies that marginalised women, can be reproduced through texts, including textbooks. The present study traces these binary oppositions represented in the narrative texts in English textbooks for grade ten High School. Adopting the interactive model of qualitative data analysis from Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014), the present study took Kate Millet's feminist perspective to closely analyse the male and female characterisations characters in the three narrative texts included in the book. It was revealed that most male characters in the narrative texts were given stereotypical male characterisations, such as strong, brave, rational, ambitious, hardworking, rough, smart, independent, honest, handsome, and careless;. In contrast, the female characters were given stereotypical feminine traits such as weak, fearful, irrational, passive, nurturing, articulate, stupid, dependent, untrustworthy, beautiful, and caring. However, there have been efforts to deconstruct gender-binary by inserting some on-stereotypical characterisations both the male and female characters in these texts. This implies that while the textbooks still maintain a certain degree of marginalisation toward women, deconstruction of gendered-binary opposition has started to be pioneered by English textbooks. Hopefully, it will be improved in the next production of English textbooks.