Between care and constraint: the gendered emotional labour of rural female EFL teachers in China

While teacher emotions have received increasing scholarly attention, little research has examined how emotional labour is shaped by gendered power relations within specific socio-cultural contexts. This study investigates the emotional labour of six rural female English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in China from a feminist perspective, extending social role theory through gender performativity. The teachers’ narratives reveal four interrelated gendered expectations: being filial to parents, rearing children and supporting husbands, providing maternal care to students, and being capable while avoiding standing out. These expectations functioned as gendered feeling rules regulating what teachers could feel, display, or suppress, producing negotiations among conformity, self-protection, and subtle resistance. By conceptualizing emotional labour as gendered work embedded in Confucian moralism, patriarchal relations, and rural school life, the study contributes to feminist discussions of emotion, care, and teacher agency, and foregrounds teachers’ well-being as a gendered educational issue.