The dialogue presents a complex account of gender roles. Although the interaction suggests that it is important for a woman to have career, a value often promoted in Western contexts, the Western figure appears to be incapable of managing most careers. Hence, Nancy provides a far from exemplary role model. On the other hand, Latifa, a Moroccan, appears quite determined to pursue a successful professional career. Dialogues like this one demonstrate that even though there appears to be little support among Moroccan educators for the inclusion of Western culture in teaching materials, textbooks do, in fact, include examples of Western values, often presented in an ambivalent manner. Presentation of cultural values is less ambivalent in the Chilean context mentioned earlier. Although characters from many countries are portrayed in the Go For Chile textbooks, the gender roles depicted reflect typical Western values. Most of the families presented in the textbook include a mother who works outside of the home in a professional job. For example, in the family of one character, the mother is a secretary and the aunt is a dentist. There is no mention of a family in which the mother works in the home taking care of the family.
Perhaps the most vivid example of the promotion of Western gender roles appears in the following dialogue from a Japanese textbook.
Example Three:
Rye: Jim? Jim: What.
Rye: Is your father always doing the dishes like that? Jim: Yes. My parents take turns cooking and doing the dishes.
Rye: My father never helps with the housework. He's too tired after a long day's work.
Jim: I think the Japanese work too much and too long. What do you think?
Rye: I think so too. But people are taking more holidays than before. My father stays home longer.
Jim: What does he do on holidays?
Rye: Usually, he just relaxes. But you know what? He started to learn cooking.
Jim: Does he cook well? Rye: Yes, he cooks very well. Everything is very very
well-done.
The dialogue is a vivid example of what Suzuki (1999) refers to as auto-colonization, in which Japanese are depicted as emulating and accepting Western values.
In the dialogue, Rye not only appears to apologize for aspects of his own culture, agreeing with Jim that Japanese "work too much and too -«long," but he quickly points out that his father is emulating Western traditions by learning to cook. As if this is not sufficient evidence of a type of auto-colonization, he goes on to say that his father, however, has not managed to undertake this Western pattern very effectively since everything he cooks is "very very well-done."