ON CAMPUS
campusreview.com.au
Through
their eyes
I
The experiences
of 50 Chinese
women studying
at Australian
universities are
being analysed
as part of a five-
year study.
Fran Martin interviewed
by Loren Smith
22
never got to know Angel.* She would appear in
my journalism class sporadically, and when she
did, always sat by herself. She never spoke in class,
unless spoken to by the lecturer. Then, she would
reply in broken English, always seemingly confronted
and confused by his questions.
Why did she come here? And how had she
changed as a result of it? Fran Martin is seeking
these kinds of answers, and has found many. The
associate professor at the University of Melbourne
is roughly halfway through a five-year study into the
experiences of 50 Chinese women studying at five
Victorian universities.
“I’m seeing more and more of these young people
in my classes,” the specialist in contemporary Chinese
youth cultures says. “I began to wonder what their
lives are like when they are in Australia.”
Foreign students are arriving in Australia in record-
breaking numbers. By far the biggest proportion – a
third – are from China, and most are women. While
data-rich areas like their academic results have been
studied, the substance of their day-to-day lives is
often, like Angel’s, unknown.
Martin notes that gender can be a driving factor
for female Chinese students coming here. Younger
women often come here, and then stay afterwards,
to avoid workplace discrimination. In China, there
is a sense that employers don’t want to hire young
women, fearing they will fall pregnant and require
paid maternity leave. Some older students leave
China to avoid societal expectations of early marriage
and pregnancy, from their early 20s onward. Martin
provided some of her interviewees’ responses on
this point: