Gendered Inequalities in Asia
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A fresh multidisciplinary perspective on gender inequalities Gendered Global processes with flows in money, commodities RYDSTRØM and people have made it increasingly varied and blurred in what it means to be a female or male in Asia today. Inequalities By focusing on unequal access to political and religious power, occupation and health facilities, as well as different options when it comes to family life and sexuality, the recognition of women and men is in Asia explored in this volume as manifestations of ideas about femininity and masculinity. Readers will find ASIA IN INEQUALITIES GENDERED insightful contributions that consider how gender relations in Asia – and indeed the very meaning Configuring, Contesting and of gender itself – are affected by neo-liberalism, globalization and economic growth; security in all of Recognizing Women and Men its meanings; multiculturalism, race and class; family life, power and intergenerational support; religious discourses and activism; and by male norms in Edited by Helle Rydstrøm politics. Helle Rydstrøm is an associate professor at the Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden, with research focusing on gender issues in Vietnam. Her Embodying Morality: Growing Up in Rural Northern Vietnam (University of Hawai‘i Press) was shortlisted for the prestigious Harry J. Benda Prize. Together with Lisa Drummond, she edited Gender Practices in Contemporary Vietnam, also published by NIAS Press. Gendering Asia a series on gender intersections www.niaspress.dk Rydstrom-cover.indd 1 16/11/2009 14:57 GENDERED INEQUALITIES IN ASIA Prelims_Rydstr.indd 1 16/11/09 12:05:51 GENDERING ASIA A Series on Gender Intersections Gendering Asia addresses the ways in which power and constructions of gender, sex, sexuality and the body intersect with one another and pervade contemporary Asian societies. The series invites discussion of how people shape their identities as females or males and, at the same time, become shaped by the very societies in which they live. The series is concerned with the region as a whole in order to capture the wide range of understandings and practices that are found in East, Southeast and South Asian societies with respect to gendered roles and relations in various social, political, religious, and economic contexts. Gendering Asia is, then, a multidisciplinary series that explores theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues in the social sciences. Series Editors: Wil Burghoorn, Gothenburg University, Sweden; Cecilia Milwertz, NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Denmark; and Helle Rydstrøm, Lund University, Sweden. Contact details can be found at: http://www.niaspress.dk. Working and Mothering in Asia. Images, Ideologies and Identities Edited by Theresa W. Devasahayam and Brenda S.A. Yeoh Making Fields of Merit. Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand Monica Lindberg Falk Gender Politics in Asia. Women Manoeuvring within Dominant Gender Orders Edited by Wil Burghoorn, Kazuki Iwanaga, Cecilia Milwertz and Qi Wang Lost Goddesses. The Denial of Female Power in Cambodian History Trudy Jacobsen Gendered Inequalities in Asia. Configuring, Contesting and Recognizing Women and Men Edited by Helle Rydstrøm Submitting to God. Women and Islam in Urban Malaysia Sylva Frisk Prelims_Rydstr.indd 2 16/11/09 12:05:51 Gendered Inequalities in Asia Configuring, Contesting and Recognizing Women and Men Edited by Helle Rydstrøm Prelims_Rydstr.indd 3 16/11/09 12:05:52 First published in 2010 by NIAS Press NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Leifsgade 33, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark tel: (+45) 3532 9501 • fax (+45) 3532 9549 email: [email protected] • website: www.nias.press.dk © NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies 2010 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, copyright in the individual chapters belongs to their authors. No chapter may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Gendered inequalities in Asia : configuring, contesting and recognizing women and men. -- (Gendering Asia ; no. 5) 1. Sex role--Asia. 2. Women--Asia--Social conditions--21st century. 3. Men--Asia--Social conditions--21st century. 4. Asia--Social conditions--21st century. I. Series II. Rydstrom, Helle. 305.3’095-dc22 ISBN-978-87-7694-047-8 Typeset by NIAS Press Printed in Singapore by Mainland Press Prelims_Rydstr.indd 4 16/11/09 12:05:52 Contents Acknowledgements • vii Contributors • ix Introduction: Gendered Inequalities in Asia: Configuring, Contesting and Recognizing Women and Men • 1 Helle Rydstrøm PART I: THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL 1. Gendering Asia after Modernity • 21 Maila Stivens 2. The Real and the True: Neo-Liberalism and Gender Governance in Vietnam • 44 Nguyen-vo Thu-huong 3. Gender, Multiculturalism and Religious Discourse(s): Women as Symbols in Hindu Nationalism • 69 Sidsel Hansson and Catarina Kinnvall 4. Globalization, Growth and Gender: Poor Workers and Vendors in Urban Vietnam • 99 Anne Jerneck PART II: CONTESTING FAMILY LIFE 5. Shades of Gender and Security in Cambodia • 127 Alexandra Kent 6. The Struggle for Recognition and Justice: Gender Inequality and Socially Engaged Buddhism in Thailand • 149 Monica Lindberg Falk 7. Compromised Ideals: Family Life and the Recognition of Women in Vietnam • 170 Helle Rydstrøm 8. Gendered Expectations and Intergenerational Support among Chinese Singaporeans • 191 Kristina Göransson v Prelims_Rydstr.indd 5 16/11/09 12:05:52 PART III: MASCULINITIES 9. Gendered Parties: Making the Male Norm Visible in Thai Politics • 223 Elin Bjarnegård 10. The Cultural Construction of Masculinity among Working-Class Malaysian Chinese in the Intersection of Race, Class and Gender • 252 Ulf Mellström Index • 287 Tables 9.1 Representatives and candidates by gender in the constituency-based election system • 236 9.2 Women representatives by party and election system • 238 9.3 Representatives and candidates by gender in the party list system • 238 vi Prelims_Rydstr.indd 6 16/11/09 12:05:52 Acknowledgements This volume is the result of collaboration across national as well as dis- ciplinary borders. The contributors come from various disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, economy, political science and religion. Many of the contributing authors are affiliated to Swedish universities, but the volume also includes contributions from scholars in Australia and the USA. Edited volumes seem to have to go through an inevitable and tedious process before being ready for publication. Hence, most of the chapters in this book were originally produced for two gender panels at the conference on Inequality in East and Southeast Asia, held in October 2004. The conference was hosted by the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University in Sweden and funded by the Swedish School of Advanced Asia Pacific Studies (SSAAPS). At a later stage, more texts were included from a subsequent conference on Gendering Asia, held in May 2005. The Gendering Asia conference was organized by the Gendering Asia Network, a collaborative initiative between the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Denmark and Gothenburg University, Sweden. The Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University has supported the production of this volume right from the beginning, not least due to the enthusiasm of Roger Greatrex, the head of the Centre. The Centre for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University, USA, offered a stimulating environment for my editorial work; I am thus grateful to the Centre’s director Don Kulick for making my visiting scholar status at NYU, and stays in New York, possible. Continuous communication with Thomas Achen, Lisa Drummond, Alexandra Kent, Don Kulick, Nguyen-vo Thu-huong and Jayne Werner has greatly facilitated my work with the volume. The suggestions provided vii Prelims_Rydstr.indd 7 16/11/09 12:05:52 Gendered Inequalities in Asia by two anonymous readers were helpful for finalizing the book. Thanks to NIAS Press, especially editor-in-chief Gerald Jackson, for being patient with edited volumes, and to Paul Horton for copy and language editing the entire manuscript. My big hugs go to Amalie Tuoi and Thomas for enriching my life with love and fun. Helle Rydstrøm viii Prelims_Rydstr.indd 8 16/11/09 12:05:53 Contributors Elin Bjarnegård is a teacher in the Department of Government at Uppsala University, Sweden, and is also affiliated with the Centre for Gender Studies at Uppsala University. Her doctoral research focuses on the gendering of political practices in respect to processes of democratization, political parties and clientelism in Thailand. Her recent publications include ‘Reluctant Tigers: Economic Growth, Erratic Democratization Processes and Continuing Political Gender Inequality in Southeast Asia’ in Chong, T. (ed.), Globalization and its Counter-Forces in Southeast Asia (ISEAS Publications, 2008) and a chapter on Thailand in Gelb, J and M. Palley (eds), Women and Politics around the World (ABC-CLIO, 2009). She has been affiliated to Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and has been a ‘STINT’ funded visiting scholar at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA. Monica Lindberg Falk is a social anthropologist and research fellow at the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University, Sweden. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Social Anthropology at Gothenburg University in 2002. Her work focuses on gender, Buddhism and social change in Thailand. She has carried out research projects concerning gender and socially engaged Buddhism. Currently, she is working on a Swedish Research Council (‘VR’) funded project on gender, religion and ways of recovering after the Tsunami catastrophe in Thailand. She has published a series of articles on gender and Buddhism but her most recent publication is the monograph Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand (co-published by NIAS Press and the University of Washington Press, 2007). Kristina Göransson holds a Ph.D.