Representations of Gender Inequality and Women's Issues in Philippine Feminist Discourses

SOBRITCHEA, Carolyn I. Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2005 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.11 No.2

The dynamic women's movements of the Philippines in Southeast Asia are composed of women from various social classes, ideological orientations, religious affiliations and occupational groups. This paper is a preliminary attempt to undertake an anthropology of feminist knowledge as I examine the representations of gender inequality, the empirical articulations of women's oppression, and their influence in the directions and dynamics of feminist theorizing. Narratives or texts about women's/ gender issues are embedded in many kinds of writing-in research reports, creative works, in designs of development programs, in advocacy materials, training manuals and so on. I argue here that the development of many discursive sites for the interrogation of marginality has been responsible for the advances as well as drawbacks, the many bases of unity as well as tensions, among feminists in non-government organizations, in academe and in people's organizations. Narratives or texts about women's/ gender issues are embedded in many kinds of writing-in research reports, creative works, in designs of development programs, in advocacy materials, training manuals and so on. In other words, the discourse has gone beyond feminist academic circles to include feminists in development and advocacy work. I try to provide a brief overview of the important historical events in the birth and subsequent growth of what is often referred to in feminist circles as the second wave of women's movement. This provides a useful backdrop for understanding the contents and trajectory of the many and diverse ideas put forward by Filipino feminists.

From Ideal Women to Women's Ideal : Evolution of the Female Image in ChineseFeature Films, 1949-2000

CHEN, Yanru Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2008 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.14 No.3

This study constructs the historical contours of China’s social transformation and the evolution of the female image in films between 1949 and 2000. The period 1949-1966 was the period of ‘The Song of Revolution,’ featuring ideal women; 1966-1976: the period of ‘Cultural Revolution’; 1977-1982: ‘The Recovery Period,’ with the initial awakening of women’s consciousness presented in films; 1983- 1986: ‘The Revival Period,’ when the female image became richer in Chinese films, with women searching for their own ideals; 1987-early 1990s: ‘The Period of Rebellion,’ when women’s image strayed away from mainstream discourse; and mid-1990s to 2000: ‘The Period of Reconstruction’ of the essential women in search of their ideals. Overall, as Chinese cinema witnessed China’s social changes, the image of woman in Chinese feature films underwent a subtle shift from one of ‘ideal woman’ to a ‘pursuer of woman’s ideal’ during the half century covered in this study.

Women's Studies in India and the Question of Asia : Some Reflections

JOHN, Mary E. Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2005 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.11 No.2

This paper reflects on the recent visibility of women's and gender studies in Asia from an Indian perspective. It questions the idea of an “Asian women's studies,” which frequently works with the assumption of a common identity in contrast to the West. The history of women's studies in India, beginning in the 1970s, becomes a vantage point to examine the specific conditions that enabled the birth of women's studies in a few contexts, in contrast to the proliferation of women's studies in recent years. The unprecedented power energising the idea of "Asia" is then discussed, especially in relation to the concept of the "Third World" and its subsequent demise. The current moment, characterised by the widespread institutionalisation of women's issues, harbours definite dangers of depoliticisation. But it also offers an opportunity to think afresh about inter-Asian connections and comparative frameworks that have not been on our horizons before.

Gender Construction in the Media : A Study of Two Indian Women Politicians

BATHLA, Sonia Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2004 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.10 No.3

This study seeks to examine the responses of the newspaper media towards two Indian women politicians and the processes of gender construction in political communication. Under a system of universal adult suffrage and the constitutional assurance of social, political and economic equality, Indian women were given rights that were the envy of women in more advanced nation states. Political parties that should play a crucial role in training and encouraging women to enter the public arena are hostile, generally closing the gates of the upper echelons of party structures to aspiring or deserving women. How are such women viewed by society and how do the media present them? It is within this background that this paper examines the portrayal of two women politicians, that is, Jayalalitha Jayaram and Sushma Swaraj in the Indian English language press in the pre-election period of January and February 1998. Jayalalitha appeared as a calculating, opportunistic, extremely corrupt, and arrogant leader, while Sushma Swaraj was identified with a clean image and one who fulfilled traditional norms and expectations of feminine identity. The particular construction of this frame of 'ideal/good woman' and 'bad woman' needs to be explored within the discourses of India's colonial and nationalist past, wherein women were perceived as representatives of the 'private' and their feminine virtues were perceived to be the essence of the nation.

I want to hold onto the history... : Cultural Sustainability in the Narratives of Asian-American Daughters

HICKEY, M. Gail Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2004 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.10 No.2

Migration challenges traditional female roles, yet Asm mmigraut women s bold on their etbruc heatage usually r e m m qutte strong. Daughters of Asian immigantS thus live much of their childhood wedged between two cultures. The intense pressure to conform to American ideals while re- e h c customs results m a perplexing sense of duality. Fix young adult Asm-American daughters were intenimed about their experiences, with p d & emphasis on the mpact of Asian cultural tradition on their lives. In thex own words, these young women discuss Asian concepts of f a d y , child reaxing, and danng customs. Analysis reflects the unique ways these daughters choose to maintam th& Asian heritage.

"We Cooperative with Husbands!" Patriarchy and Bargaining among Farm Women in Taiwan

TU, Su-hao Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2004 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.10 No.2

This paper incorporates economic conceptualisation of intra-household resource allocation while viewing interpersonal processes from social-psychological and anthropological perspectives to explore the process of marital bargaining in farm-related decision-making. The data-collected through a survey of 303 married Taiwanese women who grew vegetables-revealed that more tan half of the women disagreed and tried to bargain with their husbands about farm resources and operations. Gender-role attitudes, the presence of other family labor, perceptions of self-competence, and the survival of the family are important elements that influence the working of marital power. These women, however, tended to play a passive role in initiating and conducting communication, as well as in finding solutions through compromise. The findings suggest that the home economics model is insufficient to explain Taiwanese women's subordination in on-farm negotiation and that it is necessary to recognize internal conflicts and diverse negotiation processes is necessary.

How Identities and Movement Cultures Became Deeply Saturated with Militarism : Lessons form the Pro-democracy Movement of South Korea

KWON, In-Sook Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2005 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.11 No.2

Militarization and war are gendered activities, yet the two processes are not identical. These can and do impact the lives of women and men even in eras thought of as "peacetime," or "pre-war" or "post-war." This is evident from the evolving consciousnesses of South Korean women students who became activists in one of Asia's most successful pro-democracy movements, the South Korean anti-military movement of the 1980s. Research on the relationship between women and militarism is a relatively new area of systematic investigation among feminists and is examined here. In South Korea, the student movement provided the activist core of what came to be the larger, nationally vibrant pro-democracy movement in the 1980s. Women students were prominent activists in this and the military regime utilized popular, culturally taken-for-granted ideologies, such as nationalism, patriarchy, the cult of national defense, gendered morality, militarism, statism, patriotism, groupism and often anti-communism. The consequences of militarization, likewise, will be different for women and men. Both of these gendered distinctions-causal and consequential-become clear when one explores the evolution of the consciousness of young women who became anti-military pro-democracy activists in South Korea in the 1980s, based on interviews with South Korean women, information from historical sources and literature on Korean society and politics of this thirty-year era.

How Ideas Migrate : Reflections from an International Comparative Project

PORTER, Marilyn,POERWANDARI, Kristi Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2008 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.14 No.3

This paper takes a different approach to the topic of ‘migration,’ attempting to explain how ideas migrate and how people’s ideas change as they themselves move either geographically or in terms of their family position. We look first at the experience of migration for women in Indonesia and Newfoundland. We also pay attention to how ideas change as women age and join a different generation. We then look at how our own ideas change as a result of working with colleagues from a different cultural background, especially in the context of comparative studies of women’s lives. In our conclusion we look at what this approach to the ‘migration of ideas’ tells us about the consequences for women’s situations

Diaspora, Gender,and Nation : The Case of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dicte´e

TAE, Heasook Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2005 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.11 No.1

The aim of this article is to re-conceptualize the recent diaspora from a corporeal materialist feminist perspective while exploring the issue of decolonizing political agency in our increasingly globalizing capitalist patriarchal era. I therefore look at the complex and multiple relations among diaspora, gender, and nation. Dicte´e by a Korean-American woman writer, Cha Hak Kyung (1982/1995), is a text that embodies the material traces emerging from colonial/national/transnational bodies and locations, which are radically different from the de-historicized, de-politicized terrain of postmodern hybrid subjects. When we conceptually distinguish "diaspora" from nomad, exile, and immigrant, and then conceptualize it from a corporeal materialist feminist perspective, it emerges as a subversive political figure embodying a political struggle that seeks to define the local/national against the historical contexts of displacement and makes visible the bodies and labor of women. Then, "diaspora" can encompass the problem of the gendered subaltern against liberalist bourgeois elitist agenda, by persistently unlearning the globalizing re-arrangement of the apparently multicultural "empire," and consciously dis-identifying the total-istic and oppressive national/transnational unity and agency. Clearly aware of (neo)colonial violence and trauma, Cha Hak Kyung attempts to represent the multiple and complexly colonized conditions in which she lives and under which her cultural in-between-ness is formed, via the politics of a double negation of both empire and "home" land. She strives to empower herself by breaking the silence imposed on her, and to engender her own "foreign" languages that can be defined as unwriting or blood writing. Cha's re/unwriting the histories of her eastern and western mothers' bodies and her reconstruction of nation as a feminist genealogy, are read primarily against the political unconscious which is basically patriarchal and tends to erase the women's bodies. As such, Dicte´e refigures "diaspora" as a politically-informed agency. It revises colonialist/ nationalist/neocolonialist historiography through the deconstructing energies of gender and subalternity and presents the "nation" as the location to resist globalization and Americanization, although it sometimes unwittingly ignores women's labor.

The Search for Women's Information : A Research Perspective

WESTBROOK, Lynn Asian Center for Women's Study ; Ewha Womans Unive 2005 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.11 No.1

This paper provides a research perspective on developing information communication technology (ICT) in service to women and their communities. The activities which produce women's information are those which primarily serve, examine, and/or enhance the lives of women. ICT, when well designed, can make a significant improvement in both the development and dissemination of this information. Three interdisciplinary constructs underpin the proposed ICT research: development of women's knowledge structures, patterns in women's communication, and gender-related technology response patterns. Knowledge structure research can improve the design of information storage and retrieval systems by reinforcing the mechanisms many women use to incorporate new information into their extant understanding. Socially constructed communication patterns can provide a substantive array of strategies and tactics for women to use in sharing information. Understanding technology response patterns can improve ICT design and development as well as its deployment by supporting adaptation to both individual and community situations. Each of these three constructs is carefully explained in terms of both theory and current research. Finally, a three-part research agenda is proposed as the next stage in the cohesive, interdisciplinary, international development of women's information communication technology.