Southeast Asia has long been identified as an area where women enjoy high status. This is mainly because that women in many Southeast Asia socieites inherit welth and noble titles and relative economic equality of men and women. Gender differences in Southeast Asia are less socially visible than the socieities where male-female difference is highly marked (Atkinson, 1982; Errington, 1990). Errington (1990) questions the seemly subtle differences and the ‘high status of women’ in Southeast Asia. She pointed out that the small differences in our eyes can be a world of differences to people in Southeast Asia.
The role of gender in Southeast Asia is diversive. Societies with relatively egalitarian social orders and hierachical social orders coexits
First of all, ‘power’, ‘status’, as well as the ‘sex categories’ (Connell, 1987) are cross culturally different. relatively economic egarliraism and economic autonomy of women in Southeast Asia does not neccesarily garantee women’s prestige and stigma in the society. In addition, men and women have different access to spiritual potency (also see, Hoskins, 1990). Even in egalitarian societies, like Wana and Meratus, men are privileged, especially when it comes to spiritual potency. Keeler (1990) explores how javanese women can manage economic resources and social relations yet achieve less prestige than men. Similar to the findings are presented in Peletz’s (1995) work on meanings of ‘reason’ and ‘passion’ in Malay socieity, where women are believed to be emotional and men are more ‘reason’ (rational). This indicates that women are mentaliy and spiritually inferior than men. Hatley (1990) explores Kethoprak, a twentieth-century form of popular drama with wide appeal of lower-class audiences, serves as a vehicle for expressing ambivalence over gender roles in java. She suggested that though women have economic autonomy, their prestige and sexual reputation depend on their husbands and adult sons. Thus despite economic self-sufficiency, divorce will have negative influences on women’s social standing. Ong (1990) and Kessler (1980) make a similar point for village in
Manufacturing and services are becoming more important. . Newly industrialised countries include Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, while Singapore and Brunei are affluent developed economies. Industrialization and urbanization have shaped the role of gender in Southeast Asia. In Thailand, women migrant workers in big cities challenged the old family dynamics. Daughters are now leaving home, having failed to fulfill their obligation of taking care of their parents and the independence of daughters’ income in the urban areas tend to weaken the parents’ control and authority over their daughters (Mills, 1999). The same situation was found with regard to Malaysian women working in the factories (Ong, 2010; Wolf, 1992). In Java, Diane Lauren Wolf studied the dynamics of gender in domestic life during the period of strong industrialisation in rural Indonesia in the last decades of the 20th century. She focuses on the dynamics of intra-household decision-making processes and challenges certain
Endicott, E., & Lampell, K. (1984). The Batek De’of Malaysia. Women in the Changing World. Retrieved from hhpt://culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/Malaysia/batek-de-malaysia.
... mother wanted to be in school (Pai 45). She instilled a hard work ethic and a desire for education in her children. In addition to parenting, she provided her husband with assistance and labor in his upholstery business. A small Korean business, such as Kwon’s upholstery company, could not have survived without the unpaid, long hour labor provided by the wife (Parrenas 363). This gendered hierarchy that demands Asian women to undertake the unrecognized, monotonous tasks is not only a survival tactic for small businesses but also the leading cause for women to have a “double day,” contributing to long hours in the family business and providing most, if not all, of the parenting and housework (Parrenas 364). Parallel to this gendered hierarchy concept, Lee worked full time as a seamstress, secretary, and overseer of the employees while Kwon went out on calls (78).
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
Across the globe, gender systems vary in ways that often exclude individuals who don’t identify within their realms. From the binary structure of the West, to the ternary system of India, there are many ways in which societies conceptualize gender. Gender systems are generally considered inherent to humanity, and are seldom questioned or altered. This has led to the marginalization and discrimination of individuals who diverge from the implemented structure.
Recently the concerns of women around their equality in society has become a hotly debated topic in the public spot light. Much of the debate concerns women and the ingrained sexism that permeates most cultures. Many women's activists feel that this ingrained sexism has widened the gap between men and women in a political, social, and economic sense. And for the most part they do have strong evidence to support these claims. Women have suffered through millennia of male dominated societies where treatment of women has been, and in some cases still is, inhuman. Women are treated like subhuman creatures that have only exist to be used for procreate and to be subjugated by men for household use. It has only been very recently that women have become recognized as equals in the eyes of men. Equals in the sense that they have the same political and social rights as males. While the situation has improved, women still have to deal with a male oriented world. Often women in the workplace are thought of as inferior and as a liability. This can be due to concerns about maternity leave, or women with poor leadership skills. But also in part it is due because of the patriarchy that controls all aspects and dynamics of the culture, family, politics, and economy. Even developed countries like The United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and France, could be classified as a patriarchies. These countries may not agree with this notion because of expansive, but not complete changes, that have gradually equalized women in society. However, there are developed countries that openly express a patriarchy and have enacted little societal changes to bring equality to women. Japan is one such country, and t...
Society has seen the male dynamic of superiority, designation as the “bread winner”, or head of household for centuries. Women were specifically assigned to the roles of wife, mother, and nurturer through the process of the sexual or gendered division of labor. However, that has not always been the case. Over centuries of change and shifts in economic development, the roles of women have changed to adapt to their specific roles in society. The status of the individuals in society was defined by sex, age, physical trai...
South Asian women engage in patriarchal values and normative structure established more than two thousands years ago, continue to be oppressed by a dominant group of men. These women suffer further oppression through the strict adherence to cultural garb. Still today, media and educational system portray South Asian women as self-sacrificing, faithful to the family, and submissive to men.
Examples of cultural constructions can be seen throughout history in several forms such as gender, relationships, and marriage. “Cultural construction of gender emphasizes that different cultures have distinctive ideas about males and females and use these ideas to define manhood/masculinity and womanhood/femininity.” (Humanity, 239) In many cultures gender roles are a great way to gain an understanding of just how different the construction of gender can be amongst individual cultures. The video The Women’s Kingdom provides an example of an uncommon gender role, which is seen in the Wujiao Village where the Mosuo women are the last matriarchy in the country and have been around for over one thousand years. Unlike other rural Chinese villages where many girls are degraded and abandoned at birth, Mosuo woman are proud and run the households where the men simply assist in what they need. The view of gender as a cultural construct ...
Indeed, being a dedicated father and husband is a man’s way of acquiring status. In the Indonesia male hierarchy, young men are subordinate to father and older male relatives until they have married and have formed family of their own. Several works focus on gender in Indonesia has indicated fatherhood as the idealized notion of masculinity (Blackwood, 1998; Graham, 2001; Clark, 2004; Nilan, Donaldson & Howson, 2007; Nilan, 2009). Man was expected to devote his life as reliable provider for his children and wife. No matter how wild man’s youth, once he is married and become father, he is expected to take care his family. Hence, family was man’s priority in life regardless his ambition and passion during
Japanese society exhibits a gender base stratification of society. Male dominance over female contributes to upholding norms and expectations of gender specific division of labor. Still prevalent and modeled after by most households in Japan, is that the male is typical salaryman ‘breadwinner’ that provides only the economic means. Meanwhile, the female is the ‘shufu’ or the full house wife is responsible for the household, raising children, and the wellbeing of the husband’s parents. The masculine and feminine speech patterns further refines the gender roles and the gender divide in all domains of society. Masculine speech is vulgar while feminine speech is politer in nuance. Even though the institutions that prevent women from entering into the workforce are changing, it is stigmatize that a woman’s career peck at age 25 and expected to return to the house married with ‘shufu’ responsibilities. ‘Career women’ are marginalized from society for having a higher status in income or education to good for oneself.
This paper will focus on three of these concepts- economic inequality or the separation of the rich and the poor which is defined as the different life chances that a wealthy person may have than an impoverished person (Dykstra, 2014). The next concept that will be discussed is feminism, which is defined as the advocacy of the rights of women to be equal to men in all spheres of life (Applebaum, Carr, Duneier, Giddens, 2011). The last concept that will be discussed in this paper is gender roles, which are the ‘social definition’ of women and men. They vary among different societies and cultures, classes, ages and during different periods in history. Gender-specific roles and responsibilities are often conditioned by household structure, access to resources, specific impacts of the global economy, and other locally relevant factors such as ecological conditions (FAO, 1997).
Both Brodkin and Blackwood talk about the way women are perceived by society in their article. Black wood talk about how in Indonesia, women are primarily responsible for their children and their family’s health, care and education while Brodkin discusses how women were less reliable, and more exploitable, which caused them to become lower ranking to and dependent on men. After reading Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing Masculinity and erotic desire and Searching for “Voices”: Feminism, Anthropology, and the Global Debates over Female Genital Operations, all I could think about was cultural relativism and the quote by Franz Boas that I read in my sociology course “civilization is not something absolute, but…is relative, and…our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilizations goes.”
Gender is defined as the scopes of genetic, physical, mental and behaviour characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and feminity, meanwhile inequality is defined as in a situation where there is an unfair situation or treatment in which certain people have more privileges or better opportunities or chances than other people. Thus, from the definition stated gender inequality refers to unequal or unfair management, treatment, or perceptions of persons or individuals are based on their gender. In a parallel sense, gender inequality can be said as the world in which there was discrimination against anyone based on gender. In this introductory, the general understanding of gender inequalities will be discussed further into three significant factors that influence the allocation of housework between men and women. Household chores can be classified as cleaning, cooking and paying bills. Division of housework serves as an important element in the continuation of the function of a family and it requires contribution from both spouses (Tang, 2012). However, current society’s perception on housework is based on gender, so the three major factors that influence the division of household chores within the couples are education level, economic resources, and time availability (refer to Figure1 in Appendix 1).
Shan-Loong, M. L. (2000, March 14). Tradition & Change –. Gender Roles in Japan. Retrieved
The first significant cause of recent rise in the rates of divorce is that women completely change in roles. In the past, men have to earn whole money to afford the expense of family, whereas woman only do housework, hence women have no money leading to depend on husbands’ money. Because of these situations, it is too difficult for most women to separate from their husbands. Nonetheless, these situations entirely change nowadays. The equality between men and women in roles are very clear at the moment, thus women can work outside to earn money, while men share the household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, washing as well as caring for children. It can be clearly seen that women are independent from money as they can earn money by themselves to support their living cost. Accordingly, the divorce rates recently rise.