Chair: Gordon Mathews, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Gender identities accentuate principles of social organization and their fluidity highlights the tension between what is ‘traditional’ and what is ‘modern.’ Particularly in Asia where rapid change is the norm, and where national and global processes compete in the mediation of everyday life, gender issues are hotbeds of cultural contestation and reconstruction. Diverse societies from China, to Japan, to Indonesia, to the Philippines, all experience varying degrees of globalization, whether through popular culture, immigration, or changes in perceptions of gender roles. This panel brings together ethnographic studies of these societies to examine the change and non-change of femininity in a region that is in a state of flux. The four papers discuss how gender is negotiated in kinship networks, domestic relations, and public performances, and how these interplay with state ideology, traditional values, and ethos of masculinity. A cross-cultural comparison of gender in Asia points to the significance of development and power, but at the same time argues that gender identities are in a complex, multi-dimensional process of social construction that must be contextualized.

Evelyn Blackwood, Purdue University

National and global processes open a space for rural Minangkabau women who grew up in the post-independence era to reconstitute their identities in ways not before possible nor imaginable in rural villages. The increased availability of education, civil service, and other wage labor jobs has exposed the younger generation of women to different models of family and household than those of the rural village. Where extended families living in big houses were the model for an older generation of rural Minangkabau women, many daughters born since the formation of the Indonesian state in 1945 have set up their own households separate from their mothers. The images of womanhood that are familiar to rural Minangkabau women in the 1990s underscore the values of modernity, domesticity, and the nuclear family. Rural Minangkabau women understand that in the "modern" world, staying home and taking care of the children represents the good life and accords with state philosophy about women’s lives. Yet although they claim the status of housewife, many of these women maintain their own sense of what a "housewife" means. Despite the dominance of the ideology of femininity and motherhood at the national level, rural Minangkabau women have not become the housewives and mothers of national fantasy. Although there is some increase in a husband’s contributions and responsibilities toward his wife’s family, women are reworking matrilineal practices to create new "houses" and maintain their rights over land and resources.

Nancy I. Cooper, Independent Scholar

Even when women are celebrated performers, as are singers (waranggana) in Javanese gamelan performances, the interpersonal relations among participants and audience members are primarily about men’s prestige. But rather than vying for the singers’ attentions, the refined Javanese man will demonstrate his non-attachment by resisting the seemingly irresistible women. In the ultimate scenario, a husband ignores interactions between his wife and other men. In doing so, he demonstrates a highly valued virtue (iklas) in Javanese society and positions himself accordingly in a kind of masculine prestige hierarchy. I propose that this is one way in which Javanese men go beyond ordinary boundaries, in this case spiritually, to prove their potency in a culturally approved way. Similarly, it is common in other Southeast Asian societies for men to go beyond normal boundaries, be they spiritual, geographical, or physical as in some hunting societies. While not necessarily excluded from these activities, women tend not to pursue or achieve these ventures as often as men and thus do not predominate in prestigious social systems. From Javanese literature, to performances, to everyday life, women are perceived as embodying power in ways that men cannot. Might men’s prestige contests be their way of compensating? And might these and similar phenomena elsewhere provide a clue to the origins and motivations for patriarchy?

Siumi Maria Tam, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Minnan (Southern Fujian, China) has been exporting male labor to Southeast Asia for centuries, and Minnan women have played a central role in the sustenance of families of absentee fathers, brothers, husbands and sons. This paper focuses on the interface of gender and immigration in the network of three places: Jinjiang district as the place of origin, Manila as a major destination of emigration, and Hong Kong as stepping stone between the two. Within this triangular circuit, a patriarchal world has been constructed in which women consistently sacrifice individuality for the good of the patrilineal family. They lament that "all Minnan women lead a bitter life," practice self-effacement, justify inequality with traditionalism, and resign to a female fate. Paradoxically these same women are successful entrepreneurs, calculating mothers who command domestic resources across generations, managers of kinship and tongxiang networks, and tough survivors as immigrants. This they refer to as a ‘strong power of life’(sheng ming li qiang) that all Minnan women possess. I propose that on the one hand women’s identifying themselves as keepers of the family helps to sustain this ‘power of life’ in the face of fluctuating state policies and economic pressures; on the other, it is also a means for women to seek recognition in a chauvinistic culture. Thus how femininity is interpreted and practiced among Minnan women sheds light on the dialectics of agency, and manifests that women are simultaneously agents who contribute to, and are victims of, patriarchal social systems.

Christine R. Yano, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Gender realities of everyday life in Japan portend change: young women increasingly postpone marriage and child-bearing; government exhorts men to play a more active care-giving role as fathers; teenage prostitution receives wide media coverage. The stakes are high in regulating gender roles and images, in particular of female youth and young adults. This paper examines one aspect of ideal female typing in a nostalgized Japanese popular music genre called enka which puts up for sale the look and sound of the past. Enka’s fans—primarily older adults—purchase recordings and attend concerts to hear and see the familiar, rather than the new. This is newly-composed music which sounds old, sung by singers meant to represent old-fashioned people. In particular, this paper focuses on young female singers promoted as the girl-next-door. I address gender typing in the enka industry through the following questions: (1) who is the girl-next-door portrayed in enka; (2) how is her image effected; and (3) why is she so important?