Women & Islamic Cultures Family, Law and Politics

East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia,

and the Pacific

Introduction
A multi-faceted web of classes, states, ethnicities,
social statuses, property rights, ranks (seniority),
and kinship hierarchy shapes, to varying degrees,
the construction of gender and women’s lives
throughout the developing world. Added to this
complexity are worldwide forces such as globaliza-
tion, feminism, the Charter of the United Nations,
and Islamization. The combination of these local
and global forces has generated a new image of
women as progressive, modern, and industrial, and
yet confined by the persistence of traditional and
local cultures. In view of these changes, this entry
describes the competing powers of local institu-
tions and global forces that mold the constitution
of gender and the construction of modern social
hierarchies and examines their impact on women’s
experiences in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia,
and the Pacific Islands.

Women and gender in East Asia
Although women’s lives and experience in East
Asia are far from unitary, the resilience of Confu-
cianism and the underlying construction of social,
political, and daily practices shape Chinese, Korean,
Taiwanese and Hong Kong women’s choices, op-
portunities and lives. Similarly, the industrializing
economics, social change, and political transforma-
tion do not set women free from the unshackled
patriarchal demands of family obligations, the
bearing of male children, and the support of the
men in the family. At the same time, women also
struggle with their own personal choices (Chiang
2000, 243, Hampson 2000, 170, Tang et al. 2000,
189). In the Chinese post-Mao era and with the
escalating unemployment, state ideology shifted
into a discourse of the ideal modern “Eastern
woman” (dongfang funü) – as distinct from the
ideal Western woman whose merit lies in her career

• who is professional, while still remaining a “vir-
  tuous wife and good mother” (xiangi liangmu)
  (Hooper, 187–9). Like their sisters, Japanese
  women have never fully abandoned the patriarchal
  view of the ideal “good wife, wise mother” (ryosai
  kenbo) that persists from the days of Meiji state

Social Hierarchies: Modern

ideology. The fundamental concept of women as

nurturers and reproducers both in the domestic

and public spheres continues to persist because of

numerous factors, such as gendered upbringing,

education, corporate structure, state ideology, media

and consumer culture (Tipton 2000, 210, 225).

The same is true for Muslim women in East

Asian society, forced as they are to diversify their

strategies in order to achieve the ideal of balancing

their role as good wives and caretakers of the

household and their reality as members of a minor-

ity (Pillsbury 1978, 657–65, Jaschock and Shui 2000,

28). East Asian Muslims are not nearly as con-

cerned about producing male offspring as they are

about giving the children a good education and

bringing them up as Muslims. Women are usually

in charge taking care of the household, educating

the children, and providing ™alàl(licit and clean)

foods, whereas men are breadwinners and the heads

of the families. While Chinese Muslim women’s full

commitment to become good wives and mothers

limits their full participation in the public realm,

except in women’ mosques and social organiza-

tions, their sisters in Taiwan find the need to con-

tribute to the family finance (Pillsbury 1978, 666).

Both, however, face a restricted mobility, not be-

cause of seclusion or strict veiling practices, but due

to the fact that they are members of a minority

group.

Women and gender in Southeast

Asia

Southeast Asian culture appears to attribute

greater equality to men and women (Errington

1990, 3). The high status that women generally

enjoy is largely due to a social organization based

on bilateral kinship, making for no apparent pref-

erence for male over female (Robinson 2000, 143).

Ideally, a family is happy to have both a son and a

daughter; daughters alone are, however, equally

welcome. As parents grow older, they usually allow

the daughters to stay with them or inherit the

house. This arrangement is possible within bilateral

kinship and its variations are found in Java, Sunda,

South Sulawesi, the matrilineal society of Minang-

kabau in Sumatra, and Thailand (Dube 1997, 7,

Robinson 2000, 143, Limanonda 2000, 248–61,

Puntarigvivat 2001, 233). In other societies, espe-

cially in the greater part of Sumatra, Bali, Vietnam,