and Singapore, the kinship relation is more patriar-
chal in that wives usually move in with their hus-
bands’ families, prior to renting or owning their
own houses.
However, the bilateral, matrilineal, and uxorilo-
cal mechanism does not directly bestow equality in
the sense that men and women are equal in every
respect. The cultural construction of gender in
most of Southeast Asia is still rooted in dapu[r]
(kitchen), sumu[r](well), and kasu[r] (bed); even if
women enjoy greater financial autonomy, careers,
education, inheritance, and mobility, they are still
burdened with the task of maintaining the house-
hold in their parents’ house and later in their hus-
band’s household. The ideal of a woman’s total
devotion to family is also echoed in the state regu-
lations. The Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singapo-
rean governments emphasize the model of the ideal
harmonious Asian family where the man is head of
the family and the woman head of the household
(Stivens 1998a, 103, Robinson 2000, 141). Thai
culture even encourages the daughter’s devotion to
the family. Since women have no religious role, they
must perform “filial piety” by relieving the parents
of their household tasks or economic needs, even
by means of prostitution (Puntarigvivat 2001,
229). The image of ideal wife and mother also
emerged in Vietnam during the renovation (dong
moi) era, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, when
women were forced back into the domestic sphere
(Fahey 1998, 244).
The unequal status existing between men and
women clearly shows that the cultural construction
of power and privilege in societies is not equally
distributed. Unlike the Western construction of
power, which lies in economic control and coercive
power, the Southeast Asian construction depends
on “spiritual power and effective potency” (Erring-
ton 1990, 5). Apart from this tangible measure,
kinship relations, seniority, nobility, education,
wealth, occupation, and social standing affect a
person’s status in the society (Brenner 2000, 139).
A woman’s control over economic resources by
means of managing the husband’s wealth, inheri-
tance, or personal earnings and their power over
the household does not lend her any higher status.
However, a woman’s blood or spousal relation to
powerful men with cultural refinement, spiritual
potency, or respected political status can indirectly
lead to plenty of privileges being granted to her.
The inequality between men and women in
Southeast Asia is often religiously derived. In a pre-
dominantly Buddhist country such as Thailand, the
notion of the dutiful and virtuous wife originates
in the Angutttara Nikaya, where Buddha equates746 social hierarchies: modern
women’s power to her ability to manage household
along with other virtues, such as confidence, char-
ity, and wisdom (Puntarigvivat 2001, 219). In
countries where Confucianism is widespread, such
as Singapore and Vietnam, the good wife is seen as
keeping the society upright. Similarly, the tradi-
tional role of a woman, that is, to be obedient to her
parents and later to her husband and to be respon-
sible for the household and caring for the family,
finds its justification in predominantly Muslim
countries (such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei)
in the Qur±àn (4:34). The higher status enjoyed by
men over women is derived from the view that men
are the primary and women the secondary creation
and that men receive more privileges with respect to
matters of inheritance and divorce.
Muslim feminists, womanists, and male advo-
cates for women’s rights object to the subordina-
tion of women through the institution of sexist
religious doctrines. They urge Muslims to reinter-
pret the Qur±àn and understand it within the con-
text of the mission of human beings as God’s
vicegerents, who will receive either reward or pun-
ishment depending on their good deeds in this
world, and from the perspective of Islam as a com-
plete system for both men and women. However,
the very notion of Islam as a complete system itself
generates heated debate in the forum of Islamic
revivalism, which regards an Islamic state based
on the Sharì≠a as the ideal solution to all such prob-
lems – a view current among minorities in
Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines.Women and gender in Australia
Although Australia is a melting pot of the diverse
Aboriginal cultures and the white English-speaking
and non-English-speaking immigrants, it is prima-
rily dominated by Anglo-Celtic, post-European cul-
ture. On gaining commonwealth status in 1901
as a federation of the former British colonies, the
new state committed itself to the “White Australia
Policy,” which excluded non-Europeans, including
early Afghan Muslim settlers, from citizenship
(Johns and Saeed 2002, 198). When Australia grew
more open to Muslim immigration, it applied an
assimilationist policy to integrate the immigrants
into Anglo-Celtic Australia (Bulbeck 1998, 193).
However, with the abolition of the policy in the
1970s and a boom in immigration from non-
European and non-Christian countries, Australia
introduced a new policy called multiculturalism,
which recognized the immigrant heritage while
adjusting to a new culture and environment.
Given the multicultural background of Austra-
lian citizens, the construction of gender varies