Gender and Power in Affluent Asia is the first major study to analyse the relatioships between gender and power that have accompanied the rise of Asian affluence.

Gender and Power in Affluent Asia is the first major study to analyse the relatioships between gender and power that have accompanied the rise of Asian affluence.

Amidst the unevenness and unpredictability of change in the Asia-Pacific region, women's lives are being transformed. This volume takes up the challenge of exploring the ways in which women are active players, collaborators, participants, leaders and resistors in the politics of change in the region. The editors focus attention on the politics of gender as a mobilizing centre for identities, and the ways in which individualized identity politics may be linked to larger collective emancipatory projects based on shared interests, practical needs, or common threats. Collectively, the chapters illustrate the complexity of women's strategies, the diversity of sites for action, and the flexibility of their alliances as they carve out niches for themselves in what are still largely patriarchal worlds. This book will be of vital interest to scholars in a range of subjects, including gender studies, human geography, women's studies, Asian studies, sociology and anthropology.

This Element examines gender in Southeast Asia by focusing on two main themes. The first concerns hegemonic cultural constructions of gender and Southeast Asian subjects' responses to these dominant discourses. Roces introduces hegemonic discourses on ideal masculinities and ideal femininities, evaluates the impact of religion, analyses how authoritarian regimes fashion these ideals. Discussion then turns to the hegemonic ideals surrounding desire and sexualities and the way these are policed by society and the state. The second theme concerns the ways hegemonic ideals influence the gendering of power and politics. Roces argues that because many Southeast Asians see power as being held by kinship alliance groups, women are able to access political power through their ties with men-as wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and even mistresses. However, women's movements have challenged this androcentric division of power.

Gender in Modern East Asia explores the history of women and gender in China, Korea, and Japan from the seventeenth century to the present. This unique volume treats the three countries separately within each time period while also placing them in global and regional contexts. Its transnational and integrated approach connects the cultural, economic, and social developments in East Asia to what is happening across the wider world. The text focuses specifically on the dynamic histories of sexuality; gender ideology, discourse, and legal construction; marriage and the family; and the gendering of work, society, culture, and power. Important themes and topics woven through the text include Confucianism, writing and language, the role of the state in gender construction, nationalism, sexuality and prostitution, New Women and Modern Girls, feminisms, "comfort" women, and imperialism. Accessibly written and comprehensive, Gender in Modern East Asia is a much-needed contribution to the study of the region.

Although the societies of island Southeast Asia(Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, plus Brunei and Singapore) are known for their egalitarian relations between men and women, subtle differences in power and status do exist. These differences are often difficult to conceptualize, and, consequently, the theoretical issues posed by such relatively egalitarian gender systems have been largely unexamined in Western scholarship, even thought these issues are of great importance to feminists and others interested in culture and power. This book is about difference and power as they relate to men and women in island Southeast Asia. It examines how differences between 'male' and 'female' (as gendered concepts of the person) and between men and women (as living beings engaged in activities) are constituted there in assumptions and through practices, and how power is envisioned and distributed among men and women. The book begins with a substantial theoretical essay on gender, power, and the body, which is followed by eleven studies of aspects of gender in various parts of island Southeast Asia.

The Handbook on Gender in Asia critically examines, through a gender perspective, five broad themes of significance to Asia: the ‘Theory and Practice’ of researching in Asia; ‘Gender, Ageing and Health’; ‘Gender and Labour’; ‘Gendered Migrations and Mobilities’; and ‘Gender at the Margins’. With each chapter providing an overview of the key intellectual developments on the issue under discussion, as well as empirical examples to examine how the Asian case sheds light on these debates, this collection will be an invaluable reference for scholars of gender and Asia.