Gendered inequalities in Asia: configuring, contesting and recognizing women and men

Helle Rydstrøm (ed.)

Gendered inequalities in Asia: configuring, contesting and recognizing women and men

Copenhagen:NIAS Press, 2010 303pp., ISBN: 9788776940478, £18.99 (pb)

Reviewed by Katherine Brickell, Royal Holloway, University of London

This book brings together the work of 10 scholars writing on Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and India to shed light on ‘unequal access to political and religious power; occupation and health facilities, as well as different options when it comes to family life and sexuality’ (back cover). What is critically missing from the outset however is reference to, or reflection on, measures of such gender inequalities – statistics which (rightly or wrongly) shape the strategies that international agencies and donors take to alleviate the injustices outlined. It was surprising therefore, that devoted space was not given to comparative discussion of, amongst others, the Human Development Index (HDI), Gender Inequality Index (GII) and Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). This is especially so given the volume argues that it illuminates the heterogeneity not only of Asian nation-states in respect to inequality but also the common socio-cultural and economic patterns that they share (p. 1). A further reflection on the differences and similarities in the macro-scale challenges and the case studies would therefore have been productive, providing an important component to the introduction or Maila Stivens’ ‘state-of-the-art’ overview of the field of gender studies in Asia (Chapter 1).

A further point to make is that the balance of case studies in the book is rather uneven which means that as a volume it does not provide a holistic or balanced enough sense of inequalities in ‘Asia’. While the title is perhaps deliberately focused on ‘Asia’ to allow for the inclusion of a sole South Asian chapter on India, the remaining chapters are based on research from countries all in the Southeast Asian region, with three out of a total 10 chapters honing in on Vietnam, and all mainly on women (and thus to some extent replicating Helle Rydstrøm and Lisa Drummond’s previous 2006 NIAS published edited collection on Gender practices in contemporary Vietnam).

Despite these reservations, Rydstrøm does outline at the start of the book that it is mainly concerned with providing ‘knowledge about the ambiguous ways in which women and men craft themselves within and are crafted by the societies in which they live, and how the processes of becoming a woman or man are intertwined with discourses and practices of recognition and justice’ (p. 2). The empirically driven chapters do indeed nicely highlight a range of processes by which women are constructed in certain (nationalist) discourses as well as how they interpret and negotiate the inequalities that these are invested with.

Returning back to the themes of inequality which the back cover sets up, the first of these is ‘unequal access to political and religious power’. Of particular note here is Chapter 3 by Sidsel Hansson and Catarina Kinnvall which considers the tensions between how women are constructed as symbols of religious and nationalist discourse(s) in Hindu nationalism yet are increasingly important contributors to the rise in militancy in the Hindutva movement. Chapter 5 by Alexandra Kent on Cambodia also similarly brings into view what is termed ‘the gendered politics of insecurity that efforts to recreate moral order and security through religion can be understood’ (p. 129). Here Kent effectively highlights the religious careers of two women to demonstrate how in their own ways, and despite the limitations and rigours of everyday codes in the Buddhist religious realm, they are able to achieve a form of spiritual power or authority that allows them to breach such conventional wisdoms and everyday customs.

The second theme, occupation and health facilities is most powerfully brought out in Chapter 2 by Nguyen-vo Thu-huong in a discussion over the consumption of pleasure in the context of Vietnam’s integration into the global economy and the treatment of sex workers. Here the intimate connections between class, morality, health and nation are well illustrated. As the author explains, these links ‘highlight the embeddedness of the sex worker’s dangerous body in the body of the nation, and allow for the targeting of her body in clinical procedures like testing and medication, or even traumatizing and invasive ones like abortion’ (p. 57). Lastly, the third theme ‘family life and sexuality’ is arguably most prevalent in the book and cuts across the majority of chapters. The clearest expression of the tensions between state discourse on the family and the recognition of women’s experiences are highlighted in Helle Rydstrøm’s own chapter on contemporary Vietnam (Chapter 7). Here the government-promotion of ‘happy, progressive and harmonious’ families is discussed and tensions drawn with the realities of domestic violence, which clearly compromises this, idealised vision (p. 179). In sum then, despite a number of limitations to the book I highlighted at the start of this review, Gendered inequalities in Asia is largely successful in bringing to light the contested and political nature of inequalities within the particular country settings in which the book is grounded.