Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Gender Fault-Line, Ayako Kano, Vera C. Mackie

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The economic, demographic and environmental shocks of recent years that have so profoundly shaped contemporary Japanese society have distinctive gendered dimensions.

The economic reality has shifted, but social expectations about the roles of men and women have been slower to change. Meanwhile, the demographic crisis is placing considerable burden on families and revealing the attendant risk of the ‘care deficit’ — in the home and in the face of disaster.

Changing Media Understandings Of Gender Relations: Japan's Equal Employment Opportunity Law In 1985 And 1997, Kirsti Rawstron

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the portrayal of gender relations and issues in theJapanese media through a case study of discussions in mainstreamnewspapers surrounding the introduction in 1985 of the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Law (EEOL) in Japan. This law was introduced as part of Japan's ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of AllForms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The debate surroundingthe changing EEOL is examined through articles from three mainstreamdaily national newspapers, notably the Asahi Shinbun, the Nihon KeizaiShinbun and the Yomiuri Shinbun. The articles reflect and reinforce thechanging cultural understanding of gender relations in Japan over thisperiod. The newspapers …

Equality Vs Difference: A Case Study Of Japanese Media Representations Of Gender-Specific Provisions In Labour Legislation, Kirsti Rawstron

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the portrayal of gender issues in the Japanese media. It will do so through a case study of discussions in mainstream newspapers surrounding the removal of the gender-specific provisions (or ‘women’s protection articles’, hereafter WPA) of the Labour Standards Law. The discussions touch on debates concerning ‘equality’ and ‘difference’ and debates concerning the role of legislation in promoting social change. After a summary of relevant legislation, the arguments surrounding the 1997 removal (effective 1999) of the WPA is examined using items from 1982 to 2005 in the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and …

Necktie Nightmare: Narrating Gender In Contemporary Japan, Vera C. Mackie

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

...the thing I hated most of all was the necktie.
When I wore a necktie, there was just no doubt that I was a man.
The image was of a salaryman! The mainstay of the house! The symbol of manhood!

These are the words of Nomachi Mineko in the autobiographical account of her transition from male to female. The book (adapted from a blog) appeared in late 2006 under the title O-kama dakedo OL yattemasu (I'm Queer But I'm An Office Lady). The book's publication coincided with a range of mainstream representations of trans-gendered lives - in television …

Ambitious Angel: Jean Batten And The Performance Of Gender In A Man's Country, Anne A. Collett

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Sydney has witness similar demonstrations of enthusiasm, but never one that was more spontaneous, wrote one Sydney reportetr of Jean Battens arrivalo in Mascot in October 1936 on completion of her record breaking solo-flight from England to Australia. Batten greeted the crowd that had waited long hours for her arrival, with and apology and the reminder that it was of course a womens prerogative to be a little late.

'Not Another Hijab Row': New Conversations On Gender, Race And Religion., Tanja Dreher, Christina Ho

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Headscarves in schools. Sexual violence in Indigenous communities. Muslim women at public swimming pools, Polygamy. Sharia law. Outspoken Imams on sexual assualt. Integration and respect for women. It seems that around the world in the media and public debate, women's issues are at the top of the agenda. Yet all too often, support for women's rights is proclaimed loudest by conservative politicians intent on policing communities and demonising Muslims during the 'war on terror'. This edition of the Transorming Cultures eJournal offers critical reflections on the contemporary politics of gender, race and religion, and provides a platorm for those perspectives …

"Not Another Hijab Row": New Conversations On Gender, Race, Religion And The Making Of Communities, Tanja Dreher, Christina Ho

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

A Curious Space ‘In-Between’: The Public/Private Divide And Gender-Based Activism In Singapore, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In Singapore, the state’s role in shaping the space of civil society has been well documented. Many scholars argue that civil society in Singapore is largely a state-sanctioned sphere of engagement that has emerged in response to middle-class pressure for greater political liberalization. In these accounts, the space of civil society is described as an arena that is shaped by the state, and in which the state constantly intervenes. What is less clear, however, is how the space of civil society is gendered. Through an analysis of women’s activism in Singapore, this article deconstructs the binaries ‘public/private’ and ‘state/civil society’ …

Comparative Masculinities: Why Islamic Indonesian Men Are Great Mates And Australian Men Are Girls , Mike Donaldson, P. Nilan, R. Howson

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

There may well be no known human societies in which some form of masculinity has not emerged as dominant, more socially central, more associated with power, in which a pattern of practices embodying the currently most honoured way of being male legitimates the superordination of men over women. This paper shows what a small sample of Indonesian men living in Australia thought of Australian masculinity, revealing much about hegemonic masculinity in Indonesia in the process, and disclosing some uncomfortable uniformities concerning men in both countries.

Book Review - Theresa Coletti: Mary Magdalene And The Drama Of Saints: Theater, Gender, And Religion In Late Medieval England, Louise D'Arcens

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Theresa Coletti’s Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints is a persuasively argued and rigorously researched study that examines the late medieval English career of medieval Christianity’s “other Mary.” Coletti argues for the significance of the figure of Mary Magdalene within traditions of medieval insular piety dating back to Bede, and more specifically within vernacular East Anglian culture of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Taking as her main focus the early sixteenthcentury Digby saint play Mary Magdalene, Coletti succeeds in demonstrating the many striking ways in which “late medieval East Anglia’s feminine religious culture and commitment to sacred drama …

A Politics Of Accommodation: Women And The People’S Action Party In Singapore, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

For the first time since achieving Independence in 1965, women now make up more than 10% of parliamentary representatives in Singapore. While this figure still lags behind international benchmarks, it is a significant improvement on the last election in which women made up less than 5% of MPs. This article explores the factors that led to the increase in women’s parliamentary representation. I examine the attitudes of senior leaders within the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), as well as recent constitutional reforms, including the introduction of the Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs) scheme, and the creation of a Group Representative …

Infiltrators, Illegals And Undesirables : Gender And Forced Migration In South Asia, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

It will be argued within this paper, that women’s experiences of displacement and exclusion need to be situated in the relationship between globalisation and neoliberalism. I argue that forced and economic migrations are closely related and are often interchangeable expressions of global inequality. Neo liberal globalisation diminishes all human pursuits into buying and selling. It is elites in the North who have implemented neo-liberal policies into both the North and South over the past twenty five years. These policies have resulted in the eradication of social safeguards which have led to massive gendered displacement. While globalisation may conjure up a …

Sexing The Nation: Normative Heterosexuality And The ‘Good’ Singaporean Citizen, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Extract: What does it mean to sex a nation? In the discourses surrounding nationalism, nations frequently take up gendered positions – as ‘motherlands’ or ‘fatherlands’, with their leaders as the ‘mothers’ or the ‘fathers of the nation’. In the family of the nation, gendered subjectivity is built around heterosexual reproductive relations in which men and women perform their ‘natural roles’ within families2. Where the language of nationalism reveals the gender of the homeland as female (Britannia, Mother India), the nation-as-woman is built on a particular image of woman as chaste, dutiful, daughterly or maternal” (Parker et al. 1992: 6). And …

Negotiating Difference: Singaporean Women Building An Ethics Of Respect, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Extract: The problem of difference emerged as a significant issue in western feminist theory making during the 1980s-1990s. In response to claims that western feminism ignored the lives and voices of third world women1, attention was increasingly been placed on the need to forge broad-based coalitions that embrace difference and commonality. But, in the call to build coalitions, little work focused on the meaning of difference in the everyday lives of feminist activists; how do feminists work with women who are different to themselves? In this paper I examine the lives of women who belong to the Singaporean feminist organisation …

What Is Hegemonic Masculinity?, Mike Donaldson

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Hegemonic masculinity is a powerful idea that has been usefully employed for about twenty five years (by 2007) in a wide variety of contexts and has now been subject to much critical review. Its successful application to a wide range of different cultures suggests that there may well be no known human societies in which some form of masculinity has not emerged as dominant, more socially central, more associated with power, in which a pattern of practices embodying the "currently most honoured way" of being male legitimates the superordination of men over women. Hegemonic masculinity is normative in a social …

Labouring Men: Love, Sex And Strife , Mike Donaldson

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Studies of masculinity and studies of class are incomplete unless they take each other seriously. This article explores the interrelations between class situation and experience, paid work, the family-household, masculinity and male heterosexuality as they are borne and reproduced by labouring men. Against the psycho¬logisation of the 'men's liberationists' this article insists on the salience of structure. It suggests that the working class, of which labouring men are a small part, can be understood in its strategic power and weaknesses only through the study of the whole lives of its members, changing and changed by each other as they stand …