Subject Area: Women's & Gender Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: History; Asian Studies

This course explores women’s status and roles in politics, history, culture, economy, religion and the family, in several countries of the Southeast Asian region. It will examine women and unofficial power (eg. women who hold power as wives of male politicians like former First Ladies Imelda Romualdez Marcos for example) women in official power such as women politicians, and women’s movements. It addresses the controversial issues of women’s victimisation like prostitution in Thailand and the Philippines, ‘mail-order brides’ and domestic helpers as well as reproductive health or reproductive rights including ‘family planning' and abortion. Finally the subject grapples with cultural constructions of the feminine (including how authoritarian regimes define it), as women negotiate the definitions of woman as wife and mother, as ‘bearer of sons’, as beauty queen, as bearer and wearer of tradition, and as worker. Issues of gender, ‘modernity’ and national identity are raised when we discuss women and the veil in Malaysia and the role of gender in the formation of national identity.