Gendered Inequalities in Asia : Configuring, Contesting and Recognizing Women and Men

Global processes with flows in money, commodities and people have made it increasingly varied and blurred what it means to be a female or male in Asia today. Socio-economic and cultural patterns in Asia intersect with one another and, in doing so, they translate into power relations that create both possibilities and constraints for women and men. By focusing 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, the recognition of women and men are explored in this volume as manifestations of ideas about femininity and masculinity. Readers will find insightful and enriching contributions that consider how gender relations in Asia - and indeed the very meaning of gender itself - are affected by neo-liberalism, globalization and economic growth; security in all of its meanings; multiculturalism, race and class; family life, power and intergenerational support; religious discourses and activism; and by male norms in politics.Helle Rydstrøm has carried out research on Vietnam within the field of social anthropology since the early 1990s, her current research focusing especially on violence, masculinities and femininities in Vietnamese society. Separately, she is involved in a research project that focuses on the conditions of rural families in late-doi moi Vietnam. She has written widely in her field with her monograph, Embodying Morality: Growing Up In Rural Northern Vietnam (University of Hawai’i Press) winning the the Tamara K. Hareven Memorial Research Prize and nominated for the Harry J. Benda Prize. Previously an associate professor at Linköping University in Sweden, Dr Rydstrøm recently moved to take up a position at Lund University’s Centre for Gender Studies. She is an editor of the NIAS Press Gendering Asia book series.