Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia [Paperback]

Aihwa Ong (Editor), Michael G Peletz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 1995

This impressive array of essays considers the contingent and shifting meanings of gender and the body in contemporary Southeast Asia. By analyzing femininity and masculinity as fluid processes rather than social or biological givens, the authors provide new ways of understanding how gender intersects with local, national, and transnational forms of knowledge and power.
Contributors cut across disciplinary boundaries and draw on fresh fieldwork and textual analysis, including newspaper accounts, radio reports, and feminist writing. Their subjects range widely: the writings of feminist Filipinas; Thai stories of widow ghosts; eye-witness accounts of a beheading; narratives of bewitching genitals, recalcitrant husbands, and market women as femmes fatales. Geographically, the essays cover Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The essays bring to this region the theoretical insights of gender theory, political economy, and cultural studies.
Gender and other forms of inequality and difference emerge as changing systems of symbols and meanings. Bodies are explored as sites of political, economic, and cultural transformation. The issues raised in these pages make important connections between behavior, bodies, domination, and resistance in this dynamic and vibrant region.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"This collection presents new ethnographic research, framed in terms of new theoretical developments, and contains fine scholarship and lively writing."--Janet Hoskins, University of Southern California

"This is a wonderful collection of essays. At one level they tell us about the transformation and often painful fragmentation of gendered selves in post-colonial states and a speeded-up transnational world. At another level they display the continuing power of ethnography to surprise and move us."--Sherry Ortner, University of California, Berkeley

From the Back Cover

"This collection presents new ethnographic research, framed in terms of new theoretical developments, and contains fine scholarship and lively writing." (Janet Hoskins, University of Southern California) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 314 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (September 7, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520088611
• ISBN-13: 978-0520088610
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #505,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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5 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars gender studies of Southeast Asia, January 15, 2005

By 

Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia (Paperback)

This is a mixture of Southeast Asian studies and gender studies. Though most of the articles are by women, some are by men. Though most articles are by people with European last names, there are some contributors with Asian names. Like many gender studies anthologies, there is more information on femininity than masculinity. However, I blame no one since men's studies is such a recently emerging field.

This book focuses more upon Southeastern Asian island nations than other places. There are no articles on Vietnam or Myanmar in this book. Still, given that Indonesia is approximately the fifth most populated country in the world, the work here is novel. I mean, how often do you hear about Indonesia and Malaysia in American books?

Unfortunately, this book says little about feminism in the region. Further, each chapter begins with a summary that tells you everything you need to know. Really, students could get away with reading the summaries and not having to read the rest of the text.

My main reason for being proud to own this book is because of the cover painting by Arunothai Somsakul. I definitely have to find more of her work; it's pure beauty. I missed whether the editors explain the title. But I find it misleading in two ways. First, it comes off as somewhat sexist that men are labeled "pious" while women are labeled "bewitching." Too, this book is not about religion in Southeast Asia. It focuses on fertility, employment, and family dynamics, not spirituality.

It's funny to me how books become timely. There were no fears about tsunamis when this anthology was collected in 1995. However, this book covers the nations that were worst effected by the recent disaster. Anthropological and other academic studies of the area may have some useful impact on the recovery efforts taking place as I write this review.