Chilla Bulbeck - Sex, Love and Feminism in the Asia Pacific

Sex, love and feminism are three aspects of the changing gender relations that shape young peoples lives in the Asia Pacific region. With the global spread of capitalist production and neoliberal ideologies, the claim that the rest of the worlds women are treading the path to enlightenment and development forged by women in the west has been revived. This book explores that contention through a comparative analysis of the attitudes of young middle-class urbanites in ten countries: the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, India, Indonesia, China and Vietnam. Drawing on detailed empirical research, the study describes and compares attitudes towards the womens movement, sexual relations and family arrangements in the countries considered. It explores young peoples image of feminists and what they feel the womens movement has achieved for women and men in their country. The book discusses young peoples attitudes to controversial gender issues such as role reversal, sharing housework, abortion rights, same-sex sexual relations and pornography. Through a comparative analysis of the gender vocabularies by which young people understand gender issues, the book highlights the role of differences in history, culture, economics and political leadership. These influence attitudes to gender relations, the status of women and the political programs of the womens movement in the different countries. Although there are striking parallels between countries and even across the whole sample, those similarities do not fall neatly into a simple dichotomy of the west versus the rest.

Chilla Bulbeck was the Foundation Chair in Womens Studies at the University of Adelaide and has taught at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Tokyo University. Her research interests focus on gender and cultural difference, and her publications include One World Womens Movement (1988), Australian Women in Papua New Guinea: Colonial Passages 19201960 (1992), Living Feminism: The Impact of the Womens Movement on Three Generations of Australian Women (1997) and Re-Orienting Western Feminism: Womens Diversity in a Postcolonial World (1998).

Women in Asia Series

Susan Blackburn (Monash University)

John Butcher (Griffith University)

Vera Mackie (Melbourne University)

Anne McLaren (Melbourne University)

Mina Roces (University of New South Wales)

Andrea Whittaker (Melbourne University)

A cross-cultural study of young peoples attitudes

First published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

2009 Chilla Bulbeck

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Sex, love and feminism in the Asia Pacific: a cross-cultural study of young peoples attitudes/Chilla Bulbeck.
p. cm.(ASAA women in Asia series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. YouthAttitudesAsia. 2. YouthAttitudesPacific Area. 3. Youth Cross-cultural studies. 4. Feminism. 5. Sex role. I. Title.
HQ799.A75B85 2008
306.70835dc22
2008018411