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B3 W2: Gender and Social Inclusion - Translating gender justice in Southeast Asia

Ong, A. (2011). Translating gender justice in Southeast Asia: Situated ethics, NGOs, and biowelfare. Hawwa, 9(1), 26-48.

"gender justice has the rhetorical value of not imposing Western notions of gender equality on non-Western societies. At the same time, gender justice suggests the need for improvement in the balance of power between men and women everywhere. Second, more specifically, gender justice as employed by feminists in the Beijing Platform for Action 1995 deliberately links balance in gender relations with the development of democracy in the developing world." p.27-28

"universalizing values of gender justice must navigate and articulate ethical regimes in particular situations of intervention. Diverse cultural and ethical elements crystallize problems of gender inequality and possible solutions that cannot be imposed from the outside. Astute feminist interventions must always take into account the web of indigenous norms and values of female role and agency." p.29

"any gains in gender equality in the development process cannot be simply measured in terms of statistical targets and indicators. Rather we need to explore how the situated interactions among politics, religious ethics and NGO interventions produce ethical resolutions and regimes that govern the contours and forms of gendered existence." p.32

"Gender- specific problems are often refracted through related problems of political brutality, development, migration, minority oppression, and the need for democratic reforms." p.33

"Religious political activism represents a counter response to secularization theories that have been forecasting the “disenchantment” of modern society since Weber." p.34

"religious activism is develop- ing new relationships with diverse technologies, such as communications, modern media, and NGOs." p.34

"despite the secular state systems in Southeast Asia, in practice, only ethical reasoning between religious authorities and NGOs can make gender justice seem reasonable and acceptable in a Muslim society" p.35

"for many grassroots Muslim women’s movements, gender justice is achieved through the provision of social services to the less fortunate of one’s sex." p.35 - links to Riley and her description of what feminism was in 19th Century England

"Michel Foucault’s concept of biopower maintains that modern states are primarily concerned about the management of life to ensure its well-being, productivity, and security." p.36

"foreign maids are considered the most expendable workers, easily replaced by a seemingly endless stream of poor migrant women. Despite growing media reports of horrify- ing abuses against migrant workers, they continue to be vulnerable to random dangers at the workplace, in public, and in transit." p.40

"Feminist groups “use the media as their ally” to expose abuses and challenge state authorities to increase the protection of migrant women" p.41

"the majority of NGOs are focusing on the immediate needs to recast the migrant worker as a biological being, with ethical claims on good treatment and physical security." p.42

"By stressing the bio-legitimacy of health for foreign workers, NGOs also spur a more coherent reflection on ethics by elites in Southeast Asian societies. In other words, how to reconsider the situation of the domestic worker, whose very bio-political availability denies her bodily security and human dignity in the host society?" p.43

"NGOs in Southeast Asia are important moral mediators as well, using ethical reasoning that is more crucial than legalistic arguments to build social support for gender justice." p.48

"NGOs adjudicate decisions affecting gender justice with governments and other authorities; they are an important mechanism for translating and situating gender ethics in a particular matrix of power relationships. They also help formulate new concepts such as bio- welfare for stateless subjects." p.45

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