1 - Introduction: Women in Southeast Asia: Changes and Continuities

Summary

Southeast Asia as a region has undergone vast economic and social transformations in the last several decades. Women as a collective have seen their lives changed as a result of rapid development and economic growth. The Human Development Index records higher levels of literacy and primary school enrolment rates, and increases in life expectancy in most parts of the world, including countries in Southeast Asia, compared to a decade ago (Human Development Report 2006). The Philippines is a notable example in the region having closed the gender gaps in both education and health, joining a list of ten countries in the world with similar achievements (The Global Gender Gap Report 2008).

In the face of rapid economic and social change, it is important to ask how women and men have fared especially since women's interests and concerns differ from those of men. This leads to other questions related to the progress of the sexes: (a) In what areas have women been able to achieve parity with men?; (b) In what areas do women encounter specific disadvantages based on their gender as compared with men?; and, (c) How have women's concerns and problems been addressed by governments in this region with the aim of encouraging gender equality? In responding to these questions, it is important first and foremost to contextualize Southeast Asian women's experiences within the larger cultural and historical framework particular to this region.

The position that indigenous Southeast Asian women enjoy a relative autonomy has long been in the centre of debate in academic circles. Assertions have been made that women in this region have stood apart from their sisters in the rest of Asia by way of the relatively high level of autonomy they possess (Stoler 1977; Strange 1981; Atkinson and Errington 1990). Scholars have singled out a number of factors for the autonomy of women in the region.