Women, Poverty and Ideology in Asia : Contradictory Pressures, Uneasy Resolutions

This book examines the contradictions between the prevailing ideologies and cultural practices and the economic interests of women in poor households in Asia. Here the primacy of economic needs necessitates that all members of the household, women, men and children engage in income generating employment; yet at the same time prevailing ideologies often impose restrictions on women's work. Thus caught in the poverty trap they face conflicting choices between survival needs and social acceptability. This collection of essays demonstrate the differing or complementary roles played by different agents such as the State, private employers, religious groups, the community and the family and their effects on the lives of impoverished women in India, Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. The degree of complementarity or contradiction varies according to country, class, caste and ethnicity. What is of interest, however, is the way they are manifested and in whose interest they are resolved. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-15 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan....Pages 17-42 Women in the Work and Poverty Trap in Iran....Pages 43-69 Women, Land and Ideology in India....Pages 70-98 Petty Trading and the Ideology of Gender Segregation in Urban South India....Pages 99-127 The Ideology of Femininity and Women’s Work in a Fishing Community of South India....Pages 128-147 Internal Colonisation and the Fate of Female Divers in Cheju Island, South Korea....Pages 148-177 Women’s Work, Male Domination and Controls over Income among Plantation Workers in Sri Lanka....Pages 178-195 Export-Oriented Industries and Women Workers in Sri Lanka....Pages 196-211 Poverty, Ideology and Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia....Pages 212-233 Back Matter....Pages 235-242