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Spring Workshop The Women's Studies Research Centre & the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong Date: 13 May, 2006 (Saturday) Time: 9.30 - 1.00 pm
Venue: The Reading Room, Centre of Asian Studies, Tang Chi Ngong Building, Room G-4 (Ground Floor), The University of Hong Kong website:
http://www.hku.hk/wsrcweb/************************************************************************
TOPIC: GOOD WOMEN, BAD WOMEN IN CHINESE COMMUNITIES: NEW RESEARCH, NEW REALITIES
This year's Spring Workshop highlights new and ongoing research in the domain of Hong Kong Women's/Gender Studies? The four papers to be presented reflect a range of methodologies and interdisciplinary perspectives, as well as a solid commitment to foregrounding individual women's lived experiences and narratives. Discussion and dialogue between audience and presenters will follow the formal papers.
(1) THE MAKING OF A 'GOOD MOTHER' IN POST-WAR HONG KONG NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES Anita Kit-wa Chan ( Dept of Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences & Technology, The Hong Kong Institute of Education) & Wai-ling Wong (Centre of Asian Studies, HKU)
It is increasingly recognized that a mother is not born but made and a 'good mother' is a social construction which, however, can exert itself as a transparent truth, regulating and disciplining women's desires, identities and behavior. This paper is particularly interested in exploring whether and how a Hong Kong version of the ideal woman/mother exists. Based on an investigation of the articles and advertisements in local newspapers and magazines from 1950 to 1980s, we will show that at least two prominent versions have emerged in the local context in the post-war period: 'the caring mother' and 'the supermom'. With the rise of women's educational level and labor force participation, 'the supermom' seems to be the more dominant discourse but we would argue that 'the caring mother' remains to be central of what constitutes a 'good woman'.
(2) MOTHERING STORIES AND CAREER STRATEGIES: HONG KONG ACCOUNTS AND POTENTIAL FOR CHANGE May Partridge Free-lance writer and consultant (Ph.D., HKU)
This presentation will offer three stories about mothering in Hong Kong. Each corresponds with a particular type of career strategy followed there by university and college-educated women in the years 1980 to 2000. These women have had to manage an enormous struggle to enter and stay in the paid labour force; certain kinds of story-making and strategizing have therefore been necessary to manage this effort. However, there is evidence that along with present-day careers, the stories and strategies of earlier years are growing increasingly difficult to maintain. What possibilities exist for new stories, new strategies, and therefore, new kinds of careers?
(3) PRESIDING GENIUS OF THEIR OWN BODIES: FEMINISTS AT THE MARGINS IN CHINESE COMMUNITIES Petula Sik Ying Ho (Department of Social Work & Social Administration, HKU)
Many Hong Kong authors have looked at the women's movement in Hong Kong as a form of identity politics. In their writing of the feminist history of Hong Kong, they have tried to trace the transformation of Hong Kong women's collective identities through analyzing public discourses on selected women's issues. In recent years, there are others who have noted a gap in the movement and argued for a space to explore women's sexuality and desire. I would like to add a footnote to the two trends of writing feminist history by looking at a number of young women who present themselves as independent political actors who engage in feminist practices. They are not the core members of any woman's organizations, but claim that their main concerns are with gender issues and feminism in the broad sense. A mong them is Choi Fung, a 28 year old, M.Phil. student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. With reference to Choi Fung's case, I will focus on the lives of women who have refused to be pin ned down as conventional feminists and are often being seen as 'bad' women. Special emphasis will on be how they use their selves including their bodies as 'a stage' for the performance of their identities as women. Their employment of different media, for example, video and theatre, in engaging with what they think are feminist practices/interventions, is particularly worthy of note.
(4) BUREAUCRATIC JUSTICE: THE INCARCERATION OF MAINLAND CHINESE WOMEN WORKING IN HONG KONG'S SEX INDUSTRY Robyn Emerton, Karen-Joe Laidler, and Carole Petersen (Department of Law & Department of Sociology, HKU)
Since Hong Kong's return to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997, there has been an exponential growth in the number of mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong. The 2000s have also been marked by a dramatic increase in the number of mainland Chinese women engaging in sex work in Hong Kong. Although sex work itself is not illegal in Hong Kong, a mainland Chinese woman cannot legally work in Hong Kong without an employment visa, which will not be issued for sex work. Thousands of mainland Chinese women are being arrested, prosecuted and sentenced each year in Hong Kong for involvement in sex work, and Hong Kong's female prison population has consequently boomed. This presentation summarizes the results of 58 qualitative interviews with women incarcerated in Hong Kong and presents data on their socio-economic backgrounds, their motivations for coming to Hong Kong, the extent to which they were fully informed about the nature of the work and the risks of being arrested, and their experiences in Hong Kong's criminal justice system. ( The interviews were conducted by Ms. Lau Garlum and the project was funded by a grant from the University of Hong Kong's Small Project Funding Programme).
