Women and National Identity in South Asia
In attempting to circumscribe the feminist and even ideological contributions which women in South and Southeastern Asia have made to their respective countries, there will first need to be an overview of the concept of nation itself. Even the common phrase "love of country" underscores a concept of "eroticized nationalism" (Parker in Anderson 12). What analysis of the feminine within cultural space will assist in revealing is the high degree of contradictory status which nations, especially those of South and Southeast Asia, impose upon their female citizens. Emphasis in this research will be given to tracing out this split of contradictory status opened up by a conjoined feminist and ideological/cultural analysis of women's status as it is displayed in South and Southeast Asia. Stylistic differences between the positions adopted by feminist rhetoric and women's fiction will also be explored.
Eve Sedgwick observes that the concept of nation varies depending upon which nation is trying to define itself. Sedgwick contends that relations between modern nations has become both ragged and irrational. She charts the variable factors which now must be factored into defining nationhood by saying:
The "other" of the nation in a given political or historical setting may be the pre-national monarchy, the local ethnicity, the diaspora, the trans-national corporate, ideological, religious or ethnic unit; the sub-national local vis a vis the nationalism of its colonies; the nationalism of the homeland may be co-extensive with or oppositional to its imperialism; and so forth (Sedgewick in Anderson 13).
Many of these variables influence the status and opportunities available to women in a given setting. In fact, the contradictory attitude toward women in a given country can often be traced in part to the contradictory manner in which nation is therein defined. Concepts of homeland are o...