Women's and Feminist Activism in S outheast A sia

Abstract

Women's/feminist activism in Southeast Asia offers a critical relativism standpoint and praxis that embraces both the universalism of women's human rights and the particularities of cultures and religions, to realize gender equality and gender equity more effectively. In doing so, it re‐imagines the global vision and practice of women's human rights. Women's activism as feminist is consonant with the genesis of women‐centered activism sustained by campaigns against violence against women. Women's activism as feminist is dissonant with the ethos of some women's NGOs who eschew self‐identification with feminism as a western ideology and foreign practice to Asian values. These tensions are fittingly framed within a feminist postcolonial theorizing that privileges not only gender but also ethnicity, class, cultures and religions as analytical categories in making sense of gender inequality and gender inequity. The future direction of women's/feminist activism lies in the complementary sexuality rights activism following the Yogyakarta Principles.