Women’s Work-Life Balance in Asia: Rethinking from Anthropological and Gender Perspective

Panel Convenor(s)

• MK

  Misako Kanno

  Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan

Panel Chair(s)

• MK

  Misako Kanno

  Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan

Presenter(s)

• MK

  Misako Kanno

  Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
• MI

  Mariko Ito

  Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan
• KK

  Keiko Kiso

  Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University, Japan
• RS

  Ryoko Sakurada

  Ikuei Junior College, Japan

This panel will examine women's higher education and career development in Asia from a comparative ethnographic perspective, focusing on the local experiences of women in four regions with different characteristics: India, Vietnam, Thailand, and Japan.　Conventional feminist research has assumed a social structure consisting of male dominance and exclusion of women within Western values, which has been regarded as a common trait of all women worldwide. The ideal image of women in the argument of feminism relies on Western ideas, and therefore it has been considered that Asian women, influenced by non-Western ideologies such as Confucian, Buddhist, and Hindu ideologies, should be enlightened and redeemed by the Western gender perspectives simply because they fall outside of the Western feminist framework.

However, studies have reported that the fourth-wave feminism that emerged in the 2000s differs from the above-mentioned trends and is positioned as a more interactive movement that is simultaneously transmitted from non-Western societies via social media. For example, the MeToo movement, in South Korea, which has gained momentum in the West, and #KuToo, which was originated in Japan and created a stir against women's wearing of high heels, were taken as representative examples of this movement. It can be pointed out that contemporary Asian women's desire for social participation is shifting into a multifaceted phase that cannot be summed up in a one-way influx of values from Western to non-Western societies.

Nevertheless, the aspect that individuals in Asian societies are deeply embedded in relationships with family, relatives, and local people; and lives entangled in sociocultural norms with no clear cognitive distinction between "self" and "others" are retained. In other words, modern Asian women are seeking their own work-life balance by scrutinizing existing knowledge and experiences and acquiring new information, while organizing their own life course and taking local norms and social relations into consideration. Therefore, we need to focus on the unique way how career development occurs in Asia, which differs from the Western way of career life, aiming at individual self-realization.

In this panel, we will compare cases from four different regions in Asia to clarify the diversification of the life course of women living in contemporary society and reexamine the concept of "work-life balance" from the perspective of individual women's experiences. We also aim to present a relative discussion on the multilayered nature of the modern way of life rooted in the career practices of Asian women.

Presentations:

• 11:15 – 13:00 (GMT+7)

  Glossing over Gender Norms: The Cunning Agency of Hindu Women in Career Orientation and Marital Life
  

  Presenter: Misako Kanno – Aoyama Gakuin University
• 11:15 – 13:00 (GMT+7)

  Career Building with Others: Life Course Choices of Highly Educated Women in the Northern Region of Vietnam
  

  Presenter: Mariko Ito – Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
• 11:15 – 13:00 (GMT+7)

  No one is Completely Independent: Economic Independence and Acceptance of Dependency Among Educated Women in Rural Northeast Thailand
  

  Presenter: Keiko Kiso – Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University
• 11:15 – 13:00 (GMT+7)

  I am still figuring out what I want to do: Career Education and Self-actualization of Female Students at a Junior College in Japan
  

  Presenter: Ryoko Sakurada – Ikuei Junior College