Gender issues in Just Follow Law:

What shapes it?

What is its significance?

3 Issues
Master status of gender over class
- Economic modernization model
- Gender as background identity
Presidency of essentialist over gender performativity
theory
- Western model of sexuality
- Asian conservatism
Objectification of both genders
- Sexual exchange system
- Patriarchy

Master status of class over gender

- Multi marginality: multi identities which
disadvantage from various sides
- Master status: class overpowers all
statuses to become defining feature of
Self
- Chew less disadvantaged by gender than
Lim is by class

Economic modernization model

- Development results in laws/institutions
which ameliorate social inequalities
- Ideologies of survival and pragmatism
- Industrialization
- Meritocracy: reward for work
- Reward: higher position in work hierarchy
(class)

Gender as background identity

- Sex categorization too general in revealing
Self and Other
- Institutionally and culturally more specific
identities in foreground: class
- Gender as background identity:
implicit/cognitive, rarely the focus

Presidency of essentialist over

gender performativity
- Essentialist: sex is fixed, biological, binary
Sex and gender conflated
- Gender performativity: sex not equate to
gender
Gender produces sex, is socialized, a
performance
- Yet, Lim and Chew still see themselves
as female and male

Western model of sexuality

- Medical and psychological model:
conflates sex and gender
- Endorsed by medics, pervades society:
though socially constructed, taken for
granted, internalized and normalized

Asian Conservatism
- Essentialists = Singapore/Asia VS Gender
performativity = West
- Divide: Asian values VS Western
decadence
- Who says so? Singapores political
leaders and medics
- Reality: Asian values = Singapore
ideology of status quo

Objectification of both genders

- Females as sex objects: contradiction
Sacred VS Sensationalized
- How? Male gaze, Silencing of women/use
of body language
- Males as success objects

Sexual exchange system

- Heterosexual community: marketplace
where men acquire sex from women by
offering other resources in exchange
- Females trade sex: intrinsic resource
- Males trade success: extrinsic resource
- Sex as female resource: reproductive,
differential sex drives
- Success as male resource: economic and
political activity occur within male sphere

Patriarchy
- Sex objects: embodied/internal VS
Success objects: disembodied/external
- Sex objects: women in disempowering
activities VS Success objects: men in
empowering activities
- Patriarchy: Gendered division of labour
Power as social relationship

Conclusion
- 3 gender issues are social constructs:
Constructed by social theories and
practices
Structural effects on social reality
- Gender issues as products specific to
Singapore
- Personal windows through which
institutions/individuals view themselves
and social world