Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

of capitalism has led to an increase in the recruitment
of women in export processing production and modern
service industries, at the same time that it has resulted in
the loss of traditional skills and economic opportunities
for some men and women. (Increase of the female labor
force in percentage was from 33.7 in 1980 to 37.5
in 1998 for Malaysia while the corresponding increase
for the Philippines was 35.0 and 37.6). In Malaysia,
capitalist expansion has meant economic prosperity for
a sector of the population and an expanding middle
class while simultaneously making life difficult for those
in the periphery of this expansion. In the Philippines,
economic restructuring has for the most part beggared
vulnerable groups by marginalizing basic human needs,
enfeebled laboring classes by rendering their livelihood
and entitlements insecure, and sharpened inequalities
of class and gender. (Eviota, 2004) In both countries
a technological revolution has occurred, transforming
the means of communication between individuals, social
groups and interacting cultures - and thus the flow of
ideas.
Globalization and sexuality, thus, are not neutral
projects but are imbedded in highly contingent, unequal
processes involving economic and political systems,
bureaucratic interventions, nationalist imaginings,
social discourses, and religious ideologies.
This study looks at specific processes associated with
globalization in both Peninsular Malaysia and the
Philippines, namely, the increasing employment of
women in the modern sector, expanded education for
women and men, widening urbanization and increased
media exposure and the way these processes have
influenced heterosexual attitudes and behavior, such as
sex outside and within marriage, marital fidelity, marital
dissolution, sexual risk and vulnerability, and contraceptive
behavior. One of the main assumptions of this study,
one long held, is that a sense of autonomy in economic
and social life among women could lead to a heightened
sense of a right to sexual choice.
MALAYSIAN AND PHILIPPINE COMPARISONS
The Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia and the
Philippines are apparently similar in their modernizing
tendencies and apparently different in their religious
and political practice. The Philippines (population: 82.81
M) is predominantly Catholic and relatively ethnically
homogeneous (about 16% of the population are
considered ethnically distinct). Malaysia (25.18 M),
multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious, has a
majority Muslim Malay population with Chinese about
a third and Indians less than a tenth of the population,
ENGAGING MODERNITY: RELIGION, GENDER, AND ART 99
and with Islam as the state religion. Although
intermarriages are increasing, ethnicity, race, and
religion are still very much intertwined in Malaysia and
are the main characteristics that identify individuals
and families in social, economic, and political spheres.
(Raj and others, 1998)
Religion is prominent in everyday life in both these
countries. The issue for sexuality is not that these countries
have different religious ideologies; but in the way
religion is contending with modernity and grappling
with tensions between secular and religious life in the
face of globalization. Religion is but one aspect of social
life and it cannot be meaningfully separated from
a range of other human processes, activities and desires.
While in both these countries religious teaching reaches
deeply into people’s consciousness through diffusion as traditional
cultural norms in the family and the community,
the other important issue for sexuality is the extent
to which religious authority directly exercises state power
or indirectly shapes public policy and clinical practice.
Variations in national social, political, and economic
contexts between any two countries make comparisons
difficult, more especially on such a topic as sexuality.
But what the study intends to do is look at some common
patterns between diverse country settings that play out
in culturally and socially distinct ways. For example, gender
relations in both countries are, to be sure, characterized
by a primarily male-dominant culture despite formal
legislation supporting gender equality. Yet the daily
impact of culture and traditions on the power men
have over women and the form the power takes varies
enormously. These local contexts, as they interact with
globalizing forces, will take on different forms as well.
The main sources of data for this paper are the researches
conducted by the International Reproductive Rights
Research Action Group (IRRRAG) through local
organizations on reproductive health (carried out in
1994-1995), and on male responsibility (2000-2001). 1
Two of the countries involved in these researches were
Peninsular Malaysia and the Philippines. The main
respondents in the Philippines for the reproductive
health study were 278 single and married women from
subsistence areas. A few of the women were housewives
or helped in farms but most were engaged in informal
sector work, mainly raising pigs in their backyard, tending
to their small variety sari-sari (variety) stores, selling
food, or taking in laundry. Most of the respondents had
only primary education. In Malaysia, the 71 female
respondents came from the three main ethnic groups.
The women, drawn from low-income areas, were either
housewives or worked in factories, estates, the informal
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows