Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
from such studies of, for example, male sex workers in Thailand or gay cul-
ture in the USA, we can say that gender is an intrinsically unstable category
(Butler 1990). Yet, the focus on
it does not
address the possibility that there may be issues involved that have nothing to
do with sexual practice and sexuality, albeit it being developed within an
obvious gender context. While I agree that gender here may be a state of
performance, even a conscious one to among other things make men as well
as some women feel empowered, it is also a state of mind that exhibits the
important human quality of empathy as a central drive for the good society.
The problem is, of course hen, if such empathy is one-sidedly developed
within socially oppressive forces of both men and women.
In this regard, Moore (2005) points out that much anthropological data
suggest that while we may be
'
doing
'
gender rather than
'
being
'
'
doing
'
gender identities, they are not necessa-
rily very
fluid and open to choice. She points out the problems with gender
performativity when
'
(Moore 2005: 160). Rather than what sometimes appears as an obsession with
self-identity, however, inspired by cultural representations of historical
'
what is shifting provides the grounds for what is
xed
gures
(e.g. Palmer 1996 quoted in Moore 2005), it collapses purpose of identity into
the body. Young women and men in this study show that motivation and
meaning do not solely lie in the body performance of gender although it is
often con
ned more within that sphere. For Soka Gakkai members, and per-
haps I am talking more about the female ones
-
although not necessarily, as
'
many young men
s identity/motivation seems also to lie most fundamentally
in an other-directed sense of wanting to do
'
'
good
for others in a process of a
self-other directed empathetic development
transforming gender in the sense
of transforming socially and economically constructed states of inequality
may be secondary to whether a person can be ful
-
lled and happy, as sug-
gested by Igeta. This view, of course, becomes problematic when it serves as
an excuse for not transforming unequal organisational structures, but the root
of unhappiness is not here, as most feminist literature implicitly indicates. It is
the focus on wider social transformation towards a state of greater equality
and respect for others that makes Soka Gakkai members part of what I
would classify more as
society. While the main socialising force on these
young women, Soka Gakkai, was often perpetuating typical gender roles and
expectations it is also Ikeda
'
civil
'
is philosophy and their activities, both religious
and political, that added to these women
'
s understanding of the
nature of citizenship as something much more than the
'
s and men
'
acting animal
laborans or homo economico. At the same time, without a call for fathers to
participate in caring for their children, such valued
'
freely
'
qualities may
never, as they wish, consolidate in wider society. Because of a generally weak
feminist consciousness among many supporters of Komeito, any change that
their political support for the party may bring seems to constitute a
'
feminine
'
'
by-
product
(Ortner 1984: 155).
However, just as the strong ethical ideals of Soka Gakkai members arguably
helped to keep Komeito from deviating too far from its professed ideals of
'
of action rather than an
'
intended consequence
'
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search