THE PINKS AND BLUES OF THE GREEN MOVEMENT GENDER, POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS’ AND ACTIVISM IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This thesis examines the mediating effects of gender and political consciousness amongst activists in Singapore’s environmental movement, vis-a-vis the city-state’s political context. In Singapore, activism is relegated to an apolitical and feminised civic society, that is separate from a masculine political society. This gendering of political participation is further exacerbated by gendered polices that find legitimacy in “traditional values”. Gender thus mediates the development of activists’ political consciousness in many complex and intersecting ways. As a result, men and women interpret and engage in activism very differently. While they both express an internalisation of their place within an apolitical civic society, men and women differ in the ways they negotiate their gender and activist identities and the approaches, strategies and roles they adopt in the environmental movement. Men and women express an internalisation of activism’s negative perception in Singapore and a subsequent general uneasiness or unwillingness in identifying as activists. However, this was more prominent in men. Men and women also “do gender” in their activism, which is both cause and effect of different approaches, strategies, and roles adopted in the environmental movement. While men were more inclined to pursue formal or professional modes of action such as policy-making and green technology, women’s approaches involved more personal action frames and participation grounded in the politics of everyday life, such as social media advocacy. Women’s grassroots approach to activism also challenges the hegemonic power of gender and political discourse by rejecting and undermining limiting hierarchal structures and hegemonic techniques.