FEMALE BODY, ETHNIC SOLIDARITY, AND THE MASCULINE EMBODIMENT OF THE PACIFIC RIM CAPITAL

Abstract

ln response to the gang-rape of Chinese-Indonesian women during/and the Jakarta Riot of May 1998, the diasporic Chinese communities have highlighted the ethnic issue rather than the gender issue, assuming that advocating the targeted ethnic group would also empower the women - as the very victims of the gang-rape - of the group. This paper questions such an assumption, and argues that it is gender which transcends the ethnicity, rather than the reverse. This paper then attempts to question the making of such an assumption since the emerging diasporic Chinese communities have come along with the emerging Chinese capitalism in the Pacific. Rim, which is masculine in its embodiment. Eventually this paper suggests that gendered strategy of struggle might be more prospective for broadening the possible support-base.