"I wish to become the leader of women and give them equal rights in society": how young Australians and Asians understand feminism and the women's movement

It is widely known that “feminism” is an “f… word” in Anglophone western countries, refused by many women and despised by many men. Some commentators argue that the word “feminism” has even less currency in Asian nations, where histories of colonialism cast feminism as an imperialist import from the west. My research findings, based on a study of young South Australians and young Asians living in Beijing, Hanoi, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Seoul and Yogyakarta, challenge this claim. In general, there is stronger support for feminism and the women’s movement in most of the Asian samples. Various explanations for this are canvassed. First, where feminist reform has stalled in the Anglophone west, women’s movements in countries like South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan are still achieving legislative change and the introduction of women’s studies courses, although this is met with both support and resistance among young people. Secondly, there is widespread endorsement of “state feminisms” in countries like China, Viet Nam and Indonesia, often built on historical connections between the women’s movement and the national liberation movement. Third, in some countries, such as India at least until recently, the women’s movement’s role is constructed as the “upliftment” or “empowerment” of the poor and disadvantaged. Excused from being the objects of change, middle class Indians might find feminism less personally discomfiting than the “personal is political” rhetoric of western feminism.