The Malaysian female: feminist perspectives to the construction of the Malaysian woman

Abstract

Malaysian women have come a long way since the country attained its independence in 1957. Although the Malaysian woman plays multi tasking roles as wives, mothers, daughters and professionals in respective working fields, she is still bound and restricted by male ideologies. It is our belief that the Malaysian woman has been moulded and shaped by her male counterpart (father, son, husband, male colleagues) and in certain instances, by her female counterpart too. The general aim of this paper is to explore the Malaysian nation from a gender perspective. This paper is our attempt at examining the position of the Malaysian woman in society. As the country is made up of 3 major races, this paper would also take into account the position of the Malay, Chinese and Indian woman. Journalistic writings of women writers like Marina Mahathir, Chong Sheau Ching and Meera Tharmaratnam will be used, among others, as the corpus for our discussion. Issues that will be dealt with will also include patriarchal ideologies of the Malaysian male, gender biases and female subordination. The paper will also attempt to present postcolonial perspectives on Malaysia and her women using journalistic works of writers like Mary Schneider, a columnist of The Star.