‘Astronaut families’: transnational lives of middle-class Taiwanese married women in Canada

Despite increasing interest in the study of Taiwanese migrants, the underlying concept and methodology remain gender-blind. Invisible from the Census are the women who emigrated with their husbands, leaving behind their adopted country to make a living elsewhere. Most of the ‘astronaut wives’ studied in this research are middle-class women who had careers in Taiwan prior to emigration, but became full-time home-makers upon arrival in Canada, the host country. The major questions raised for this research are: (1) What are the circumstances of migration for Taiwanese families? (2) How do Taiwanese ‘dan qi ma ma’/‘astronaut wives’ cope with the challenges of the new environment? (3) How do they relate to their husbands, children, and the Taiwanese community during the process of adaptation? Thirty women from ‘astronaut’ families were interviewed in Toronto and Vancouver in 2005 and 2006, using a semi-structured questionnaire, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation methods. It was found that migration has not liberated them from the traditional familial roles in Taiwan, but has however enabled them to build new social networks that play an important role in their new lives.     

‘DOING FAMILY’

Drawing on a case study of married female migrants from two rural villages of Hung Yen province to Hanoi City, Vietnam, this paper investigates the implications of female migration on gender roles and relations within families. The paper shows that wives' migration changes gender roles and relations within the family. Being on the move, migrant wives become the main breadwinners while their husbands left behind take on the role of carers. The migrant wives acquire a stronger voice in family matters and a strong sense of pride, worthiness and earned respect, whereas their husbands experience a loss of power. However, these changing gender roles and relations rarely result in family fragmentations; instead, families are still being sustained as migrant wives ‘do family’. By ‘doing family’, they can exploit their increasing power in an acceptable manner, so that patriarchal family ideals are not openly confronted. This paper provides a more nuanced understanding of the implications of female migration on families, i.e. the simultaneity of the reproduction of and the change in gender roles and relations within families.     

"A star that gathers lustre from the gloom of night": wives, marriage, and gender in early-nineteenth-century American temperance reform

This article argues that wives occupied a more central place than mothers in the early nineteenth-century American temperance movement, and that temperance literature portrayed them in two ways. First, temperance writers depicted the drunkard's wife as a pitiable example of the dire effects of male drinking on women and families. Second, they cast wives as potent moral influences on their husbands, capable of preventing the sober from faltering and reclaiming the drunkard. These portrayals coexisted with overtly misogynist views of women within the temperance movement that accused women of making men drunkards through perverted influence and blamed drunkard's wives for their own predicament. The temperance movement's depiction of wives' gender both reflected and contributed to the large ambivalence toward women in American society.     

Still ‘breadwinners’ and ‘providers’: Singaporean husbands,money and masculinity in transnational marriages

As international marriages continue to be on the rise around the world, and in East and Southeast Asia in particular, there is an increasing need for more focused studies on the phenomenon. While the extant literature has paid attention to the complex dynamics of marital intimacies through a ‘gender-sensitive’ lens, the experiences of men are still largely under-examined. This article considers the gendered and classed subjectivities of Singaporean husbands who have married Vietnamese wives and focuses on ‘money’ as a key vehicle through which the men are able to construct masculinities in the spaces of transnational marriage and family. We argue that these non-migrant men engage with transnational processes and practices strategically in order to reclaim respectable and honourable masculine status. In doing so, they dislodge themselves from the idiom of ‘failed masculinity’ commonly ascribed to men who seek foreign spouses, but at the same time reproduce dominant models of masculinity predicated on ‘breadwinning’ and ‘providing’. This article draws on the narratives of 20 Singaporean Chinese men from a range of social backgrounds to demonstrate the endurance of money and economic potency in the performance of masculinities.     

IS THE GENDER DIVISION OF LABOUR CHANGING IN JAPAN?

The paper examines potential changes in housework and employment among married couples in Japan. The data are from national surveys in 1994 and 2000 of persons aged 20–49. Wives’ housework hours decreased and the proportion of husbands doing any housework increased. A majority of wives are employed, many work full-time and husbands work long hours and many return home late in the evening. While wives do less housework if they are employed, husbands’ housework does not respond to their wives’ employment. Large gender differences persist, with wives’ employment associated with family constraints. In general, changes were the same across categories of the population, though three of five significant interactions with time involved wives’ education. A positive relationship between wives’ education and any housework by husbands becomes stronger over time. The results suggest gender inequality in housework may decrease in the future, with potential relevance to future marriage and fertility.     

International Marriage in Japan: 'Race' and 'Gender' perspectives

Despite an image of ethnic and cultural homogeneity, Japan in fact is host to significant minority populations. A considerable part of these minorities derive from flows of labour migrants from the Asian periphery to Japan-a process dominated by female labour migrants who work mainly in the entertainment and sex-related industries. One social phenomenon resulting from the presence of female labour migrants is the rise in cases of international marriages. With regard to Asian women, in Japan mainly negative images prevail in their representation as entertainers and sex workers. Public discourse has almost exclusively dealt with problems they experience as hostesses and/or prostitutes, and they are hardly ever portrayed as the ordinary wives of Japanese citizens-a role in which they have much in common with Japanese wives. Previous research on the problems occurring in international marriages has mainly concentrated on the 'racial' or 'ethno-cultural' differences between the spouses and has neglected the broader issue of gender inequalities. The latter is, however, of crucial importance, and it is argued by feminists that 'marriage' is often only a disguise for men's acquisition of cheap domestic and sexual services. In this article, I provide a preliminary analysis of international marriage as the result of labour migration by exploring the interconnectedness of patriarchal relations 'at home' and abroad. The situation of Asian women, primarily Filipinas, married to Japanese men, is explored through interview data. The issue of gender is, however, not sufficient when discussing Filipino wives of Japanese men. 'Racial' stereotypes also have to be taken into account as factors which circumscribe the social reality of Asian women in Japan.     

The "rights" of husbands and the "duties" of wives: power and desire in the American bedroom, 1850-1910

Historians of the nineteenth-century family have long argued for the dominance of a patriarchal model of marital relations in which demanding husbands subjected their passionless wives to a continual grind of emotional and sexual brutalization. This perspective has been challenged by revisionist historians who have argued that the compasionate marital ideal, characterized by considerate husbands and sexually satisfied wives, best reflected the experiences of middle-class married men and women. Based on the sexual experiences described in the pamphlets, letters, and newspaper articles written by sexual radicals known as "Free Lovers," this article argues that the late nineteenth-century marriage bed still was a site of conflict. Opening the door into the Victorian bedroom, the Free Lovers provide a unique view of both marital models in operation and transition that sheds light on the dynamic of change in which married couples struggled, failed,and sometimes achieved the erotic relationships promised by the companionate ideal.     

Fidelity and Sacrifice: The Gender Discourse of Traders in Pre- and Post-Opium War Canton

This article examines the discourse of two American couples in the China trade regarding fidelity and sacrifice during the period in which the spatial confines of the Canton system gave way to the intensified interactions of the Treaty Port era. Before the Opium War, when the Qing court had mandated that Western husbands conducting business in Canton live apart from their wives, marital tension was accentuated by the separation from absentee husbands. In the subsequent Treaty Port era, enhanced spatial mobility of the couples did not assuage their concerns. Instead, intensified cross-cultural encounters allowed them to project their feelings and expectations on the “foreign other” as racial categories developed and their imperial proclivities began to escalate. Bringing the Western women in contact with elite Chinese and other Western women only aggravated their agitation as they faced their Chinese counterparts, whom they readily construed as competitors. The socio-political and spatial reconfigurations provided new dimensions to the discourse of fidelity and sacrifice. The voices of the American couples recorded here are those of individuals, but the underlying anxiety they articulated represented the growing pains of more intimate Sino-Western encounters.     

Criss-crossing Boundaries: Ultraorthodox Jewish women go to work

The most prestigious work in the ultraorthodox Jewish community is full-time, unpaid, religious study, which is allocated to men. As a result, married women are often responsible for both homemaking and breadwinning. This study examines the 'going to work' of these Israeli wives as an encompassing operation of two directions--the going to and the coming from work. First, it analyses the sociocultural evolution of ultraorthodox gender identities which induced the 'going to work' of the wives. Second, it probes the personal consequences of job-related exposure to modern values of work and gender, following the wives' 'coming from work.' In-depth interviews with 55 married women holding out-of-community jobs that increase their exposure to modern norms revealed discontent regarding domestic help and the financial contribution of their husbands. Dissatisfaction was articulated in subtle terms, by referring to fatigue and the hope that their husbands would eventually look for paid jobs. Such expressions of discontent, associated with the 'coming from work,' are suggestive of private resistance and the modification of personal values. The gendered geography of ultraorthodox women's work illustrates also the geography of their subordination and resistance.     

Marital violence in a martial town: husbands and wives in early modern Portsmouth, 1653-1781

Sessions papers from early modern Portsmouth survive from 1653 on and are nearly continuous for eighty-five years, that is, from 1696 to 1781. They include 356 cases of wife beating in addition to 7,658 other assaults; as such, the town's records allow for a comparison of the violent behavior of individual wife beaters both inside and outside of their marriages. These comparisons suggest that assaults on wives were more severe than assaults on strangers and acquaintances: not only were many wives assaulted on several occasions before lodging a complaint, the attacks themselves often resulted in greater injury, reflecting (1) a greater tendency to use potentially lethal weapons and (2) a differential in strength between most husbands and wives. The motives of individual wife beaters are less clear; what can be said with certainty is that wife beatings, like assaults in general, tended to rise whenever soldiers were demobilized and men were either unemployed or underemployed.     

中韩国际婚姻的跨国家庭纽带研究——以汉族婚姻移民女性为中心

论文以22名嫁韩中国女性为对象,从跨国主义的视角分析她们在韩的婚姻现状、与原生家庭间的跨国联系及这种联系的性质和意义。研究发现,这些女性绝大多数来自中国东北三省和山东沿海地区;中介婚姻占近70%,且与丈夫的年龄差距普遍较大;再婚者占较大比例。其中,60%与韩国丈夫育有子女,已在韩国生活多年,并从事各种非专业化工作。这些女性通过汇款寄物,信息通讯交流,回国探亲,邀请家人来韩等一系列方式维持着跨国家庭纽带。而她们的中国家人也为其提供育儿、家政以及精神抚慰等多方面的支持。通过跨国家庭纽带,汉族女性与原生家庭成员之间实现的是一种灵活变动着的"跨国看护",双方是互惠互利的。     

"From Farm to Factory: Transitions in Work, Gender, and Leisure at Banning Mill, 1910 1930s"

Abstract This study explores new and traditional forms of leisureenjoyed by white southern rural millhands at Banning Mill between1910 and the 1930s. As they moved from farm to factory, millhandsexperienced unfamiliar working conditions, changes in genderroles in and outside the home, and an increase in leisure time.While both farmers and millhands had opportunities to socialize,this study will compare traditional forms of entertainment availableto farmers with similar and new recreations found in rural millvillages such as Banning Mill in Carroll County, Georgia. A comparison of leisure activities also reveals new ways inwhich rural cotton millhands separated themselves in socialsettings. Gender divisions in village recreation reflect changingroles at home as men and women coped with the transition fromfarm to factory in different ways. Specific or individual interestscreated an atmosphere in which wives, husbands, teenagers, andchildren typically socialized with members of their own sexand age. Juxtaposing the ways in which men and women chooseto spend their free time suggests husbands had a more difficulttime adjusting to work and life in mill villages than theirspouses or children.     

Gamming Chairs and Gimballed Beds: Seafaring Women on Board Nineteenth-Century Ships

During the nineteenth century, many captains’ wives from New England took up residence on the ships their husbands commanded. This article focuses on how those women at sea attempted to use material culture to domesticate their voyaging space. While writing in their journals, they referred to not only the small personal things such as books and knitting needles that they brought in their trunks, but also large items, built for and used by women, such as gamming chairs, deckhouses, parlor organs, sewing machines, and gimballed beds. Mary Brewster attempted to retreat from the ship’s officers in her small deckhouse, Annie Brassey slept in the gimballed bed, and Lucy Lord Howes disembarked in a gamming chair when captured by Confederates during the Civil War. Evidence of these artifacts found during shipwreck archaeology could be used to further what is known of the culture aboard ships on which women lived. Analysis of the material culture reveals how a captain’s wife domesticated space, altered her environment, and made a home on the ship for her family.     

Marriage and the family in a Maltese parish: St. Mary's (Qrendi) in the eighteenth century

This article addresses the Maltese traditional family, taking St. Mary's (Qrendi) as a test case. It results that couples married in their early twenties, while a high proportion of men and women never married at all. Marriage was not popular so that one-fifth of all marriages were remarriages. Very few widows remarried and it was only for some economic reason that they sought another man. There is no evidence though that a high rate of celibacy resulted in flagrant promiscuity even if there is evidence that the Qrendin were not so particular about their sex life. No birth control was practiced within marriage and children followed one another regularly. This brings into relief the parents' unconcern for their offspring's future as well as the inferior status of women because husbands made their wives several offspring. Relations between the spouses were poor so that dissatisfied couples went their own ways.     

弱群心声：“出洋子弟勿相配”——珠三角侨乡歌谣中的出洋传统与家庭意识

随着鸦片战争后的出洋倾向,珠三角地区成为北美华人的祖籍家乡。北美六十多年的排华移民政策同时助长了当年珠三角侨乡的经济繁荣。然而,侨乡金山家庭物质富裕的表面,也掩盖了家庭分离中出洋者的谋生血泪和留守家里的金山妇的精神痛苦,对此华侨研究历史书上甚少记载或研究,却不加掩饰地生动地反映和保存在当年的妇孺民歌童谣里。本文以所收集到的新中国成立前的珠三角地区的妇孺民歌童谣为据,结合同时代在北美旧金山华人社区流传的粤讴体裁的＂金山歌＂作品,分析探讨了当年侨乡地方歌谣文化所反映的出洋传统、婚姻价值取向和留守家园的侨眷（妇孺）的生活形态、家庭意识及其不平则鸣的抗争声音。     

THE OPTIMAL LOCATIONS OF MULTIPLE BRIDGES,CONNECTING FACILITIES,OR PRODUCT VARIETIES*

ABSTRACT This paper considers the optimal locations of two or more facilities, and the optimal number of facilities, when trips are made in pairs. The results are the same as standard models of spatial competition when there is perfect matching, but not when there is random matching. The first interpretation is bridges across a river, with residential locations on one side matched perfectly or randomly to jobs on the other side. The second interpretation is connecting facilities, such as tennis courts or restaurants where pairs of consumers meet. The third interpretation is product differentiation, with husbands and wives jointly choosing from among varieties.     

Sex,fertility and menstruation among the Beng of the Ivory Coast: a symbolic analysis

An attempt is made in this discussion to relocate the topic of menstruation in a new framework, one not directly defined by gender and not restricted to the view that menstrual blood and menstrual pollution are by definition viewed negatively. The Beng (Ivory Coast) notions of menstruation are explored as they relate to wider concepts of pollution and fertility. The analysis demonstrates how menstrual pollution among the Beng forms part of another type of pollution--the spatio symbolic pollution of human fertility when it is removed from its proper place--and how, rather than debasing women, menstruation serves to have added value to a major aspect of women's labor--that of cooking. There are 3 rules which Beng observe concerning menstruation: no initiated, married, or previously married woman who is menstruating may set foot in the forest for any reason other than to defecate; a menstruating woman may not touch a corpse; and a man may not eat food cooked by his wife during the days she is menstruating, nor may a Master of the Earth eat food cooked by any menstruating woman. At first, these taboos appear to be another case of the pollution of women through menstruation and another instance of women's oppression. When explored, the Master of Earth explained that menstrual blood is considered as special because it carries in it a living being and that menstrual blood is like the flower which must emerge before the fruit--the baby--can be born. No answer was provided to the question of pollution. There seemed to be no other rules specifying what activities a woman should or should not pursue during menstruation. She is not isolated from the flux of social life, and sexual activiity during menstruation, though not commonly done, is not taboo. The fact that it is only working in the forest, and not other activities, that is prohibited to menstruating women reveals that menstruation is not regarded as dangerous to men or as polluting in general. Rather, menstrual blood is seen as a symbol of human fertility, and for this reason is not allowed to touch the forest/fields, which are viewed as a form of Earth fertility. Forest/field fertility and village fertility must be conceptually kept apart, according to the Beng view of the world. Similarly, Beng husbands may not eat food cooked by their menstruating wives for a related reason. Menstruating women who cook are handling crops produced in the forest/fields, and their husbands, with whom they produce (village) children, must therefore avoid contact with such food, lest the 2 realms of village and forest fertility be mixed. Food cooked by menstruating women is agreed by all Beng to be the most delicious of all Beng food, thus giving positive value to an activity of menstruating women.     

Moving stories: precarious work and multiple migrations

According to the United Nations over 3% of the global population or 232 million people currently live outside their country of birth. Their significance as a growing proportion of the labour force in many European countries is widely known. It is also evident that women – many of them young – are increasingly represented among economic migrants and asylum seekers. However, the longer term contribution of women, as migrants and as workers, is less well recorded. Here, I explore the connections between migration and employment, through the lens of oral histories undertaken with women who moved to the UK. Their life stories illustrate the growing diversity among female migrants as well as the changing nature of women’s employment. My key focus is, however, not on the work these women migrants undertook in the UK, but on precarious forms of waged work engaged in during the migration journey itself. I also reflect on oral history as a method and the problems of writing difference for feminist scholars working with and on women migrants.     

Between two cities: Jewish women and exogamous marriage in medieval Catalonia

In the marriage strategies of medieval Catalan Jews, the economic security of women came second to the economic goals of families. Exogamous marriages – marriages between the Jewish communities of two different cities – exacerbated the vulnerability of Jewish wives, widows and divorcées, due in large part to restrictions on women’s travel. Women who moved in order to marry experienced greater difficulty in managing financial resources and lost access to kinship networks. When women married men from other cities, at best they found themselves unable to take advantage of the connections created by their marriages. At worst, they risked financial loss if their husbands absconded to other cities with their dowries. Five case studies drawn from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Catalan notarial registers reveal some of the ways in which exogamous marriages disadvantaged Jewish women. The extreme case of exogamy delineates the boundaries of possibility for Jewish women in the medieval Western Mediterranean.     

Home–work relations and the spatialization of care: wives on the margins of the Israeli high-tech industry

This study applies the concept of care to examine how home–work transitions of high-tech men affect others in these two places, namely their wives and managers. The high-tech industry is famous for its particularly demanding culture and masculine disposition, which contest daily involvement with family and domestic affairs. Care is conceptualized as a wide-ranging multifaceted notion that embraces work, morals, and policy, and is represented by the exchange of various tangible and intangible, resources across the home–work divide. In-depth interviews with 22 high-tech managers and 47 wives of high-tech engineers disclose a well-established reciprocity of care resources. The managers reward the wives' nonmaterial support of the engineers/husbands with rhetorical recognition and nonfinancial benefits. The spatialization of care across the home–work divide is discussed, pointing to its hierarchical – not only contextual – relations.