{"id":16654,"date":"2012-05-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-13T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2012\/05\/14\/srn-aware-roundtable-on-changing-definitions-of-masculinity-and-femininity-in-singapore\/"},"modified":"2020-09-28T23:56:34","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T15:56:34","slug":"srn-aware-roundtable-on-changing-definitions-of-masculinity-and-femininity-in-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2012\/05\/14\/srn-aware-roundtable-on-changing-definitions-of-masculinity-and-femininity-in-singapore\/","title":{"rendered":"SRN-AWARE Roundtable on ‘Changing Definitions of Masculinity and Femininity in Singapore’"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday 12th May 2012, the SRN\u00a0were delighted to host a roundtable with AWARE (Association of Women for\u00a0Action and Research) on the subject of ‘Changing Definitions of Masculinity\u00a0and Femininity\u00a0in Singapore.’ The three speakers included our own Head of the SRN Steering Committee, Associate Professor Michelle Lazar. Originally three speakers were invited to present but unfortunately at the last minute Associate Professor Eric Thompson of NUS was unable to attend due to a family emergency. Nonetheless, a packed house in the Faculty Lounge\u00a0were welcomed by the afternoon’s chair Dr. Vernie Oliveiro who would also act as moderator for the Q&A session.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dr. Vernie Oliveiro, A\/P Michelle Lazar and Dr. Teo You Yenn in front of a packed audience<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Frist to present was A\/P Michelle Lazar on the topic of ‘”Power Femininity” and Beauty Advertising’. Using examples drawn form contemporary advertising Prof Lazar showed how ‘power femininity’ is part of\u00a0a global post-feminist discourse which appropriates the language of emancipation and empowerment to seduce women into consuming beauty products and services. Four particular tropes identified through the language employed in the ads were ’empowered beauty’, ‘knowledge as power’, ‘agentive power’ and ‘sexual power’. Despite the promises of this new actualization, the images used are still structurally hierarchical where the women depicted are all traditionally beautiful, young, slender and heterosexual.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
A\/P Michelle Lazar speaking with a typical slimming advertisement on the screen behind<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Next to present was Dr. Teo You Yenn, Assistant Professor in the Division of Sociology at NTU, who presented on ‘Gendered Citizenship in Singapore: Good men citizens vs. good women citizens’. Despite the broad opportunities available to Singaporean women in the workplace Dr, Teo demonstrated the persistent difficult ‘choices’ women are forced to make when it comes to having a family and care-giving, many of which are reinforced by structural aspects of state policies. Much of the discourse on typical domestic roles needs to be revised to incorporate the notion of housework and caregiving as a privilege rather than a chore. The false zero-sum game between male and female identities and responsiblities needs renegotiation, perhaps to broach the hitherto taboo issue of national service obligations.<\/p>\n

There then followed a very lively question and answer session, which lasted for\u00a0around an hour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Corinna Lim, Executive Director of AWARE raises a point about vulnerable young women and the risks associated with mixed messages of sexuality and availability<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The points raised were varied covering the ‘slut walk’ movement in India, the lack of critical thinking in the post-feminist era, the depoliticization of feminism and the increasingly disparate feminist voices in our complex\u00a0mulitcultural present.\u00a0The afternoon concluded with\u00a0an opportunity for participants to discuss the issues further over tea and refreshments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday 12th May 2012, the SRN\u00a0were delighted to host a roundtable with AWARE (Association of Women for\u00a0Action and Research) on the subject of ‘Changing Definitions of Masculinity\u00a0and Femininity\u00a0in Singapore.’ The three speakers included our own Head of the SRN Steering Committee, Associate Professor Michelle Lazar. Originally three speakers were invited to present but unfortunately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":16655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4529],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27737,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16654\/revisions\/27737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}