In the Shadows: Women, Power and Politics in Cambodia

Of particu lar interest is the positioning of women in the nexus of gender, race and nation whereby the Cambodian state has linked Khmer female citizens with the defense of interior racial and cultural boundaries against centuries-old fears of dimin ishment. [...] Theoretical Approaches to Gender and Politics Conventional approaches to the study of politics , power and the s tate are now generally viewed as incomplete as they do not consider the relevance of sexual roles in the determination of power dimen sions.1 In spite of the proliferation of gender studies in the past two decades, the study of women in Southeast A sian politics has not gained momentum.. [...] In the classical literature detailing the roles of couples, men are expected to earn the wages to look a fter the fam ily, while w omen are expected to run the household, take care of the children and provide a morally correct environment for the family's well-being.10 Thus abstracted , family gender relations clearly reflect the dichotomy of private and public spheres. [...] But the new woman in the home w as to complement rather than challenge the nationalist man in the family." 19 Women and the State: Regeneration and the Reproduction of the Nation A defining theme of Khmer politics since the eighteenth century has been the disappearance of the nation through attrition, annexation and cultural absorption by the Thais and Vietnamese.20 While the French “saved” Cambod. [...] For example, Kampuchea newspaper, which began publication in the early 1940s, published dozens of articles on the cultural, social and political roles of Khm er women in relation to the renaissance of the Khmer nation.