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The Modern Burmese Woman and the Politics of Fashion in Colonial Burma
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2008
Abstract
In the mid-1930s, criticisms of modern women's habits, clothing, and hairstyles exploded in the Burmese popular press, showing that “modern fashion” made a man no less virtuous and patriotic but rendered a woman immoral and unpatriotic. This article examines the nature of these criticisms and their motivations, and reveals that the controversy over the dress and comportment of modern women was a complex and multifaceted phenomenon sustained by irreducibly plural interests. It argues that neither the appeal for traditionalism and national sufficiency in the face of multiple modern and colonial temptations, nor the changing tides of Burmese nationalist movements sufficiently explain the preoccupation with modern women's fashion, and suggests that the discourse on modern women needs to be analyzed as stemming from a profound unsettling of existing notions of masculinity and femininity, and its effect on relations between the sexes.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2008
References
List of References
Bandoola
Dagon
Deedoke
The Guardian
Myanmar Alin
Ngan Hta Lawka
The Screen Show Weekly
Toetetyei
Thuriya