Gender and Change in Hong Kong: Globalization, Postcolonialism, and Chinese Patriarchy (review)

In 2003, soon after this book came out, a scandal rocked Hong Kong's Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), set up in 1996 with a mission to eliminate discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy, disability, and family status. Anna Wu, a former legislator who had served as the Commission's chairperson since 1999 and at times challenged the Hong Kong Government over some sexually biased laws, was rejected for another contract renewal. Michael Wong, the retired judge who succeeded the chairpersonship, decided to reduce the Commission to the status of another government lapdog, first by sacking the incoming director of operations, Patrick Yu, whose appointment had been confirmed by Anna Wu prior to her departure. To this personnel change the local mass media reacted with indignation and distrust. They perceived it as government plot to revamp the EOC along a more conservative line. Although the crisis was resolved by Wong's resignation under mass pressure, it exemplifies editor Eliza Lee's prophecy about the postcolonial political order in Hong Kong, which, in her own words, "is characterized by an increase in political authoritarianism that constricts the space for women's popular participation" (p. 201).

Lee's compilation is not just concerned with the prospects for gender issues in Hong Kong. A collection of extended versions of papers presented in a conference titled "Gender and Development in Asia," held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in November 1997, this book critically reviews the important social, political, and economic transformations pertaining to gender in Hong Kong, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s when this former British colony was then proactively preparing for its reunification with China in 1997. The book starts with Lee's very useful introduction, offering a theoretical framework that contextualizes Hong Kong's gender issues by depicting the complex interaction of three important forces in operation, namely globalization, postcolonialism, and Chinese patriarchy. The framework is then elaborated and substantiated in seven case studies, each in one chapter with a sharp focus. They include legal changes (Carole J. Petersen), political participation (Lisa Fischler), professional women (Eliza W. Y. Lee), working-class women (Stephen Wing-Kai Chiu and Ching-Kwan Lee), keeping concubines (Ka-King Wu), Christianity (Wai-Ching Wong), and international migration (Siumi Maria Tam). This broad spectrum of studies illustrates how the three forces interacted in the last decades of the twentieth century. The book concludes with Lee's analysis of the prospects for the development of a critical feminist discourse in the context of post-handover Hong Kong. The sophisticated theoretical supposition, ample case studies, and the attempt to predict the future of gender discourse in Hong Kong combine to form the unique features of this book and make it stand out among other publications related to gender in Hong Kong, which are primarily empirical and historical.

The book demonstrates the dilemma of Hong Kong in the ascendancy of a critical feminist discourse. While globalization and postcolonialism combined to provide opportunities for women's activism and oppositional discourses, the post-handover situations were characterized by developments unfavorable to the feminist pursuit for a fairer society. Such developments included an increase in political authoritarianism and ongoing economic depression that have continued to this day and contributed to a class polarization between local Chinese women. Educational opportunities have on the whole expanded in the last few decades, but the economic restructuring, particularly in the past decade, eroded the commonly accepted "success ethics" miracle that was perceived to have come about as a result of the "work harder, earn more" principle, which had worked satisfactorily in the bygone labor-intensive manufacturing era. Massive relocations to mainland China resulted in a tightening job market in manufacturing, which in turn sent many middle-aged, middle- and lower-class women back to domesticity and made them dependent (again) on their husbands as their means of support.

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