New Perspectives and Research on Malaysian History

Highlighting Malay Women In Malaysian Historiography

Highlighting Malay Women In Malaysian Historiography Mahani Musa Introduction In the 1970s the omission of women in contemporary historical narratives was first raised by women’s liberation movements in the United States. The discussions among the leading feminists subsequently led to a new trend in intellectual discourse and to attempts to write women’s history. Undeniably the change in focus in historical research in the United States from political history to social and demographic history and the reconceptualisation of “history from above” to “history from below” provided more space for women to be highlighted on the historical stage.1 Undeniably, gender studies are much more developed in the West, notably the United States, with the involvement of both female and male scholars as well as by non-specialists.2 In Malaysia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia there is little attempt to write women’s history, although Malaysian cultural anthropologists have already blazed the trail in gender studies. Anthropological studies deepened our understanding of women’s issues, as the discipline ventured into areas that are seen as female-friendly such as the family, the domestic economy, adat (Malay customs) and religion, education and health. Following the studies by foreign scholars, like Barbara E. Ward and Ester Boserup,3 there are now many more collaborative studies on the women of Southeast Asia.4 University of Hawaii’s 179 1 See, Tan Liok Ee 1996. “Wanita dan Penulisan Sejarah: Batasan dan Potensi Perspektif Gender.” In Badriyah Haji Salleh & Tan Liok Ee (eds.), Alam Pensejarahan Dari Pelbagai Perspektif, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka, pp. 88–101. 2 Two interesting studies are James Reed 1978. From Private Vice to the Public Virtue: the Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830, New York: Basic Books; and Allan M. Brant 1985. No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States Since 1880, London: Oxford University Press. 3 Barbara E. Ward, (ed.) 1965, Women in the New Asia: The Changing Social Roles of Men and Women in South-EastAsia, Paris: UNESCO. Researchers from the discipline of sociology and anthropology contributed all essays in this volume. See also Ester Boserup, 1970, Women’s Role in Economic Development, New York: St. Martin’s Press. 4 See for instance, Penny Van Esterik (ed). 1996. Women of Southeast Asia, Illinois: Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Barbara Andaya in her introduction to the volume of essays, Other Pasts, which she edited, says anthropologists through the sophistry of their theoretical work have been invaluable in promoting a wider consideration of gender – especially the “cultural system of practices and symbols” through which the roles assigned to men and women are historically produced, contested and negotiated, while scholars in literature and philopsophy have managed to incorporate poststructuralist ideas to enable us to understand how different cultures “encode, impart and regulate ideas about gender.”5 Women’s studies In Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia, women’s studies have elicited little interest due to a variety of factors. In the case of women’s history, the lack of sources is a vexing impediment. In Europe social history writing became a possibility because of the availability of the relevant documentary materials like village records, school and church records, correspondence and memoirs. In Southeast Asia pre-colonial records are difficult to locate, while colonial records do not provide much information on women except perhaps in areas of public health, such as in cases of prostitution and venereal diseases. For feminist writers in Malaysia, the paucity of women’s studies and the lack of sources on women’s history are very much related to the current understanding of what constitute “national history” in Malaysia. Very often, national history excludes or marginalizes women, because of its focus on issues like inter-state diplomacy, political leadership and warfare in which men play the dominant roles. The available documentary material, always refers more to the men. During colonial times, for instance, attention was directed towards the relationship between colonial officials and the sultans and the chiefs. In other words, the available information, actually emphasised male activities, while women were left out, or, at best, appeared as minor functionaries to the stories about men.6 The above observation is generally valid for Southeast Asia. After the end of the Second World War and with more new nation states attempting to write their own national history, the main focus was still on the nationalist movements and the struggles against western colonialism which was dominated by men. Even...