Negotiating gender: The women's movement for legal reform in colonial Hong Kong

This study is about the development of the women's movement and the gender negotiation process in colonial Hong Kong. The research focuses on women's policy-oriented political activism and seeks to explain the variation in degree of movement success. The research employs a mixture of qualitative research techniques ranging from interviews and participant observation to archival research. The variation in degree of success of the women's movement is analyzed through examination of four historical cases that include: the abolition of the mui tsai system, the abolition of concubinage, the campaign for female inheritance rights in the New Territories, and the equal opportunities legislation.; Drawing on interdisciplinary literature, a "structure-agency-context" framework is developed to explain movement outcomes in Hong Kong and in other places. The research contends that both the "political opportunity structure" (namely, the degree of political opening or democratization); the "agency" (the mobilization of the women's groups and the counter-mobilization of anti-feminist agents); and the particular "context" in which a social movement is embedded in are all significant factors that explain the success or failure of social movements.; The case studies show that Chinese culture and customary laws, British colonialism, the intimate "government-capitalist alliance," and the mobilization and relative bargaining power of the women's movement all shaped gender relations and affected the degree of success of the Hong Kong women's movement. This study argues that the lack of democracy in the colonial political system prior to the 1980s contributed to the slow pace of the government's agenda responsiveness to women's issues. In contrast, the partial democratization that emerged since the 1990s created a favorable political opportunity structure for the women's movement to mobilize for policy change, and has led to faster pace of government's agenda responsiveness.; The case studies also show the complex relationship between British colonialism, Chinese customary law, and the politics of gender. Both positive and negative impacts of British colonialism on the negotiation of gender in Hong Kong are analyzed. The research also compares Hong Kong with other Chinese societies such as Singapore. It explains why Hong Kong lagged behind other Chinese societies in abolishing Chinese customary laws.