Current Sociology Monograph2014, Vol. 62(4) 550 –567© Th

Current Sociology Monograph
2014, Vol. 62(4) 550 –567
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0011392114524510
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The sociology of gender in
Southern perspective
Raewyn Connell
University of Sydney, Australia
Abstract
In its founding generations, sociology was greatly concerned
with gender, as part of
its theorizing of the world of colonialism and empire. Sociology
then focused on the
global metropole, so its analysis of gender in the decades since
the Women’s Liberation
movement has been developed in a Northern container. This can
now change, if the
extraversion of sociology around the global South can be
overcome. The thematics
of gender analyses in the periphery highlight historical
processes of the formation and

disruption of gender orders, dealing with issues of violence and
land. The work of a
number of gender theorists and researchers from the South is
discussed. The material
conditions of knowledge formation in developing countries have
to be recognized, as
well as the differing ways intellectuals in the South handle
influences from the metropole.
New issues have emerged in the sociology of gender as a
neoliberal world order has
taken shape, producing new patterns of masculinized power as
well as pathways of
change for women.
Keywords
Gender, globalization, patriarchy, postcolonial, sociology,
southern theory
Introduction
Gender research is, today, one of the major fields of sociology,
both academic and
applied. The sociology of gender has had significant impact in
the education and health
sectors, in violence prevention, antidiscrimination and equal
opportunity policy. As an
organized field, however, it is not yet strongly influenced by the
postcolonial revolution
in knowledge.
Corresponding author:
Raewyn Connell, University of Sydney, Faculty of Education
and Social Work A35, Sydney, NSW 2006,
Australia.
Email: [email protected]
524510CSI0010.1177/0011392114524510Current

SociologyConnell
research-article2014
Article
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Connell 551
In this article I explore how the sociology of gender can be
developed in the light of
Southern theory and Southern research. This is not a small task,
not a matter of creating
a postcolonial corner inside the sociology of gender. The issue
concerns foundational
concepts and methods, global relations of power and centrality
in knowledge production.

The analysis must be grounded in an understanding of the
history of sociology, but also
needs to engage contemporary global developments in feminist
thought.
I start with the changing place of gender issues in the discipline
of sociology, how
sociology in the global North has tried to theorize global issues,
and how both metropole
and periphery are embedded in a global economy of knowledge.
I then turn to intellec-
tual work in the global South, first considering some of the
distinctive themes that emerge
from gender analyses in the periphery, then sociology-of-
knowledge questions about the
production of knowledge and configurations of knowledge.
Finally, I discuss the view of
gender relations on a world scale that is tentatively emerging
from these starting-points.
I am conscious that this article addresses a vast terrain and can
offer only a few details
from a rich literature. The material is drawn mainly from sub-
Saharan Africa, parts of
Latin America, India and Australia; a longer treatment would
also consider gender analy-
sis in the Arab world, East and Central Asia, and more. I hope
this is enough to document
the need for change and show some of the directions of
movement.
Sociology and gender
The place of gender in sociology is debated, and has changed. A
quarter-century ago, US
colleagues spoke of ‘the missing feminist revolution in

sociology’ (Stacey and Thorne,
1985). The revolution at that time was not so much missing as
refused. Sociology clung
to a foundation story in which the discipline was invented by a
group of white male
founding fathers preoccupied with European modernity and its
experience of industriali-
zation, class conflict, alienation and bureaucracy. There was
little place for gender in this
story.
It is true that white men were central to the creation of
sociology as a cultural project.
But the group was larger than the Marx–Weber–and–Durkheim
foundation myth usually
acknowledges, and its history is much more interesting.
Nineteenth-century sociology in
the global metropole drew much of its data from the colonized
world. It had a great deal
to say about gender and race. In fact these were key issues for
the first two generations
of sociologists.
These issues were seen, however, from the point of view of the
colonizing powers.
The discipline of sociology was constructed as a debate among
the intellectuals of the
imperial centre about the world that global imperialism had
encountered or created. In
Comtean sociology, as I will call the dominant form of the
discipline c. 1850–1920, dif-
ference between the metropole and the colony, interpreted as
‘progress’, was sociology’s
key organizing concept.
The status of women was commonly seen as an index of

progress. The evolution of
sexuality, household and marriage was a theme of great interest
to Comtean sociologists.
Spencer, whose Principles of Sociology (1893–1896 [1874–
1877]) was probably the
most influential sociology book ever written, wrote at length
about ‘domestic institu-
tions’, meaning family, kinship and the status of women. Ward,
the most prominent
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552 Current Sociology Monograph 2 62(4)
among the founders of North American sociology, wrote in
Dynamic Sociology (1897) at
even greater length about sexuality, gender differences and
‘sexuo-social inequalities’.
Engels’ interest in the ‘origin of the family’ is famous.
Sumner’s Folkways (1934 [1906])
was stuffed with details about kinship, sex, marriage,
prostitution and incest; and more
examples could be given.
Northern sociology’s twentieth-century history involved a
partial retreat from impe-
rial concerns and a sharp retreat from the Comtean framework,
to focus on social differ-
ence and social conflict within the society of the metropole
(Connell, 2007). It was a
more restricted version of sociology, with its research
technology of censuses, surveys
and urban ethnography, that was exported to the rest of the
world during the Cold War
era, and became the basis of academic and policy sociology as
we know it today.
In the mainstream sociology of the mid-twentieth century,
gender issues were mainly
understood as questions about the domestic order inside
metropolitan society. This was
the era of ‘sex role’ concepts, as understood in the USA by
Parsons (Parsons and Bales,
1956) and Komarovsky (1950). Change in gender norms was
certainly recognized by
these writers. But their conceptualization of sex roles was
addressed to the functioning

and normative integration of Northern society, understood as a
closed system. The first
phase of feminist sociology in the 1970s offered a more critical
evaluation of norms and
roles, now seen as restrictions on women’s freedom, without
immediately changing the
conceptual framework.
Nevertheless sociology under the impact of the women’s
movement paid more atten-
tion to gender issues than most academic disciplines. Gender is
currently one of the larg-
est fields of empirical sociology. Journals such as Gender and
Society publish a stream
of research on the gendered division of social labour, gender
patterns in culture, gen-
dered institutions, gender identities, sexuality, household
structures, and more. Sociology
became the main base for theoretical analysis of gender
relations as one of the main
structures of the societies we live in (Barrett, 1980; Walby,
2009).
In the last generation, the themes of the sociology of gender
have continued to evolve.
Studies of sexuality have become more prominent, influenced
by the urgency of the
struggle with HIV/AIDS (Dowsett, 1996). The appalling scale
of gender-based violence
around the world has become clear, though we are still far from
having adequate theories
about this (Small Arms Survey, 2011). Gender patterns in
schooling, the subject of sev-
eral waves of public controversy, have become increasingly
important issues in the soci-
ology of education. Under the influence of post-structural

thought since the 1980s, the
discursive construction of gender identity, and the instability of
gender identity, have
become major themes. In this context, questions about patterns
of embodiment displaced
the old nature/nurture quarrel.
Sociology as a discipline has been greatly enriched by this
work. The injustice,
violence and distress that unequal gender relations produce are
widely recognized as
key concerns for applied sociology. The development of the
sociology of gender over
the last generation is, all things considered, a notable
achievement of progressive
social thought.
It must be said, however, that the sociology of gender has
developed essentially within
the framework of twentieth-century Northern sociology, with its
post-Comtean
preoccupation with the society of the global metropole.
Northern theorists provide the
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Connell 553
field’s leading ideas and Northern methodologists its main
research techniques. This
situation is in urgent need of change.
Northern gender analysis and the global dimension
The situation has already begun to change. In the last 20 years it
has become normal for
Anglophone gender scholarship to acknowledge global issues.
The number of papers
recorded in the ISI Web of Knowledge database whose titles or
abstracts combined the
term ‘globalization’ with a gender term rose 10-fold between
the early 1990s and early
2000s. Collections of ethnographic, historical or thematic
studies from around the
periphery such as Women’s Activism and Globalization (Naples
and Desai, 2002) are
now an established publishing genre. So are integrative

international surveys of knowl-
edge, such as Gender, Work and Economy: Unpacking the
Global Economy (Gottfried,
2013).
Influential sociologists in the metropole now try to formulate
their conceptual analy-
ses at a world level. Notable examples are Chow’s (2003)
argument on the gendered
character of globalization; Acker’s (2004) sociology of the
gender processes in global
capitalism; Unterhalter’s (2007) global analysis of gender and
social justice in education;
and Cockburn’s (2010) analysis of gender relations,
militarization and war.
This scholarship on global gender is illuminating and
productive, but contains a deep-
seated problem. Acker (2004: 17) refers to ‘the mostly Western
scholarship on gender
and globalization’, and – setting aside some doubts about the
concept ‘Western’ – she is
right. It isn’t only that Europe and the United States publish
most of the world’s journals
and that most of the articles in them are about Europe and the
United States. Most schol-
arly gender analysis remains in the conceptual world of Marx,
Foucault, de Beauvoir and
Butler even when it is talking about sexuality in India, identity
in Australia, migration in
the Mediterranean or factories in Mexico.
If we look back into the history of gender research, it is clear
that data acquired by
European colonial conquest and postcolonial dependency have
been very important to

metropolitan theorists. Mohanty’s famous essay ‘Under Western
eyes’ (1991) revealed
the colonial gaze that constructed a false image of the ‘third
world woman’. But even this
understated the importance of knowledge from the periphery.
The colonized world provided raw material for metropolitan
feminist debates about
the origin of the family, matriarchy, the gender division of
labour, the Oedipus complex,
third genders, male violence and war, marriage and kinship,
gender symbolism – and
now, of course, globalization. Such pivotal feminist texts as
Mitchell’s Psychoanalysis
and Feminism (1974), Rubin’s ‘The traffic in women’ (1975)
and Chodorow’s The
Reproduction of Mothering (1978) would be inconceivable
without the colonial knowl-
edge on which Freud, Lévi-Strauss and other mighty men of the
metropole built their
theories.
Gender analysis, then, is involved in a global political economy
of knowledge. Global
imperialism left no culture separate or intact, not even the
culture of the imperialists. The
colonial encounter, continuing as the encounter of contemporary
communities with glo-
balized power, is itself a massive source of social dynamics –
including intellectual
innovation.

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This is the territory now being explored in a vigorous literature
on the global dynam-
ics of knowledge. The strands of this literature include research
on Southern theory
(Connell, 2007; Meekosha, 2011), alternative traditions in
social science (Alatas, 2006;
Patel, 2010), postcolonial sociology (Bhambra, 2007; Reuter
and Villa, 2010), indigenous

knowledge (Odora Hoppers, 2002), the psychology of liberation
(Montero, 2007), deco-
lonial thought (Mignolo, 2007; Quijano, 2000), the
decolonization of methodology
(Smith, 1999) and more. In the context of this article it would
be superfluous to discuss
this whole terrain, but my analysis of the sociology of gender
has a specific starting-point
within it. This is the global sociology of knowledge developed
by the Beninese philoso-
pher Paulin Hountondji in Endogenous Knowledge (1997; see
Connell, 2011).
Hountondji observes that imperialism created a global division
of labour in the sci-
ences, in which data were collected in the colonies and
concentrated in the metropole,
where theory was developed and the data were processed. This
division of labour per-
sisted after decolonization. The global periphery still exports
data and imports applied
science, the global metropole is still the centre of theory and
methodology. An interna-
tional circulation of knowledge workers accompanies the
international flows of data,
concepts and techniques. Workers from the periphery travel to
the metropole for doctoral
training, sabbaticals, conferences or better jobs; workers from
the metropole frequently
travel to the periphery to collect data, rarely to get advanced
training or to learn theory.
One of the most striking parts of Hountondji’s analysis concerns
the attitude of knowl-
edge workers in the global periphery resulting from this global
structure. This attitude he

calls ‘extraversion’ – being oriented to external sources of
intellectual authority.
Extraversion is seen in practices such as citing only
metropolitan theorists, publishing
preferentially in metropolitan journals, joining ‘invisible
colleges’ centred in the metro-
pole, and acting as native informants for metropolitan scientists
who are interested in the
periphery.
We can add to Hountondji’s analysis the powerful influence of
neoliberal politics and
management. Neoliberal agendas are currently deepening
extraversion by locking the
universities of the periphery into market competition and global
ranking systems – in
which the elite universities of the United States and Europe
always appear on top, defin-
ing the ‘excellence’ others must strive for. Scholars in the
periphery are now under heavier
pressure than ever to publish in metropolitan journals, gain
recognition in the metropole
and form partnerships with prestigious centres.
Extraversion in this sense is as widespread in gender studies as
in other fields of
knowledge. Metropolitan texts about gender are translated and
read in the periphery, and
treated as authorities. Gender researchers from the periphery
travel to the metropole for
qualifications and recognition. Whole frameworks, terrains of
debate and problematics
are liable to be imported.
A few examples may illustrate the point. The late Heleieth
Saffioti’s A mulher na

sociedade de classes (1978 [1969]) was a towering achievement,
yet shaped by structur-
alist Marxism from Paris. Not even Subaltern Studies was
immune to extraversion: the
journal’s main attempt at gender theory, Tharu and Niranjana’s
‘Problems for a contem-
porary theory of gender’ (1996), defines the problems of Indian
feminist politics by
applying postmodernist feminism from the metropole.
Bhaskaran’s lively Made in India
(2004), treating sexual diversity, applies queer theory from the
USA. The empirical core
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Connell 555
of Masculinities (Connell, 1995) is Australian but its main
theoretical sources are
German, British and North American.

But there is always some friction between the intellectual
perspectives created in the
imperial centres, and the realities of society and culture in the
colonized and postcolonial
world. Nelly Richard (2004 [1993]), importing French
postmodernist thought to femi-
nism in Chile, notes that these ideas have to be ‘re-worked’ in
the periphery.
We could put this more strongly. The re-working requires a
critique and transforma-
tion of the metropolitan frameworks themselves. The debates
about decolonial thought,
Southern theory, indigenous knowledge and postcolonial
thought, though they have
mostly not been gender-informed, are now vital resources for
developing the sociology
of gender.
Southern thematics for gender analysis
The necessary starting-point is imperialism itself. Gender
dynamics take specific forms
in colonial and postcolonial contexts because, as María Lugones
(2007) states, they are
interwoven with the dynamics of colonization and globalization.
As Valentine Mudimbe
(1994) has argued, the colonizing power, in order to establish
itself, had to create a new
society. It is important to register that the large majority of the
world’s people live in such
societies with colonial, neocolonial and postcolonial histories.
The global metropole is
the exception, not the norm. Analysis informed by what
Lugones has usefully called ‘the

coloniality of gender’ should be the mainstream of the
sociology of gender.
Recognition of the fact of colonization has already polarized
postcolonial gender anal-
ysis. In reaction against Northern feminism, more exactly a
simplified version of it, one
school of thought asserts that ‘gender’ is itself a product of
colonialism, imposed on socie-
ties which previously did not organize themselves in gendered
ways. Perhaps the best-
known example is Oyeronke Oyewumi’s The Invention of
Women (1997), which contrasts
Western sex dichotomy with ‘a Yoruba stance’ that does not
classify people on the basis
of bodies. Accordingly, gender is not a structure of precolonial
Yoruba society and
‘women’ does not exist as a social category. This argument has
been criticized in Africa as
both an inaccurate account of precolonial society, and as
replacing an essentialism of bod-
ies with an essentialism of culture that helps to legitimize
postcolonial patriarchy (Bakare-
Yusuf, 2003; Lewis, 2002). Powerful men in postcolonial
regimes can, and do, fend off
demands for gender equality by branding feminism as a
neocolonial intrusion.
Uma Narayan (1998: 103), whose critique of cultural
essentialism is exemplary,
defends legitimate generalizations about gender: ‘virtually
every community is struc-
tured by relationships of gender that comprise specific forms of
social, sexual, and eco-
nomic subjection of women’. This view is complicated by
research that shows precolonial

conceptions of gender to be complex and structured differently
from European concep-
tions. Thus Sylvia Marcos (1998), examining the metaphorical
religious thought of
Mesoamerican communities in surviving colonial-era
documents, finds powerfully
embodied conceptions that emphasize duality, integration and
the absence of barriers. On
the other hand, oral-history evidence from Aboriginal people
and anthropologists about
precolonial society in Australia points to ritual separation of
women and men, as well as
a marked gender division of labour, in that very different
civilization (Berndt, 1974).
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Whatever the precolonial situation, it was transformed by
colonialism, and not gently.
Gendered violence played a formative role in the shaping of
colonial and postcolonial
societies. Colonization itself was a gendered act, carried out by
imperial workforces,
overwhelmingly men, drawn from masculinized occupations
such as soldiering and
long-distance trade. Colonial violence against women in
colonized societies was a
normal part of conquest. The colonial state was built as a power
structure operated by
men, based on continuing force. Brutality was built into
colonial societies, whether
they were settler colonies or colonies of exploitati on. The level
of gendered violence
in postcolonial societies is now a central issue in global
feminism, from
international policy forums (Harcourt, 2009) to local research
and action agendas –
illustrated by the emphasis on gender violence in the women’s
studies programmes
in Costa Rica (Cordero, 2008). Saffioti’s (2004) later work paid
close attention to
the issue; she quotes survey data showing about half of
Brazilian women have
experienced gender-based violence.
In a powerful paper, Amina Mama (1997) recalls the violence of
imperial
patriarchy, the creation of colonial economies that marginalized
women, and the
gender dimension of the struggles for independence in Africa.
Women widely

supported the nationalist movements, but once in power, few of
the nationalist
regimes defended women’s interests. With the economic crisis
of the post-
independence states that began in the 1970s, very harsh
conditions were created for
women, and high levels of violence against women became
apparent.
Mama argues convincingly that the feminist strategies against
gender violence
devel-oped in the metropole do not apply in this context,
because these strategies
presuppose a well-functioning state and a coherent gender
order; neither of which is
experienced by Black and working-class women in postcolonial
Africa. Nina Laurie
(2005) makes a similar point when discussing masculinity
politics in the
contemporary Andes, that research in the global South cannot
presuppose a
consolidated gender order. Jane Bennett (2008: 7) in South
Africa describes the
specificity of gender research in conditions where ‘relative
chaos, gross economic
disparities, displacement, uncertainty and surprise’ are the norm
not the exception.
Gender analysis from the global South thus, in a sense, must
invert the problematic of
recent gender theory in the global North, where a
deconstructionist agenda is
hegemonic. In the colonial and postcolonial world the making of
gender orders, or
the attempts to make them, are central issues. Establishing
colonial gender

arrangements required, as well as formative violence, a
sustained cultural and
organizational effort on the part of the colonizers. This is
rightly emphasized by
Lugones (2007), though I think she is mis-taken to describe
gender arrangements as
‘imposed’ on the colonized. Active responses by the colonized
were also involved;
and the active responses by women of colonized societies are
now well recognized
in feminist historiography and indigenous critique (Moreton-
Robinson, 2000).
Less recognized in most of the gender literature are the active
responses also made by
men. This issue is explored by Ashis Nandy, whose book The
Intimate Enemy: Loss
and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (1983) is a classic
study of the social
construction of masculinity. Nandy traces how the pressure of
British conquest and the
colonial regime re-shaped Indian culture, including its gender
order. The response to
this pressure called out specific elements of Indian tradition,
over-valuing the Kshatriya
or warrior category,
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Connell 557
to justify essentially new patterns of masculinity in a
modernizing process. Equally
important, Nandy shows how the colonial encounter re-shaped
models of masculinity
among the colonizers. As the regime settled into a permanent
governing structure during
the nineteenth century, a distinctive culture emerged that
exaggerated gender and age
hierarchies. This produced a simplified, dominance-oriented,
and often violent masculin-
ity as the hegemonic pattern among the British, despising
weakness, suspicious of emo-
tion, concerned to draw and police rigid social boundaries.

More recently, the making of masculinities and negotiation of
gender relations in
colonial and postcolonial transitions has been the subject of
intense research in southern
Africa (Epstein et al., 2004; Morrell, 2001). This research goes
far to establishing two
important conclusions. The first is the sheer diversity of
masculinities that are under
construction at the same time in the one national territory.
Postcolonial gender reality
cannot be captured by generalized models of ‘traditional’ vs
‘modern’ manhood. The
second is how intimately the making of masculinities is bound
up with the vast and con-
tinuing transformations of postcolonial society as a whole.
Gender is not off to the side
in a cupboard of its own. It is enmeshed with the changing
structure of power and shifts
in the economy, the movement of populations and the creation
of cities, the struggle
against Apartheid and the 1990s lurch to neoliberalism, the
institutional effects of mines,
prisons, armies and education systems.
This illustrates a tendency in postcolonial gender analysis
towards a sociological view
of gender. Mara Viveros (2007) from Colombia, in a discussion
of the concept of differ-
ence, argues that colonialism forged an integral link between
gender and race that was
not present in the global North (which has tended to treat these
dimensions through
concepts like ‘intersectionality’). Fundamental themes in the
gender studies programme
of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2009) are the

sociocultural conditions con-
structing gender relations, women’s visibilization, the social
inequalities of sexuality and
gender and public policy. Of course there are institutions with
greater emphasis on phi-
losophy and culture. But when we factor in the significance of
development issues
(Harcourt, 2009), there is a sense in which the sociological
approach to gender as a
structure of social relations is central to gender scholarship in
the global South, in a way
that is not true in the global North.
This can be seen, for instance, in Chilean discussions of voice
and identity. Julieta
Kirkwood’s feminist classic Ser política en Chile (1986)
concerns the establishment of
women’s political voice in twentieth-century Chile. This could
be treated in terms of
cultural identity, but it is not. A key step in Kirkwood’s
research was an interview study
with women’s movement activists under the dictatorship, and
she constructs the history
of Chilean feminism as a collective story of social struggle. The
emergence of women as
a political subject, in her narrative, was closely bound up with
the features of a postcolo-
nial political order, and the changing ways in which Chile’s
socioeconomic formation
was articulated with the world economy and international
politics. Sonia Montecino
(2001) similarly emphasizes that gender identities are collective
constructions, in their
diversity; indeed, she suggests that an understanding of identity
as emerging from social
struggle is characteristic of Latin American thought.

As I have argued in Southern Theory (Connell, 2007), the issue
of land is crucial in
understanding colonial society, and this applies to gender
relations. Marcia Langton
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(1997), a leading Aboriginal intellectual in Australia, shows one

dimension of this.
Australian Aboriginal culture has been portrayed as patrilineal
and patriarchal, but this
account mainly comes from male anthropologists convinced of
women’s inferiority.
Women have increasingly demonstrated that women’s rights
were embedded in precolo-
nial land tenure systems. In the conditions of violent conquest,
and the extreme pressure
on most Aboriginal cultures that followed, this land-and-gender
order was badly dis-
rupted. Langton argues that it was women’s traditions and ties
to place – ‘Grandmothers’
law’ – that were the more resilient, and proved crucial in
holding Aboriginal society
together. Older women thus became the key to social survival.
Land is also central to the analysis of gender relations in
agricultural society in the
Indian subcontinent by Bina Agarwal, whose A Field of One’s
Own (1994) is one of the
great classics of modern gender analysis. Agarwal is
professionally an economist, but A
Field of One’s Own is actually a rich interdisciplinary
exploration of peasant society,
involving regional and legal history, sociology of the family,
studies of political move-
ments, and more. Land is shown to be a crucial element in
gender practices ranging from
kinship alliance and inheritance to the constitution of
patriarchal power structures.
Agarwal documents a vigorous gender politics including
collective mobilizations by
women for land ownership and land use, and widespread,
sometimes violent, resistance
by men.

To argue there are common themes that emerge from Southern
gender studies is not
to imply there is a single Southern gender order. Very certainly,
there is not – neither
before nor after colonization. Indeed, recognition of the
diversity of gender orders is an
important consequence of the arguments of Southern feminists
in forums such as the UN
world conferences on women, from Mexico City in 1975 to
Beijing in 1995. Critique of
unexamined universalism in Northern gender theory has been a
persistent theme in
African feminist studies (Arnfred et al., 2004), and the
arguments apply also within the
global South.
Gender analysis from the global South therefore poses the
question of diversity, the
multiplicity of gender forms, not at the level of the individual,
but at the level of the
gender order and the dynamic of gender relations on a societal
scale.
Conditions and configurations of knowledge
Thematics are one thing, practicalities another. One of the big
differences between gen-
der research in the global North and the global South is the
scale of resources available
for scholarship. There are some well-resourced universities in
the periphery, such as the
federal university system in Brazil, the elite universiti es in
India, the ‘sandstones’ or
‘Group of Eight’ in Australia, the ‘historically white’
universities in South Africa and the

National University of Singapore. Public investment in higher
education, currently static
or contracting in the North, has grown in China and Brazil
especially. Smaller resources,
multiplied, might still amount to a significant asset: across
Africa, about 30 universities
were teaching gender studies in the early 2000s (Mama, 2005).
None of this, however, is comparable to the scale and wealth of
the higher education
systems in Europe and the United States, the publishing
industries of the metropole, the
corporate and state-funded research centres (including census
bureaux), and therefore
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Connell 559
the workforce potentially engaged in gender research in the
global North. With the crisis
of the postcolonial developmental state and the advent of global
neoliberalism, gender
research in the South depends to a large degree on NGOs and
development aid pro-
grammes. As Mama notes, the African university programmes
have been struggling with
contradictory demands, staff in need of qualifications and
erratic institutional support.
Continent-wide networks and capacity-building programmes
have been created, but the
situation is precarious.
The consequences for gender studies are significant. One of the
most important is the
framing of much gender research by economic development
agendas. The ‘women in
development’ movement of the 1970s, and the ‘gender and
development’ framework that
grew out of it, have been important in funding research and
providing political legiti-
macy for gender studies. But the ‘gender framework’ in
development work has usually
been categorical, if not essentialist – treating ‘women’ as an
undifferentiated natural
category. NGO-based research is generally small-scale, focused
on practical problems,
and short-term; not a promising way to develop new
perspectives. Dependence on aid
funds means subordination to donor-driven agendas and
established formulae which, as
Desiree Lewis (2002) points out for African gender research,
marginalizes critique and

intellectual innovation. Teresa Valdés (2007) similarly speaks
of a ‘technification of gen-
der knowledge’ in the Southern cone countries of Latin
America, as policy research tends
to replace movement-based feminism.
These are among the bases of the extraversion of Southern
intellectual work discussed
earlier. The ‘traffic in gender’, to use Claudia de Lima Costa’s
(2006) witty phrase, is
mainly from North to South.
Sometimes this is planned. In the early days of women’s studies
in China, for instance,
the US model of women’s studies was deliberately imported in
the 1980s. In the absence
of an autonomous women’s movement, especially after the
political crackdown of 1989,
no other base for theory was available. Min Dongchao (2005)
notes that research was at
this stage only done if funded from outside, mainly from the
United States; it had to be
practical, and expressed in conceptual terms familiar to the
donors.
Min also notes, however, that the women engaged in creating
Chinese women’s stud-
ies were conscious of major gaps between the historical
experience of Chinese women
and women in the global North. Costa (2006) points out a return
traffic. For instance,
French post-structuralism, so influential in Anglophone gender
studies, was itself influ-
enced by the experience of Francophone North Africa. She also
notes the difficulties in
translating concepts from one region to another. For instance

the concept ‘women of
colour’, important in challenging essentialism in US gender
studies, makes little sense in
other places; while the concept of revolutionary transformation
of society, central in
Julieta Kirkwood’s thought, has little grip in the global North.
Cecília Sardenberg (2010) in Brazil has recently been exploring
another way that
Northern hegemony is contested. The language of ‘women’s
empowerment’ has recently
spread in Brazil, in the context of development agendas – it is
seen by many as World
Bank jargon (though it originated in feminist activism). But it is
possible to inflect such
language in different ways. A group based at the Federal
University of Bahia has been
doing just that, rejecting liberal empowerment in favour of
‘liberating empowerment’
directed to transforming the gender order of patriarchal
domination.
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Northern wealth and power therefore do not necessarily produce
intellectual domina-
tion. Nor does the critical response to Northern gender analysis
have to be ‘denunciatory’
or engage in ‘castigation’, to use Lewis’s (2007) terms. There
can be constructive critical
use of Northern thought, treating it as a resource rather than a
framework, and moving
ahead of it on the basis of Southern experience.
An example is a notable piece of sociological theorizing, ‘On
the category
“gender”: A theoretical-methodological introduction’, published
in 1992 in the Revista
Interamericana de Sociologia by Teresita de Barbieri, a South

American sociologist who
settled in Mexico. This paper starts with feminist movements
and their hypothesis that
the subordination of women is a question of power, not nature.
After reviewing a number
of metropolitan feminist thinkers, especially Gayle Rubin, de
Barbieri sets out a line of
analysis centring on social control over women’s reproductive
power, and men’s asser-
tion of their rights over offspring. This commits her to a
relational view of gender, though
one in which biological capacities are at stake – it is not a
disembodied or purely discur-
sive view. De Barbieri sees the relationship between the cultural
figures of the mother
and the male head of household as the nucleus of gender
relations in Latin American
societies.
But she does not have a binary view of gender. Indeed, she
emphasizes the signifi-
cance of the family life cycle that gives a different social
position to post-menopausal
women. Drawing on Brazilian black feminist thought, she
explores the interaction of
gender with race and class in a stratified society. She further
complicates the picture of
the gender order by laying stress on relations between men, and
the class and racial dif-
ferences among women.
In explicit critique of the simplifications of metropolitan gender
analysis, de Barbieri
locates gender relations in the context of the Latin American
debt crisis of the 1980s, and
the impact of global restructuring on the popular classes. The

result is a sophisticated,
structurally complex picture of the gender order; at least as
diversified as, and notably
more dynamic than, the intersectional model emerging in the
metropole at the time this
paper was published.
There are, however, problems that more strongly resist
interaction with Northern
categories of gender analysis. This can be seen in a fascinating
study in historical soci-
ology, Uma Chakravarti’s Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist
Lens (2003). ‘Caste’
is not capable of being cross-classified with ‘gender’ in the
style of North American
intersectional sociology. Rather, caste is gender in a unique
configuration. Chakravarti
pictures the Indian caste system as a deep-seated structure of
privilege and exclusion
that combines gender hierarchy, property ownership, religious
ideology and social
identity. Caste is a hierarchical system of endogamous groups,
making exclusive mar-
riage its key institution. Control over women’s sexuality is
therefore crucial to the
maintenance of male lineages. An ideology of purity, focused
on women but also
affecting men, provides the cultural rationale. Upper caste
women become complicit in
this system, as their conformity to patriarchal prescriptions is
what guarantees their
access to privilege.
Chakravarti traces how this gender order came into existence,
over a long historical
period. The caste system was associated with the consolidation

of an agricultural econ-
omy and a state structure, rationalized by Brahmanical
intellectuals. A flexible social
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Connell 561
order allowed some caste mobility, and created a patchwork of
different castes in differ-
ent parts of the country. Colonialism did little directly to

change this, as the British impe-
rial regime drew upper castes into the colonial state and gave
them Western-style
education. Nevertheless the caste system was always contested.
In its early stages it was
challenged by no less a figure than the Buddha. In the late
colonial period it was chal-
lenged by Phule, Ambedkar and others speaking for the
‘untouchables’. But it remains
powerful in postcolonial India, enforced by violence as well as
ideology – violence
directed at lower caste men as well as women who break the
rules.
Taking these initiatives and examples together, we can imagine
a global configuration
of gender research very different from the Northern-centred
patterns of the past genera-
tion. It has gradually been accepted that there are irreducible
differences between femi-
nist perspectives. But it is also argued that dialogue across such
divides is possible
(Bulbeck, 1998). Not only dialogue, but active political
cooperation across national bor-
ders, and conceptions of feminism on a global scale, are
increasingly visible elements of
gender politics (Naples and Desai, 2002). Chandra Talpade
Mohanty (2003) nicely sum-
marizes this in the idea of ‘feminism without borders’.
Ashwini Tambe (2010) has recently offered an intriguing model
of ‘transnational
feminist studies’ that contests the metropole-centred narrative
of development, the
homogenizing vision of essentialist global feminism, and even
the kind of metropole/

periphery model used in this article. Local feminisms differ
from national, she rightly
observes, and may have distant links. Mara Viveros (2007) also
notes the importance of
South–South alliances in getting beyond the mosaics of liberal
conceptions of difference
and the hierarchies that are the legacy of colonialism. To
change social structures still
requires a decolonizing practice; and in this practice, the
connection between the per-
sonal and the political can be re-established.
Gender and the neoliberal world order
Quijano’s (2000) fruitful concept of the coloniality of power
explicitly applies to the
time after national independence as well as before. An
examination of the coloniality of
gender similarly has to attend to historical continuities in global
power. But global power
relations have changed; the old empires have gone, and new
formations of power have
appeared. It is now necessary to understand gender in the era of
transnational corpora-
tions, the Internet and global neoliberal politics. This requires
gender analysis to move
beyond states and even regions into what Elisabeth Prügl
(1999), in a study of home-
based work and the ILO, calls ‘global space’.
There is now considerable industrial-sociology research on this
interplay in sites such
as the garment and microprocessor factories of Southeast Asia,
the south China eco-
nomic miracle, or the maquiladora industries of northern
Mexico (e.g. Elias, 2004). The

gender effects are much more than economic. This becomes
clear when we reflect on the
toxic conjunction of US-dominated free trade, labour migration,
narcotráfico, corrup-
tion, poverty and masculine cultures of violence that has
produced femicide in Ciudad
Juárez (Dominguez-Ruvalcaba and Corona, 2010).
There has been less attention in gender studies to the groups
privileged by gender
relations in the most powerful institutions of the neoliberal
global economy and political
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order. Of the 500 largest transnational corporations in 2012, as
listed by Fortune maga-
zine, just 2.6% had women as chief executives; which is to say,
97.4% had men. We have
some beginnings of knowledge about this heavily masculinized
arena, in studies of the
hegemonic forms of masculinity among the managerial cadres of
transnational corpora-
tions and local businesses involved in the international economy
(Elias, 2008; Olavarría,
2009). There is a great deal to be done to fill out the empirical
picture, to link these stud-
ies to theory, and to link the theorization of gender to
contemporary understandings of
neoliberalism and the modern security state.
It is important to realize that neoliberalism on a world scale is
not a matter of the
privatization/deregulation package in the economies of the
global North trickling down
to the global South. Neoliberalism first got a political grip in
the South, under the
Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The structural adjustment
programmes and the reshaping
of world finance were contemporaneous with, not later than, the
neoliberal regimes of
Thatcher and Reagan. Neoliberalism seen from the South has
always been about global
trade and new market-driven development strategies, quite as
much as privatization and
deregulation (Connell and Dados, 2014).
The shift to trade-led development strategies has had complex

implications for gender
orders. By drawing new groups of women workers into export
industries, it has created
some opportunities for economic autonomy for women or at
least a shift away from
breadwinner/housewife norms, also creating pressure for change
in masculinities. Public
investment in women’s education, as a strategy for creating a
more competitive work-
force on world markets, has opened paths into higher education
and professional occupa-
tions for middle-class women, though not yet in such numbers
as middle-class men. Yet
the increasing reliance on market incomes, rather than
redistribution via the state, gener-
ally advantages men. And corporate management is a strongly
masculinized world in
which wealth and power is accumulating on an unprecedented
scale, overwhelmingly in
the hands of men.
Gender politics, too, increasingly occurs in global space.
Valentine Moghadam’s
Globalizing Women (2005) is an important demonstration of
this, documenting three
groups of transnational feminist networks: one group concerned
with structural adjust-
ment and trade, one doing solidarity and advocacy work for
women in Muslim-majority
countries, the third linking women’s groups around the
Mediterranean. Here are some of
the South–South links invoked by Viveros, and necessary for
the project of knowledge
creation outlined in this article.
We are still at an early stage of understanding these dynamics.

We are also at an early
stage of reconstructing the sociology of gender from Southern
perspectives. I think the
two tasks are connected, because only a gender analysis
systematically incorporating the
experience and thought of the majority world will be powerful
enough to understand
gender dynamics on a global scale. I also think this work is
highly important, as the
worldwide making and unmaking of gender relations is a
significant part of the most
urgent issues of our time.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
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Connell 563
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Author biography
Raewyn Connell is University Professor at the University of
Sydney, a Fellow of the Academy
of Social Sciences in Australia, and one of Australia’s leading
social scientists. Her most recent
books are Confronting Equality (2011), about social science and
politics; Gender: In World
Perspective (2009); and Southern Theory (2007), about social
thought on a world scale. Her
other books include Masculinities, Schools and Social Justice,
Ruling Class Ruling Culture,
Gender and Power and Making the Difference. Her work has
been translated into 18 languages.
She has taught at universities in Australia, Canada and the USA,
in departments of sociology,
political science and education. A long-term participant in the
labour movement and peace
movement, Raewyn has tried to make social science relevant to
social justice. Details at website:
www.raewynconnell.net.
Résumé
Durant ses générations fondatrices, la sociologie s’inquiétait
beaucoup du genre dans le
cadre de la théorisation du monde du colonialisme et de
l’impérialisme. La sociologie
s’est ensuite concentrée sur la métropole globale, si bien que
son analyse du genre dans
les décennies écoulées depuis le mouvement de libération de la

femme a été développée
dans le contexte boréal. Ceci peut maintenant changer si
l’extraversion de la sociologie
vers le Sud global peut être exercée. Les thématiques des
analyses du genre font en
périphérie ressortir les processus historiques de la formation et
de disruption de l’ordre
des genres, examinant les problèmes de violence et de terri toire.
Les travaux de divers
théoriciens du genre et chercheurs des pays du Sud sont
discutés. Il faut que soient
reconnues les conditions matérielles de la formation du savoir
dans les pays développés,
ainsi que les différentes manières utilisées par l es intellectuels
du Sud pour gérer les
influences de la métropole. De nouveaux problèmes ont émergé
dans la sociologie du
genre avec la formation d’un ordre mondial néolibéral,
produisant de nouveaux modèles
de pouvoir masculinisé et ouvrant des possibilités de
changement pour les femmes.
Mots-clés
Genre, globalisation, patriarchie, postcolonial, sociologie,
théorie australe
Resumen
En sus generaciones fundacionales, la sociología se preocupaba
mayormente de las
cuestiones de género como parte de su teorización del mundo
del colonialismo y el
imperio. Luego, la sociología se enfocó en la metrópolis global,
por lo que su análisis

Connell 567
del género en las décadas que siguieron al movimiento de
liberación femenina se ha
desarrollado dentro del Norte global. Ahora, esto puede
cambiar, si se puede lograr
la extraversión de la sociología sobre el Sur global. Las
temáticas de los análisis de
género en la periferia destacan los procesos históricos de
formación y disrupción de
las órdenes de género, tratando temas de violencia y tierra. Se
analiza el trabajo de un
número de teóricos e investigadores del género del Sur global.
Deben reconocerse
las condiciones materiales de formación del conocimiento en los
países en vías de
desarrollo, así como también las diversas maneras en que los
intelectuales del Sur global
manejan las influencias de las metrópolis. Al delinearse un
orden mundial neoliberal,
surgen nuevos temas en la sociología de género, produciendo
nuevos patrones de
poder masculinizado, así como vías de cambio para las mujeres.
Palabras clave
Género, globalización, patriarcado, postcolonial, sociología,
teoría austral

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Mental Health and Depression Awareness Presentation By:
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November 20, 2020
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3) Cite 2 methods clinicians use/recommend to treat depression.
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recommend to patients to treat depression.
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about depression is useful and can make a positive impact in my
health or the health of a loved one.
SPEAKER: Sydney Adams, RN

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Sexualities
2017, Vol. 20(1–2) 159–175
! The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1363460716645787
sex.sagepub.com

Special Issue Article
Sexual citizenship in a
comparative perspective:
Dilemmas and insights
Carol Johnson
University of Adelaide, South Australia
Abstract
In this article, the author explores some of the key dilemmas
that are involved in
attempts to apply concepts such as ‘sexual citizenship’ in a
cross-cultural perspective,
with particular focus on Australia and other countries in the
Asia-Pacific region. The
concept of sexual citizenship can usefully be applied to gay and
lesbian rights issues in
Australia relatively easily. However, it is not quite so easy to
apply this concept to
some of Australia’s Asian neighbours. Any comparative
analysis needs to take differing
priorities, conceptions of sexuality, gender, identity, rights,
state and civil society into
account but, nonetheless, useful insights can be gained. The
author argues that
the concept of sexual citizenship is even more widely applicable

if aspects of other
conceptions of citizenship are incorporated into it, such as
conceptions of ‘hetero-
normative’ citizenship and ‘affective’ citizenship.
Keywords
Affective citizenship, heteronormativity, intimate citizenship,
sexual citizenship
Introduction
In this article, I address issues of the relevance of sexual
citizenship to the ‘Asian’
region in two ways. Firstly, I apply the concept of sexual
citizenship to a particular
country in the Asia-Pacific region, namely Australia. I use the
Australian case
study as an example of how relatively easily conceptions of
sexual citizenship
can be applied to ‘Western’ societies. However, I then ask
whether the concept
of sexual citizenship works quite so well if applied to some
other ‘Asian’ countries
in Australia’s region.
In order to explore this issue, I problematize the initial
Australian analysis by
providing a range of examples from other countries in the Asian
region that
‘trouble’ the specific ‘Western’ concept of sexual citizenship
that was applicable
Corresponding author:

Carol Johnson, School of Social Sciences, University of
Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
Email: [email protected]
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177% 2F13634607
16645787&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2016-07-23
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in the Australian case, using examples from Malaysia, Thailand,
Hong Kong,
Singapore and India, amongst others.
1
The point here is not to provide a detailed
analysis of the workings of sexual citizenship in those diverse
societies (given the
detailed case study of an Asia-Pacific country provided here is
of Australia)
but rather to use such varied examples to critique one-size-fits-
all, universalizing
concepts of sexual citizenship. Nonetheless, while opposing
universalizing con-
structions of sexual citizenship, I also disagree with perceptions
that the concept
is so flawed because of its Western origins that it is best
abandoned. Rather,
I conclude that the conception of sexual citizenship can, indeed,
be more widely
applicable – but only if conceptions of both the ‘sexual’ and
‘citizenship’ are not

taken as fixed but are adapted to be able to take non-Western
social and political
constructions, including gendered and sexualized power
relations, into account.
Finally, I also argue that the concept of sexual citizenship can
be made more
flexible and widely applicable by acknowledging the important
role played by
intersections with related forms of citizenship, such as
heteronormative, intimate
and affective citizenship, in shaping the form that sexual
citizenship takes in diverse
societies.
The concept of sexual citizenship
Weeks (1999: 36) has argued that the emergence of the category
of the sexual
citizen is related to what he sees as a now ‘commonplace’
development ‘at least
in the metropolitan heartlands of Western Societies’. In that
political trajectory,
members of previously marginalized sexual groups claim an
identity on the basis of
a sexual identity and then rights related to that identity. Such
developments also
contribute to a breakdown of a clear public/private division.
The concept of sexual
citizenship therefore draws on work which emphasizes the
social and political sig-
nificance of intimate life, including issues regarding gender,
identity, relationships,
family, the body and emotional life, or what Plummer has
termed ‘intimate
citizenship’ (Plummer, 2003: 13–16). However, sexual

citizenship focuses on the
sexual aspects of the politics of intimate life, given that
intimate citizenship can
cover a range of non-sexual intimate relationships, including
friendships (Roseneil,
2010).
Theorists of sexual citizenship emphasize that the sexual has
played a key role in
how citizenship rights are constructed by Western governmen ts
(Bell and Binnie,
2000: 10). Feminists have long pointed out that Western
citizenship rights and
entitlements developed around the conception of the citizen as a
male head of
household where women were subordinate (Okin, 1979). In
other words, although
many earlier feminist analyses did not make this point
explicitly, citizen rights,
benefits and entitlements were constructed in a way that
assumed the citizen was
heterosexual. They were a form of heteronormative sexual
citizenship (Johnson,
2002: 316–336, 2003: 45–62). The concept of sexual citizenship
is therefore particu-
larly useful in drawing attention to the heteronormative nature
of the way in which
many citizenship rights were originally constructed and in
explaining why,
160 Sexualities 20(1–2)
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as discussed below, obtaining such rights can sometimes have
normalizing conse-
quences given their origin in a heterosexual model.
It is not possible to give a more detailed aetiology of the
concept of sexual
citizenship here (see further Bell and Binnie, 2000; Richardson
and Monro, 2012:
60–83). Additional contributions to debates, including critiques
of the concept, will
also be analysed later in this article. Diane Richardson (2000:
83–100), however,
has identified three major aspects of sexual rights which are
implicated in sexual

citizenship. These three aspects involve sexual practice, rights
of self-definition and
identification, and rights gained via social and political
institutions. Note that
sexual citizenship issues are not just political in the narrow
sense involving gov-
ernment; they are also economic and social, and include the
rights of minority
sexual groups to be recognized and represented symbolically as
legitimate (Bell
and Binnie, 2000: 20) in both mainstream political discourse
and popular culture.
Sexual citizenship is implicated in how citizenship is conceived
more broadly and in
particular forms of governance of the individual. Neoliberal
versions of sexual
citizenship, for example, are partly shaped by a
commodification of citizenship
which places particular emphasis on consumer ‘lifestyle’ choice
(Evans, 1993).
Given the wide range of potential issues that could be covered,
it has been neces-
sary to narrow the focus of the analysis here. Consequently, this
analysis will focus
largely on examples drawn from the field of same-sex politics,
but many aspects
analysed are potentially applicable to other aspects of sexual
citizenship mentioned
above.
Applying the concept of sexual citizenship to Australia
I argue here that applying existing concepts of sexual
citizenship to Australia is a
relatively straightforward matter. This is partly because some of
the most influen-

tial concepts of sexual citizenship were initially developed by
British academics.
Australia was established as a British colonial-settler society,
resulting in similar
constructions of sexual identity, of the public and private, of
citizenship and of the
respective roles of the individual and the (liberal democratic)
state. Australia is
also, however, located in the Asia-Pacific region – which makes
it a particularly
interesting site to apply conceptions of sexual citizenship and
then to compare and
contrast the results with issues that arise in other countries in
the same region.
However, this article does not aim to give a detailed account of
the impact of
British settler colonialism on issues of sexuality in Australia.
Rather, the key points
being made here are that British colonialism introduced both
political institutions
for white settlers and British-inspired laws criminalizing male
homosexuality via
a sodomy offence (Kirby, 2011: 1–32) that facilitate applying
British-influenced
conceptions of sexual citizenship to the Australian case.
As Povinelli (2006: 17, 4) points out, imposing Western
heterosexual norms of
conventional couple relationships on colonial societies is ‘a key
transfer point’ of
‘liberal forms of power in the contemporary world’ and is seen
as being ‘constitu-
tive of Western civilization’. There were therefore particularly
detrimental

Johnson 161
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implications for Australia’s indigenous peoples, whose
traditional sexual relation-
ships and behaviours, both same and different sex, frequently
transgressed Western
norms (Povinelli, 2002: 11–152). British laws also attempted to

impose respectable
British sexual norms on colonial settlers (and convicts),
constructing particular
heterosexual and (deviant) homosexual identities in the process.
Initial struggles over homosexual sexual citizenship therefore
took a form that
would be familiar to many British readers (albeit fought out at
state level
in Australia’s federal system), namely the struggle for
decriminalization.
Richardson and Monro (2012) have characterized this stage in
the fight for equal
citizenship rights as a struggle over mis-recognition,
challenging the negative character-
ization of gays and lesbians as pathologically deviant (and,
more specifically in the
case of men, as criminal). Arguments were often influenced by a
liberal public/
private division (Berlant, 1997; Richardson, 2000: 105–135),
where it was argued
that same-sex acts in private between consenting adults simply
should not be sub-
ject to criminal charges by the state. Such liberal arguments
(Reeves, 1994), derived
from British colonial influences, played a significant role in
homosexuality first
being decriminalized in South Australia (in the years 1972–
1975). Male homosexu-
ality was subsequently decriminalized in other Australian states
and territories
(Australian Capital Territory in 1976, Victoria in 1980,
Northern Territory in
1983, New South Wales in 1984, Western Australia in 1989,
Queensland in 1990,
and Tasmania in 1997) (see further Willett, 2000).

Decriminalization in Australia
proceeded more slowly than in Britain (1967) but faster than in
some US states
(where the 2003 US Supreme Court case of Lawrence vs Texas
was to play
an important role in decriminalizing homosexuality in those
states that still
criminalized it).
There were, however, some more specifically Australian aspects
to the fight for
decriminalization. The public mobilizations of the gay and
lesbian community,
including Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parades
(Willett, 2000: 203),
rather than arguments over privacy, played a significant role in
hastening decrim-
inalization in New South Wales. Australia’s internationally
innovative public
policy response to HIV/AIDS, with its focus on co-operation,
public education
and prevention (Dowsett, 1998) encouraged a climate
favourable to decriminaliza-
tion in some states that had not yet followed South Australia’s
lead. AIDS councils
and activists were encouraged to participate in the policy
process, thereby bringing
‘gay men into the political mainstream in a way that would have
been unimaginable
a decade before’ (Willett, 2000: 174–175). Nonetheless, British-
influenced liberal
arguments about the rights of homosexual individuals to live
their private lives free
from state intervention continued to be used as late as the
1990s. The Keating
federal government justified its measures against the Tasmanian

state government’s
criminalization of male homosexuality on the grounds of the
right of adult
Australians ‘to pursue their . . . private sexual lives, free of
unjustified government
intrusion’ (Crowley, 1994: 2481).
The struggle for same-sex rights, post-decriminalization in
Australia, was fought
out at various levels: state, federal and bureaucratic (Johnson et
al., 2011: 27–42;
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Willett, 2000). The issues moved incrementally beyond
decriminalization of indi-

vidual behaviour carried out in private to broader conceptions
of the need for equal
citizenship entitlements for same-sex couples, following the
common Western tra-
jectory of demanding rights based on a previously marginalized
sexual identity
(Weeks, 1999: 36). Consequently, Australian same-sex couples
began to challenge
the heteronormative constructions of citizenship that I have
referred to above.
Unlike the US and the UK, however, key rights and entitlements
were not
dependent on couples being married. In Australia, de facto
heterosexual couples
were generally entitled to the same rights and thus same-sex
couples began to fight
for de facto relationship recognition.
In Australia, differences between heterosexual and same-sex de
facto sexual
citizenship rights had implications for over 80 pieces of federal
legislation in
areas ranging from taxation, welfare and superannuation to
immigration. They
impacted on bereavement benefits, superannuation benefits,
students living away
from home allowances, health rebates and the ability of same-
sex couples to immi-
grate together (HREOC [Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission],
2007). Such discrimination was justified by then Prime Minister
Howard (The
Australian, 1996: 3) on the basis of a conservative version of
the liberal privacy
position, namely that ‘sexual preference is something very
private’ and same-sex

relationships (unlike heterosexual ones) should be tolerated but
not endorsed. For
Howard, legislatively recognizing same-sex relationships
involved endorsing them.
In 2008, after a long struggle (Johnson et al., 2011: 27–42), and
the election of a
new Labor government, most forms of formal citizenship
discrimination were
removed. Once Labor’s legislation came into effect in 2009,
same-sex couples
basically had the same entitlements as unmarried heterosexual
couples in a de
facto relationship at federal level. Meanwhile, same-sex couples
were increasingly
recognized for state government benefits too, including same-
sex family rights,
although the models used in various Australian states and
territories differed.
The changes were largely welcomed by the gay community as
important equality
measures.
There is an ongoing debate, however, about whether religious
organizations
should continue to have exemptions which allow them to
discriminate against
gays and lesbians when providing employment and services
(Hepworth and
Rout, 2013). Because most Australian government entitlements
are means-tested
if legally recognized couples live together, some Australian
same-sex couples lost
benefits. Means-testing had normalizing consequences. Same-
sex couples could find
themselves being required to be financially dependent on their

partner in a way that
mimicked the old heterosexual family model of a (male) citizen
breadwinner with a
dependent spouse. The concept of sexual citizenship therefore
helps to explain the
historical underpinnings of a citizenship model that is still
having real effects on
gays and lesbians.
Australian forms of sexual citizenship are therefore vulnerable
to arguments that
they are implicated in the ways in which the state constructs
‘good’ and ‘bad’
homosexual citizens (Smith, 1994), with those homosexuals
who ape heterosexual
Johnson 163
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marriage relationships being constructed as ‘good’ homosexuals

(see further Bell
and Binnie, 2000: 30; Butler, 2002: 14–34). The financial
dependence and means-
testing of couples also reduces government welfare expenditure,
potentially reflect-
ing a neoliberal form of homonormativity, critiqued by Duggan
(2003: 65–66),
where homosexual domesticity reinforces a minimalist state.
Nonetheless, recogniz-
ing same-sex love clearly also challenges heteronormativity by
moving away from
the traditional construction of the citizen as exclusively
heterosexual.
There has, therefore, been steady progress in terms of refor m,
even though there
were downsides. Nonetheless, same-sex marriage continued to
be opposed by the
majority of Australian federal parliamentarians (including by
some Labor MPs
who have been granted a conscience vote on the issue) and by
former Prime
Minister Abbott. His successor as Prime Minister, Malcolm
Turnbull, endorsed
holding a future plebiscite on same-sex marriage.
2
Sexual citizenship, however, is not only a form of
heteronormative citizenship,
but it also intersects with forms of intimate citizenship,
affective citizenship and
social citizenship that can go well beyond the sexual. I argue
below that drawing
out these intersections facilitates the concept being more
flexible and applicable to a

range of countries. As already noted, sexual citizenship is a
form of intimate citizen-
ship, implicated in people’s personal identity and their most
intimate personal
relationships (Plummer, 2003: 69; Roseneil, 2010: 77–82).
Intimate citizenship
is therefore not confined to the sexual. Some Australian state
legislation does
recognize non-sexual Domestic Partnerships (South Australian
Government,
2007) — partly due to assuaging the religious right which did
not want to privilege
the sexual component, but sometimes due to arguments that this
could potentially
lead to the recognition of broader friendship and kinship
relationships, including
those found in indigenous communities.
Sexual citizenship is also a form of affective citizenship
(Johnson, 2010: 495–509)
in that citizenship identity and entitlements are partly shaped
around which
emotional relationships between citizens are recognized as
legitimate (as well as
how citizens are encouraged to feel about ‘others’).
3
Analyses of affective
citizenship would therefore emphasize the importance of legally
recognizing
loving same-sex emotional relationships, given the implications
for policy issues
ranging from immigration and medical decision-making rights
to the care of child-
ren in same-sex families.

Applying the concept of sexual citizenship in regard to
Australian examples of
same-sex relationships has therefore been a relatively
straightforward matter
whereby same-sex relationships have been increasingly
recognized by the state,
accompanied by changes in intimate and affective citizenship.
Despite some
national specificities, the story is not dissimilar to that in many
other Western
countries. The major grounds for opposition to same-sex
marriage amongst
Australian politicians remain religious Christian, and social
conservative, ones
that are not dissimilar to traditional positions in the UK or US
(Johnson et al.,
2011: 31–32). Some conservative Australian politicians have
also, however, cited
examples from Australia’s Asian neighbours. When confronted
with the fact that
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the US, like most other English-speaking countries, had now
legalized same-sex
marriage and Australia still had not, senior government senator
Eric Abetz (2015)
responded by saying ‘the Labor Party and other journalists tell
us, time and time
again, that we are living in the Asian century. Tell me how
many Asian countries
have redefined marriage?’
Given that the answer to Abetz’s question is currently ‘none’,
what happens if
we try to apply the concept of sexual citizenship to some of the
other (highly
diverse) societies in the Asian region? The following analysis
does not seek to
provide a detailed analysis of additional societies in the Asia -
Pacific region,
given that the main case study of an Asia-Pacific society given
here has been of
Australia. Rather, the analysis will problematize attempts to
provide a one-size-fits
all, universal concept of sexual citizenship by providing some
examples from
diverse countries in the Asian region that ‘trouble’ key
concepts, such as public
and private, citizenship, sexual identity and individual rights
versus the state. These
are concepts that have been central to the analysis of the
Australian case that has
been discussed above. In the process, I argue for the need for

more flexible and
varied conceptions of sexual citizenship and ones that can be
strengthened by
incorporating insights from related forms of citizenship, such as
intimate, affective
and heteronormative citizenship. It should be emphasized that
the differences to be
discussed below are not just ‘cultural’ ones. Rather, they
involve differing social
and economic power relations and differing relations between
the individual and
the state.
Applying the concept of sexual citizenship to
other societies in the Asia-Pacific region
Bell and Binnie (2006) have acknowledged that different
geographies of sexual
citizenship must always be taken into account. Similarly, Ken
Plummer (2005:
79) has noted that issues of intimate citizenship, including
sexual citizenship,
differ greatly between the Western world and the ‘low income
‘‘poor’’ rest of the
world’ where, for example, struggles are over inequality
involving ‘selling body
parts, sexual slavery, the death of children at early ages, livi ng
with HIV-AIDS
and all kinds of illnesses, executions for criminal sex, female
genital mutilation,
forced and arranged marriages, and so on’.
Nonetheless, conceptions of sexual citizenship can work
relatively well when
analysing issues of state criminalization and decriminalization,
not least because

some of the laws which criminalize particular sexual acts result
from European
colonialism (Kirby, 2011: 1–32). Various countries still have
Section 377 of British
colonial law on the books (such as Malaysia, Singapore and
India) (Sanders, 2009:
165–189). Indeed, in 2013 the Indian Supreme Court overruled
a 2009 New Delhi
High Court ruling that found section 377 to be discriminatory,
thereby effectively
making homosexuality illegal again in India (Mahapatra, 2013;
Supreme Court of
India, 2013). It should not be assumed, however, that the
struggle for decriminal-
ization will take the same trajectory as in Western countries
such as Australia or be
Johnson 165
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formulated in the same way in regard to issues of rights,
identities or Western
liberal divisions between public and private.

4
In particular, the concept of sexual citizenship needs to be
sufficiently broad to
encompass societies where an authoritarian state can still
intervene much more
directly in civil society, and in individuals’ private lives, than
would be acceptable
in many societies. Baden Offord has pointed out that the
Singaporean government
micromanages homosexuality and has ‘sustained an instrumental
approach to
managing sexual citizenship’ (Offord, 2011: 139), including
using ‘surveillance,
repression, regulation and control’ to contain the gay and
lesbian movement
(p. 137). The concept of ‘citizenship’ also needs to be fl exible
enough to recognize
that, precisely because of the authoritarian nature of such states,
struggles by the
gay and lesbian movement over citizenship issues and ‘mis-
recognition’ (to refer
back to the arguments of Richardson and Monro, 2012) may
also take more indir-
ect and less explicit forms. These include the use of forms of
popular culture and
electronic communication where the state may have less control.
Arguments over
the right of the state to interfere in citizens’ behaviour and in
the private sphere
may also have to be formulated differently in countries where
liberal discourses on
individual freedom and limits on the state’s rights to intervene,
such as those used
in the Australian case, are not so well recognized. Lynette J

Chua (2014) gives a
detailed analysis of the forms of ‘pragmatic resistance’
developed by Singaporean
gay and lesbian activists, who often present their case within
the context of existing
state and public discourses. So, activists have argued that police
harassment of gays
operated outside of Singapore’s established legal rules rather
than citing explicit
individual rights or civil liberties arguments (pp. 20–21). Or,
they have argued that
accepting diverse sexuality, and the freedom to love, can
strengthen social stability
and loving ties between family members (pp. 129–130). Finally,
forms of normal-
ization related to sexual citizenship can be radically different
too. ‘Good’ homo-
sexual citizens in Singapore may at times be expected to
suppress their sexuality
altogether, or stay in the closet (Offord, 2011: 138). At other
times, a slightly more
tolerated homosexuality has been seen as an expression of a
Singaporean cosmo-
politan and commercial ‘creative class’ (Chua, 2003) that it is
necessary to foster in
the context of globalization.
Indeed, globalization is opening up some interesting problems
for authoritarian
governments, conservative movements and LGBTI activists in
terms of sexual
citizenship. Chong (2011: 571, 575, 580) argues that
globalization has led
Singaporean governments to partially deregulate and liberalize
some areas of
social and economic life on purely pragmatic grounds. The

Christian right, how-
ever, moved to fill the moral vacuum left as the state partly
moved out. Such
developments are not confined to Singapore. Ho (2008) argues
that, despite
hopes that forms of UN-sponsored ‘global governance’ would
result in a reduction
in authoritarian government, an expanded civil society and more
chance for diverse
human rights arguments to flourish, in practice, Asian Christian
right NGOs,
amongst others, have seized the opportunity to pursue populist
moralistic agendas
attacking homosexuality in countries ranging from Singapore,
Taiwan and
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Hong Kong to South Korea. The religious right is also
responding negatively to the
globalized commodification of gay sex, and the consequent
export of particular
forms of global gay identity, politics and community, as
analysed by Evans in his
critique of limited, capitalist conceptions of homosexual
citizenship (Evans, 1993:
89–113; Ho, 2008: 465, 471). In short, gays and lesbians can
face narrow, neo-
liberal, commodified constructions of sexual citizenship at the
same time as facing
what Altman (2001: 139) has identified as a ‘politicization of
issues around sexual
morality’, and a growth of religious fundamentalism, in
response to the rapidity of
the social, political and economic changes related to
globalization.
Furthermore, some authoritarian governments in the region
responded to both
globalization and gay rights arguments by simply depicting
homosexuality as a
foreign ‘other’. Gay rights arguments based on liberal
individual rights arguments
were depicted as alien to ‘Asian values’ and constituting a new
form of colonialism.
Former President Mahathir of Malaysia articulated such

arguments particularly
clearly:
The world that we have to face in the new decades and centuries
will see numerous
attempts by the Europeans to colonize us either indirectly or
directly. If our country is
not attacked, our minds, our culture, our religion and other
things will become the
target. In the cultural and social fields they want to see
unlimited freedom for the
individual. For them the freedom of the individual cannot be
questioned. They have
rejected the institutions of marriage and family. Instead they
accept the practice of free
sex, including sodomy as a right. Marriage between male and
male, between female
and female are officially recognized by them. (Mahathir, 2003)
Mahathir does not mention that it was the British who
introduced Malaysia’s laws
against homosexuality (which the Malaysian government used
against Opposition
Leader Anwar Ibrahim). Nor does Mahathir mention that, at the
time he was
speaking, US President George W Bush in the US and
Australian Prime
Minister John Howard were opposing same-sex marriage on
Christian religious

grounds. Furthermore, while Mahathir’s conception of the
Malaysian family may
be different from Western ones (in terms of its extended nature
and the individual’s
subordination to the family), his conception, like that of George
W Bush or John
Howard, is still highly heteronormative. In other words, while
Mahathir may be
denying equal sexual citizenship to gays and lesbians, he is
clearly constructing a
form of sexual citizenship, namely heteronormative citizenship.
In these respects,
the concept of sexual citizenship is still highly applicable, even
if Western trajec-
tories for achieving same-sex rights are being rejected.
Conceptions of sexual citizenship also need to be flexible
enough to allow for
different relationships between public and private, the state,
society and religion.
Judicial imperatives related to this can be very different from
those in the West. In
Malaysia, heteronormative citizenship is constructed, for
Muslims at least, not just
by the central state but also by local Islamic courts
administering customary sharia
law, particularly in family and sexual matters.
Johnson 167
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Countries where many forms of sharia law apply would have to
develop con-
ceptions of sexual citizenship that take the role of religious
courts into account.
Nonetheless, as we have seen, religion can also influence sexual
citizenship rights in
avowedly secular democracies such as Australia, where attempts
to retain sections
of the religious vote have influenced issues ranging from same-
sex marriage to anti-
discrimination measures. So, Western conceptions of sexual
citizenship also need to
take account of religious influences. There is, therefore, no
reason why conceptions
of ‘citizenship’ cannot be flexible enough to allow for such
different conceptions of,
and relationships between, state, society and religion (or for
related non-state
forms of discrimination).
Conceptions of sexual citizenship also need to be flexible
enough to allow for

varying conceptions of how the ‘sexual’ relates to individual
and familial identity.
They need to move beyond the Western trajectories of sexual
identity leading to
the articulation of rights-based arguments related to that
identity which then
constituted the forms of sexual citizenship that have been
identified by Weeks
(1999: 36). An alternative perspective can be seen in Chou
Wah-Shan’s analysis
of ‘coming out’:
The Western notion of ‘coming out’ is not only a political
project of the lesbigay
movement, but is often a cultural project of affirming the
Western value of individual-
ism, discourse of rights and the prioritization of sex as the core
of selfhood. The
model of coming out is hinged upon notions of the individual as
an independent,
discrete unit segregated economically, socially and
geographically from the familial-
kinship network. (Chou, 2001: 32; see also Chou, 2000: 5)
Chou argues that in some other cultures, including Chinese
ones, where familial
relations are more important, both sexuality and individuality
are not so crucial to
identity formation. Admittedly, Chou’s depiction of the
relationship between
family, sexuality and identity would be contested by those who

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Current Sociology Monograph2014, Vol. 62(4) 550 –567© Th