This book provides a fresh and contemporary take on the study of men and masculinity. It highlights new and exciting approaches to sexuality, desire, men and masculinity in East Asian contexts, focusing on the interconnections between them. In doing so, it re-examines the key concepts that underpin studies of masculinity, such as homophobia, homosociality and heteronormativity. Developing new ways of thinking about masculinity in local contexts, it fills a significant lacuna in contemporary scholarship. This thought-provoking work will appeal to students and scholars of gender studies, cultural studies and the wider social sciences.

"Geisha of a Different Kind bravely engages with the struggles and triumphs of Asian American gay men as they inhabit American society and its gay mainstream. A lucid study with anunflinching focus on the daily contingencies of these men's lives, this book isan important contribution to the scholarly understanding of contemporary U.S.sex/gender systems and their fraught links to racial formations."--Martin F. Manalansan IV, author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora.

The role and significance of patriarchy in East Asia varies greatly according to the interplay between deeply entrenched cultural norms, economic change, and government policy. The aim of this book, therefore, is to offer an historical perspective on these issues combined with an analysis of the transitions and outcomes that have occurred in the status of women over the course of modernization and industrialization in five East Asian societies – Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, and China. The narrative is interwoven with a discussion of contemporary issues such as the persistence of tradition and gender discrimination, how gender roles undermine the development of healthier marriage and family relationships (and better relations among the generations), the lack of full equality for women in employment, falling birth rates, and rising divorce rates. Patriarchy in East Asia is the first study of its kind undertaken by a sociologist who is fluent in all of the local languages, thereby providing a rare level of access in terms of research of primary sources.

This book paints a vivid picture of women's active involvement in reshaping intimate and public sexual life in East Asia. In bringing together exciting new feminist research on sexuality from East Asia and making it available to a wider audience, East Asian Sexualities unsettles stereotypes, rectifies lack of awareness and demonstrates that East Asia matters. The chapters address the diversity and variety of everyday sexual lives and sexual politics in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. They range from workplace sexual cultures, trans-national sexual relations, the conditions of sex-work and the emergence of new sexual desires, cultures and movements. The contributors highlight the gendered and sexual consequences of globalization and rapid social change. In doing so, they engage with western debates on late modernity while also exploring the contested understandings of modernization and westernization in the East. This is a collection which illuminates the local situations in which women's sexual lives are lived and offers fresh perspectives on global issues.

This book examines the trends, underlying factors, and policy implications of fertility declines in three East Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, and China. In contrast to Western countries that have also experienced fertility declines to below-replacement levels, fertility decline in these East Asian countries is most notable in its rapidity and sheer magnitude. After a rapid decline shortly after the war, in which fertility was halved in one decade from 4.5 children per woman in 1947 to 2.1 in 1957, Japan's fertility started to decline to below-replacement levels in the mid-1970s, reaching 1.3 per woman in the early 2000s. Korea experienced one of the most spectacular declines ever recorded, with fertility falling continuously from very high (6.0 per woman) to a below-replacement level (1.6 per woman) between the early 1960s and mid-1980s, reaching 1.1 per woman in 2005. Similarly, after a dramatic decline from very high to low levels in one decade from the early 1970s to early 1980s, China's fertility reached around 1.5 per woman by 2005. Despite differences in timing, tempo, and scale of fertility declines, dramatic fertility reductions have resulted in extremely rapid population aging and foreshadow a long-term population decline in all three countries. This monograph provides a systematic comparison of fertility transitions in these East Asian countries and discusses the economic, social, and cultural factors that may account for their similarities and differences. After an overview of cultural backgrounds, economic transformations, and the evolution of policies, the trends and age patterns of fertility are examined. The authors then investigate changes in women's marriage and childbearing within marriage, the two major direct determinants of fertility, followed by an analysis of the social and economic factors underlying fertility and nuptiality changes, such as education, women's employment, and gender relations at home.

How do Chinese, Japanese and Korean mothers in Britain make sense of their motherhood and employment? What are the intersecting factors that shape these women’s identities, experiences and stories? Contributing further to the continuing discourse and development of intersectionality, this book examines East Asian migrant women’s stories of motherhood, employment and gender relations by deploying interlocking categories that go beyond the meta axes of race, gender and class, including factors such as husbands’ ethnicities and the locality of their settlement. Through this, Lim argues for more detailed and context specific analytical categories of intersectionality, enabling a more nuanced understanding of migrant women’s stories and identities. East Asian Mothers in Britain will appeal to students and scholars across a range of disciplines and with an interest in identity, gender, ethnicity, class, migration and intersectionality.

The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Gender Studies presents up-to-date theoretical and conceptual developments in key areas of the field, taking a multi-disciplinary and comparative approach. Featuring contributions by leading scholars of Gender Studies to provide a cutting-edge overview of the field, this handbook includes examples from China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong and covers the following themes: theorising gender relations; women’s and feminist movements; work, care and migration; family and intergenerational relationships; cultural representation; masculinity; and state, militarism and gender. This handbook is essential reading for scholars and students of Gender and Women’s Studies, as well as East Asian societies, social policy and culture.