{"product_id":"beyond-the-singapore-girl-discourse-of-gender-and-nation-in-singapore-9788776941253","title":"Beyond the Singapore Girl: Discourse of Gender","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe branding of Singapore International Airlines with the image of a beautiful, petite and servile 'Oriental' woman dressed in figure-hugging sarong-kebaya is one of the world's longest running and most successful advertising campaigns.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBut this image does not simply advertise a service; it is part of a global and national regime of symbolic constructions of gender that today is seen as outdated and sexist, and bearing little relation to modern Singapore where women have good access to education and increased life choices resulting from engagement in the wage economy. The nation's economic success has been a force for their liberation.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne catastrophic consequence of women's changed lives has been the plunge in fertility rates. Singapore has one of the world's lowest despite energetic government campaigns encouraging women to have more babies and men to be more 'masculine'. The failure of these campaigns and rethinking of the Singapore Girl highlight a key premise of this book: there are limits to the power of discursive constructions of gender in the national interest.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgements ix Introduction 1   Rethinking the Singapore Girl  Imagining the Nation  Public Spaces of Discourse  A Word on Critical Strategies  The Limits of Narrative Control 1. Narrating the Nation 17   Masculine Nation  Creating Modern Subjects  Vulnerable Nation  Global Citizens 2. Family and Nation 43   Creating the Capitalist Family  The Nation and Family as Discursive Objects  The Female Body and the Unsettling of Nation 3. The Politics of Fertility 61   Decreasing Reproduction to Increase Production: the 'Stop at Two' Campaign  Quality vs Quantity  Have Three or More if You Can Afford It 4. Romancing Singapore 85   Selling Marriage and Parenthood  The Romance of Nation  -  Family and Capital  No Sex, Please  -  We're Singaporean 5. Resisting the Hardsell 113   Pragmatism vs Love  The Paradox of Romance  Beyond Babies 6. The New Singapore Woman 139   Bad Subjects  Taming the New Singapore Woman  Peeling Prawns  -  Recovering the Asian Woman 7. The Crisis of Representation 163   Loss of Narrative Authority  Reinscribing Men  -  The New Singapore Man  Feminised Nation References 187 Index 207","brand":"NIAS Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51047024099671,"sku":"9788776941253","price":999.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9788776941253.jpg?v=1750969955","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/beyond-the-singapore-girl-discourse-of-gender-and-nation-in-singapore-9788776941253","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}