It's all about balance: working women, fashion and hegemonic Singaporean femininity from 1965 - 1989

• Main Author: Hong, Jie Ying
• Other Authors: Park Hyung Wook
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::History::Asia::Singapore::Social aspects; Humanities::History::Asia::Singapore::Politics and government; Humanities::General::History
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165370
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

After independence, economic development was of critical urgency to Singapore. The state’s conflicting discourse on womanhood resulted from the involvement of women in the industrial economy. Under “traditional” gender roles, women were primarily domestic. However, the new economy required women to “encroach” into the “masculine” workplace. The hegemonic Singaporean femininity required women to be adequately and acceptably feminine in the Singaporean context – a well-educated, submissive and docile working woman. Through feminist, cultural and fashion theories, magazines, newspapers and personal interviews, this thesis explores the complex tensions and negotiations of Singaporean feminine identities through fashion. Women’s work attires were modified and remained feminised to the extent that while women became a “norm” in the workplace, they remained differentiated. Working women’s fashion reflected the balancing of opportunities and challenges modernisation presented. At the same time, it shows how Singapore scrambled to balance tradition and modernity in the ideal Singaporean womanhood.