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 | A fact from Women in Cambodia appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 May 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Defaultsort
editIs there any reason the defaultsort is set to Laos? - {{DEFAULTSORT:Women In Laos}} KConWiki (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
- It was an error. Corrected. - AnakngAraw (talk) 01:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
Description of Women in Cambodia
edit"Khmer women are supposed to be modest, soft-spoken, "light" walkers, well-mannered,[2] industrious,[3] belong to the household, act as the family's caregivers and caretakers[2] and financial comptrollers,[3] perform as the "preserver of the home", maintain their virginity until marriage, become faithful wives,[2] and act as advisors and servants to their husbands" - Does this description fit any woman or all Cambodian women. This description seems to be outdated/biased/stereotyped. A description should define the subject not prescribe set of characteristics. Those sentiments could be held by some people, but it should be stated in better context. In addition, Cambodia has many ethnic communities, thus this description does not account for that diversity either. --Natkeeran (talk) 19:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
- Yes there are "many ethnic communities" in Cambodia, but the dominant culture is Khmer (85-90% of the population, depending on the source) and, as the first word of your quote says, this applies to Khmer people. This sounds like a translation of the ច្បាប់ស្រី (chbap srei, "Ways of Women"). It and its counterpart, ច្បាប់ប្រុុស (chbap pros, "Ways of Men"), are esteemed manuals of Khmer traditional culture that lay out the ideas and expected behaviors/habits for young males and females. You can find a Khmer edition here, some google hits here for sources, and the Khmer WP page about it here. I'm not saying you're wrong, just pointing out that this is well-known (among Khmers) traditionally the prescribed "ideal woman". Many in the older generation and in rural areas still try to measure up to and quote the chbap but urban and younger women, descriptively speaking, don't resemble this traditional description.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 23:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
- If this article is primarily about Khmer women, then title should be changed. If this is an ideal woman as per a popular book, then it can be stated as such under a subsection called say "In Literature" or "Literary description of Cambodian women". Even the reference provided indicates that this describes the expected "traditional role", and it has "proved enslaving to the Khmer women in the new Cambodian social structure and within the Cambodian communities in America.". --Natkeeran (talk) 19:16, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
- If you (re-)read my comment, I'm agreeing with you, in principal. I'm merely stating that the description you quoted (not the whole article) applies to Khmer culture specifically. And it is way more than "a popular book", these ideas existed long before they were put down in verse. They are part of Cambodian culture, deeply ingrained, taught (not from a textual criticism viewpoint, but as actual "lessons") at home, in schools and in temples. So much so that any woman/girl who doesn't display, or at least aspire to, these characteristics is often viewed as "not Khmer" or "westernized" (pejoratively). Yes, by our ethnocentric, western-centric, liberal PC, "we-know-better-than-our-Little-Brown-Brothers" viewpoint, it doesn't fit with our ideas of feminism or gender equality. But I don't find it so easy to judge other cultures that have been around much longer than our own. Now, that having been said, this article is in sore need of reorganizing, rewriting and sourcing to better reflect traditional/cultural expectations versus modern (both rural and urban) realities.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 00:04, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
- If this article is primarily about Khmer women, then title should be changed. If this is an ideal woman as per a popular book, then it can be stated as such under a subsection called say "In Literature" or "Literary description of Cambodian women". Even the reference provided indicates that this describes the expected "traditional role", and it has "proved enslaving to the Khmer women in the new Cambodian social structure and within the Cambodian communities in America.". --Natkeeran (talk) 19:16, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Suggestions
editHi! I'm a student at Rice University and will be editing a Wikipedia article as a class assignment this semester. I'm considering working on this one, as I'm interested in women's rights and East Asia. The existing article is fairly comprehensive but each section could certainly be added to. In addition to expanding each section, I would plan on adding links to the page on other articles to increase traffic. Athomas1995 (talk) 02:49, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi again! I will not be moving ahead editing this article this semester, but I encourage someone else to! Athomas1995 (talk) 02:35, 12 February 2016 (UTC)