5 Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia
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Sally Anne Param
Abstract
Using Muted Group Theory, derived from Marxist-feminism, this chapter explores the taboo discourse on sex and intimacy among older Indian women in urban Malaysia. As background, the chapter draws on historical events that explain the process of how this diasporic Indian community is now part of a fast-growing urban community in globalising Malaysia. Using in-depth interviews and reflexivity, the daughters of these older women are the research participants who share their mothers’ ideas on sex and intimacy. There is a deliberate attempt to go beyond what is deemed normative for these older Indian females within the societal trajectories of their community. Othered accounts that may have remained hidden or silenced under the hegemony of masculine control are probed. It is hoped that these older women’s voices on sex and intimacy will dare to contradict and talk back to Indian socio-cultural viewpoints that wrongfully portray female subordination.
Abstract
Using Muted Group Theory, derived from Marxist-feminism, this chapter explores the taboo discourse on sex and intimacy among older Indian women in urban Malaysia. As background, the chapter draws on historical events that explain the process of how this diasporic Indian community is now part of a fast-growing urban community in globalising Malaysia. Using in-depth interviews and reflexivity, the daughters of these older women are the research participants who share their mothers’ ideas on sex and intimacy. There is a deliberate attempt to go beyond what is deemed normative for these older Indian females within the societal trajectories of their community. Othered accounts that may have remained hidden or silenced under the hegemony of masculine control are probed. It is hoped that these older women’s voices on sex and intimacy will dare to contradict and talk back to Indian socio-cultural viewpoints that wrongfully portray female subordination.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
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In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
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Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
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Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
-
In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
-
Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
-
Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
