This book presents a comprehensive overview of the role of women in Burmese society from independence in 1948 to the present. It covers women in politics, women writers, working women, marginalised women such as prostitutes, and women s role in the 1940s as freedom fighters and since 1988 as campaigners for political reform. It shows how, although Burmese women project to the outside world an image of being strong, as exemplified by Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition, women do not in fact enjoy gender equality.

This book challenges the popular notion that Burmese women are powerful and are granted equal rights as men by society. Throughout history Burmese women have been represented as powerful and as having equal status to men by western travellers and scholars alike. National history about women also follows this conjecture. This book explains why actually very few powerful Burmese women exist, and how these few women help construct the notion of the high status of Burmese women, thereby inevitably silencing the majority of unequal and disempowered women. One of the underlying questions...