Description
From the time Singapore gained self-government, both girls and boys have been given equal opportunities in education. This access to education has resulted in increased female literacy and improved social and economic status for women. However, in spite of this improvement, women’s gender ideologies remain conservative and patriarchal.
The school is an ideological apparatus of the state and this study examines how the education system has been used to influence the construction of femininity in school, thus maintaining the state’s hegemony and preservation of a patriarchal framework in Singapore. It seeks to explore two questions: how the concept of femininity is constructed in the school curriculum and whether education for girls has empowered women or if it actually has entrapped them in subordination and maintenance of the patriarchal structure of society.