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The Modern Burmese Woman and the Politics of Fashion in Colonial Burma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2008

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Abstract

In the mid-1930s, criticisms of modern women's habits, clothing, and hairstyles exploded in the Burmese popular press, showing that “modern fashion” made a man no less virtuous and patriotic but rendered a woman immoral and unpatriotic. This article examines the nature of these criticisms and their motivations, and reveals that the controversy over the dress and comportment of modern women was a complex and multifaceted phenomenon sustained by irreducibly plural interests. It argues that neither the appeal for traditionalism and national sufficiency in the face of multiple modern and colonial temptations, nor the changing tides of Burmese nationalist movements sufficiently explain the preoccupation with modern women's fashion, and suggests that the discourse on modern women needs to be analyzed as stemming from a profound unsettling of existing notions of masculinity and femininity, and its effect on relations between the sexes.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2008

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References

List of References

Bandoola

Dagon

Deedoke

The Guardian

Myanmar Alin

Ngan Hta Lawka

The Screen Show Weekly

Toetetyei

Thuriya

Burma, Government of. 1928. Report of an Enquiry into the Standard and Cost of Living of the Working Classes in Rangoon. Rangoon: Labor Statistics Bureau.Google Scholar
Committee, Riot Inquiry. 1939. Final Report of the Riot Inquiry Committee. Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
“Confidential Memo: Burmese Daily Newspapers.” 1946. In Burmese Press (1938–47).Google Scholar
Cowen, John. 1916. “Public Prostitution in Rangoon: Report to the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene on Brothel-Keeping, Prostitution, Segregation and Immoral Conditions in Rangoon and Other Towns and Stations in Burma.” Rangoon Brothels/Prostitution in Rangoon.Google Scholar
India, Census Commissioner of. 1923. Census of India, 1921. Vol. X (Burma). Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
India, Census Commissioner of. 1933. Census of India, 1931: Part One. Vol. XI (Burma). Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
Adas, Michael. 1974. The Burma Delta: Economic Development and Social Change on an Asian Rice Frontier, 18521941. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Allott, Anna. 1991. Introduction to Not Out of Hate: A Novel of Burma, by Lay, Ma Ma. Trans. Aung-Thwin, Margaret. Athens: Ohio University, Center for International Studies.Google Scholar
de Alwis, Malathi. 1999. “‘Respectability,’ ‘Modernity’ and the Policing of ‘Culture’ in Colonial Ceylon.” In Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities, ed. Antoinette Burton, , 177–92. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Amar. 1936. “Tuí payoga” [Our practices]. Myanmar Alin, New Year's special edition, 9.Google Scholar
Andaya, Barbara. 2002. “Localising the Universal: Women, Motherhood and the Appeal of Early Theravada Buddhism.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 33 (1): 130.Google Scholar
Andrus, J. Russell. 1948. Burmese Economic Life. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Atkinson, Jane Monnig, and Shelly, Errington. 1990. Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Aung San Suu, Kyi. 1987. “Socio-Political Currents in Burmese Literature, 1910–1940.” In Burma and Japan: Basic Studies on Their Cultural and Social Structure, 6583. Tokyo: Burma Research Group.Google Scholar
Aung San Suu, Kyi. 1990. Burma and India: Some Aspects of Intellectual Life Under Colonialism. New Delhi: Indian Institute of Advanced Study in association with Allied Publishers.Google Scholar
Aung-Thwin, Maitrii. 2003. “Genealogy of a Rebellion Narrative: Law, Ethnology and Culture in Colonial Burma.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34 (3): 393419.Google Scholar
Auzam, Albert Ainley. 1938. “If Wives Should Receive Salaries!Ngan Hta Lawka 24 (163): 308.Google Scholar
Aye Aye, Mu. 1981. “Mran‘ mā´ lvat‘ lap‘ re″ krui″ pam‘ mhu tvaṅ‘pā vaṅ‘so a myui″ sa mī ″ myā″ e* kanda (1919–1948)” [The role of women in Burma's struggle for independence, 1919–1948]. Master's thesis, Yangon University.Google Scholar
Aye, Hlaing. 1964. A Study of Economic Development of Burma, 18701940. Rangoon: Department of Economics, University of Rangoon.Google Scholar
Barlow, Tani E. 1994. “Theorizing Woman: Funü, Guojia, Jiating.” In Body, Subject, and Power in China, ed. Angela, Zito and Barlow, Tani E, 253–89. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Barlow, Tani E., et al. . 2006. “The Modern Girl around the World: A Research Agenda and Preliminary Findings.” Gender and History 17 (2): 245–94.Google Scholar
Barmé, Scott. 2002. Woman, Man, Bangkok: Love, Sex, and Popular Culture in Thailand. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bayly, Christopher. 1986. “The Origins of Swadeshi (Home Industry): Cloth and Indian Society, 1700–1930.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun, Appadurai, 285322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee Bernstein, Gail, ed. 1991. Recreating Japanese Women, 16001945. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bingham, Adrian. 2004. Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Interwar Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bo, Min. 1927. “Kālasā″ myak‘ luṁ″ nhuṅ‘´ aṅkyī pā bhvaí le″ khyui″” [Four-stanza verse on the sheer blouse and young men's eyes]. Bandoola, October.Google Scholar
Brown, Ian. 2005. A Colonial Economy in Crisis: Burma's Rice Cultivators and the World Depression of the 1930s. London: Routledge Curzon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Yi-Sein. 1966. “The Chinese in Rangoon during the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Artibus Asiae 23:107–11.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard. 1996. “Cloth, Clothes, and Colonialism: India in the Nineteenth Century.” In Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge, by Bernard, Cohn, 106–62. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Dhammasami, Khammai. 2004. “Between Idealism and Pragmatism: A Study of Monastic Education in Burma and Thailand from the Seventeenth Century to the Present.” PhD diss., St. Anne's College, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Edwards, Louise. 2000. “Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China.” Modern China 26 (2): 115–47.Google Scholar
Furnivall, J. S. 1956. An Introduction to the Political Economy of Burma. 3rd ed.Rangoon: Peoples’ Literature Committee and House.Google Scholar
Furnivall, J. S. 1991. The Fashioning of Leviathan: the Beginnings of British Rule in Burma. Canberra: Economic History of Southeast Asia Project and Thai-Yunnan Project.Google Scholar
Göle, Nilüfer. 1996. The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gravers, Mikael. 1999. Nationalism as Political Paranoia in Burma: An Essay on the Historical Practice of Power. 2nd ed.Richmond: Curzon.Google Scholar
Herbert, Patricia M. 1982. The Hsaya San Rebellion (1930–1932) Reappraised. London: Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, British Library.Google Scholar
Hla, Pe. 1968. “The Rise of Popular Literature in Burma.” Journal of Burma Research Society 51 (2): 123–44.Google Scholar
, H. M. 1936. “The Age of Criticism in Burma.” Ngan Hta Lawka 21 (132): 566.Google Scholar
Ikeya, Chie. Forthcoming. “Modern Wives, Hygienic Mothers: ‘Secular’ Education, Popular Press, and the Discourse of Domesticity in Twentieth Century Colonial Burma.” In Medicine in Myanmar: The Colonial Era, ed. Monique, Skidmore.Copenhagen: NIAS Press.Google Scholar
Kawanami, Hiroko. 2000. “Patterns of Renunciation: The Changing World of Burmese Nuns.” In Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal, ed. Findly, E. B., 159–71. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Keyes, Charles F. 1984. “Mother or Mistress but Never a Monk: Buddhist Notions of Female Gender in Rural Thailand.” American Ethnologist 11 (2): 223–41.Google Scholar
Khin Maung, Htun. 1974. Mran‘ mā gyānay‘ samuiṅ‘ ″ (1919–1941) [A history of Burmese journals, 1919–1941]. Yangon: U Chit Aung.Google Scholar
Khin Myo, Chit. 1974. “Women in Buddhism.” The Guardian 21 (8): 812.Google Scholar
Kirsch, Thomas A. 1985. “Text and Context: Buddhist Sex Roles/Culture of Gender Revisited.” American Ethnologist 12 (2): 302–20.Google Scholar
Koop, John Clement. 1960. The Eurasian Population in Burma. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies.Google Scholar
Kyan, . 1978. “A myui″ sa mī″ mrā nhaṅ‘´ cā ṅay‘ jaṅ‘ ″ loka.” In Cā nay‘ jaṅ‘samuiṅ‘ ″ cā tam‘ ″ myā″ [Women and the world of journalism]. Yangon: Sabei Beikman.Google Scholar
Ma, Lay. 1940. “Yok'yā″ thvé raí a tve″ a khay hā aok‘ kya lha khye″ ka lā″” [The deteriorating state of male mentality]. Gyanaygyaw, January, 1518.Google Scholar
Maung, Maung. 1980. From Sangha to Laity: Nationalist Movements of Burma, 1920–1940. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Maxim, Sarah Heminway. 1992. “The Resemblance in External Appearance: The Colonial Project in Kuala Lumpur and Rangoon.” PhD diss., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Mendelson, E. Michael. 1975. Sangha and State in Burma: A Study of Monastic Sectarianism and Leadership. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Monin, P. 1940. “Kyvan‘up‘´ min‘″ ma kui pro me pā” [Please tell my wife]. Thuriya 23 (2): 5560.Google Scholar
Mya, Gale. 1934. “Min‘″ ma myā nhan‘´ pru pran re″” [Women and reforms]. Toetetyei: 5: 31.Google Scholar
Nwe Nwe, Myint. 1992. “Gantha loka cā cu cā raṅ‘″ (1938–1941)” [Ngan Hta Lawka magazine index, 1938–1941]. Master's thesis, Yangon University.Google Scholar
Nemoto, Kei. 2000. “The Concepts of Dobama (‘Our Burma’) and Thudo-Bama (‘Their Burma’) in Burmese Nationalism, 1930–1948.” Journal of Burma Studies 5:116.Google Scholar
Nordholt, Henk Schulte. 1997. Outward Appearances: Dressing State and Society in Indonesia. Leiden: KITLV Press.Google Scholar
O'Connor, Richard A. 1983. A Theory of Indigenous Southeast Asian Urbanism. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Peleggi, Maurizio. 2002. Lords of Things: The Fashioning of the Siamese Monarchy's Modern Image. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Roces, Mina. 2005. “Gender, Nation and the Politics of Dress in Twentieth-Century Philippines. Gender and History 17 (2): 354–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sato, Barbara Hamill. 2003. The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, Asia-Pacific. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Saw Moun, Nyin. 1976. Ba mā a myui″ sa mī″ [Burmese women]. Yangon: Thiha Poun Hneik Htaik.Google Scholar
Shwe Khaing, Thar. 1951. Chaṅ‘yaṅ‘thui″ phvaí mhu [Burmese clothes and hairdos]. Mandalay: Kyi Pwa Yei.Google Scholar
Silverberg, Miriam. 1991. “The Modern Girl as Militant.” In Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945, ed. Gail Lee, Bernstein, 239–66. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Singh, Surendra Prasad. 1980. Growth of Nationalism in Burma, 1900–1942. Calcutta: Firma KLM.Google Scholar
Smith, Donald Eugene. 1965. Religion and Politics in Burma. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Sarah E. 2003. “Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China.” NWSA Journal 15 (3): 82103.Google Scholar
Tarlo, Emma. 1996. Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jean Gelman. 1997. “Costume and Gender in Colonial Java, 1800–1940.” In Outward Appearances: Dressing State and Society in Indonesia, ed. Henk Schulte, Nordholt, 85116. Leiden: KITLV Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Robert. 1987. The State in Burma. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Trivedi, Lisa N. 2003. “Visually Mapping the ‘Nation’: Swadeshi Politics in Nationalist India, 1920–1930.” Journal of Asian Studies 62 (1): 1141.Google Scholar
Burma, Government of. 1928. Report of an Enquiry into the Standard and Cost of Living of the Working Classes in Rangoon. Rangoon: Labor Statistics Bureau.Google Scholar
Committee, Riot Inquiry. 1939. Final Report of the Riot Inquiry Committee. Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
“Confidential Memo: Burmese Daily Newspapers.” 1946. In Burmese Press (1938–47).Google Scholar
Cowen, John. 1916. “Public Prostitution in Rangoon: Report to the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene on Brothel-Keeping, Prostitution, Segregation and Immoral Conditions in Rangoon and Other Towns and Stations in Burma.” Rangoon Brothels/Prostitution in Rangoon.Google Scholar
India, Census Commissioner of. 1923. Census of India, 1921. Vol. X (Burma). Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
India, Census Commissioner of. 1933. Census of India, 1931: Part One. Vol. XI (Burma). Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
Burma, Government of. 1928. Report of an Enquiry into the Standard and Cost of Living of the Working Classes in Rangoon. Rangoon: Labor Statistics Bureau.Google Scholar
Committee, Riot Inquiry. 1939. Final Report of the Riot Inquiry Committee. Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
“Confidential Memo: Burmese Daily Newspapers.” 1946. In Burmese Press (1938–47).Google Scholar
Cowen, John. 1916. “Public Prostitution in Rangoon: Report to the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene on Brothel-Keeping, Prostitution, Segregation and Immoral Conditions in Rangoon and Other Towns and Stations in Burma.” Rangoon Brothels/Prostitution in Rangoon.Google Scholar
India, Census Commissioner of. 1923. Census of India, 1921. Vol. X (Burma). Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
India, Census Commissioner of. 1933. Census of India, 1931: Part One. Vol. XI (Burma). Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery.Google Scholar
Adas, Michael. 1974. The Burma Delta: Economic Development and Social Change on an Asian Rice Frontier, 18521941. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Allott, Anna. 1991. Introduction to Not Out of Hate: A Novel of Burma, by Lay, Ma Ma. Trans. Aung-Thwin, Margaret. Athens: Ohio University, Center for International Studies.Google Scholar
de Alwis, Malathi. 1999. “‘Respectability,’ ‘Modernity’ and the Policing of ‘Culture’ in Colonial Ceylon.” In Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities, ed. Antoinette Burton, , 177–92. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Amar. 1936. “Tuí payoga” [Our practices]. Myanmar Alin, New Year's special edition, 9.Google Scholar
Andaya, Barbara. 2002. “Localising the Universal: Women, Motherhood and the Appeal of Early Theravada Buddhism.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 33 (1): 130.Google Scholar
Andrus, J. Russell. 1948. Burmese Economic Life. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Atkinson, Jane Monnig, and Shelly, Errington. 1990. Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Aung San Suu, Kyi. 1987. “Socio-Political Currents in Burmese Literature, 1910–1940.” In Burma and Japan: Basic Studies on Their Cultural and Social Structure, 6583. Tokyo: Burma Research Group.Google Scholar
Aung San Suu, Kyi. 1990. Burma and India: Some Aspects of Intellectual Life Under Colonialism. New Delhi: Indian Institute of Advanced Study in association with Allied Publishers.Google Scholar
Aung-Thwin, Maitrii. 2003. “Genealogy of a Rebellion Narrative: Law, Ethnology and Culture in Colonial Burma.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34 (3): 393419.Google Scholar
Auzam, Albert Ainley. 1938. “If Wives Should Receive Salaries!Ngan Hta Lawka 24 (163): 308.Google Scholar
Aye Aye, Mu. 1981. “Mran‘ mā´ lvat‘ lap‘ re″ krui″ pam‘ mhu tvaṅ‘pā vaṅ‘so a myui″ sa mī ″ myā″ e* kanda (1919–1948)” [The role of women in Burma's struggle for independence, 1919–1948]. Master's thesis, Yangon University.Google Scholar
Aye, Hlaing. 1964. A Study of Economic Development of Burma, 18701940. Rangoon: Department of Economics, University of Rangoon.Google Scholar
Barlow, Tani E. 1994. “Theorizing Woman: Funü, Guojia, Jiating.” In Body, Subject, and Power in China, ed. Angela, Zito and Barlow, Tani E, 253–89. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Barlow, Tani E., et al. . 2006. “The Modern Girl around the World: A Research Agenda and Preliminary Findings.” Gender and History 17 (2): 245–94.Google Scholar
Barmé, Scott. 2002. Woman, Man, Bangkok: Love, Sex, and Popular Culture in Thailand. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bayly, Christopher. 1986. “The Origins of Swadeshi (Home Industry): Cloth and Indian Society, 1700–1930.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun, Appadurai, 285322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee Bernstein, Gail, ed. 1991. Recreating Japanese Women, 16001945. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bingham, Adrian. 2004. Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Interwar Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bo, Min. 1927. “Kālasā″ myak‘ luṁ″ nhuṅ‘´ aṅkyī pā bhvaí le″ khyui″” [Four-stanza verse on the sheer blouse and young men's eyes]. Bandoola, October.Google Scholar
Brown, Ian. 2005. A Colonial Economy in Crisis: Burma's Rice Cultivators and the World Depression of the 1930s. London: Routledge Curzon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Yi-Sein. 1966. “The Chinese in Rangoon during the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Artibus Asiae 23:107–11.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard. 1996. “Cloth, Clothes, and Colonialism: India in the Nineteenth Century.” In Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge, by Bernard, Cohn, 106–62. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Dhammasami, Khammai. 2004. “Between Idealism and Pragmatism: A Study of Monastic Education in Burma and Thailand from the Seventeenth Century to the Present.” PhD diss., St. Anne's College, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Edwards, Louise. 2000. “Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China.” Modern China 26 (2): 115–47.Google Scholar
Furnivall, J. S. 1956. An Introduction to the Political Economy of Burma. 3rd ed.Rangoon: Peoples’ Literature Committee and House.Google Scholar
Furnivall, J. S. 1991. The Fashioning of Leviathan: the Beginnings of British Rule in Burma. Canberra: Economic History of Southeast Asia Project and Thai-Yunnan Project.Google Scholar
Göle, Nilüfer. 1996. The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gravers, Mikael. 1999. Nationalism as Political Paranoia in Burma: An Essay on the Historical Practice of Power. 2nd ed.Richmond: Curzon.Google Scholar
Herbert, Patricia M. 1982. The Hsaya San Rebellion (1930–1932) Reappraised. London: Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, British Library.Google Scholar
Hla, Pe. 1968. “The Rise of Popular Literature in Burma.” Journal of Burma Research Society 51 (2): 123–44.Google Scholar
, H. M. 1936. “The Age of Criticism in Burma.” Ngan Hta Lawka 21 (132): 566.Google Scholar
Ikeya, Chie. Forthcoming. “Modern Wives, Hygienic Mothers: ‘Secular’ Education, Popular Press, and the Discourse of Domesticity in Twentieth Century Colonial Burma.” In Medicine in Myanmar: The Colonial Era, ed. Monique, Skidmore.Copenhagen: NIAS Press.Google Scholar
Kawanami, Hiroko. 2000. “Patterns of Renunciation: The Changing World of Burmese Nuns.” In Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal, ed. Findly, E. B., 159–71. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Keyes, Charles F. 1984. “Mother or Mistress but Never a Monk: Buddhist Notions of Female Gender in Rural Thailand.” American Ethnologist 11 (2): 223–41.Google Scholar
Khin Maung, Htun. 1974. Mran‘ mā gyānay‘ samuiṅ‘ ″ (1919–1941) [A history of Burmese journals, 1919–1941]. Yangon: U Chit Aung.Google Scholar
Khin Myo, Chit. 1974. “Women in Buddhism.” The Guardian 21 (8): 812.Google Scholar
Kirsch, Thomas A. 1985. “Text and Context: Buddhist Sex Roles/Culture of Gender Revisited.” American Ethnologist 12 (2): 302–20.Google Scholar
Koop, John Clement. 1960. The Eurasian Population in Burma. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies.Google Scholar
Kyan, . 1978. “A myui″ sa mī″ mrā nhaṅ‘´ cā ṅay‘ jaṅ‘ ″ loka.” In Cā nay‘ jaṅ‘samuiṅ‘ ″ cā tam‘ ″ myā″ [Women and the world of journalism]. Yangon: Sabei Beikman.Google Scholar
Ma, Lay. 1940. “Yok'yā″ thvé raí a tve″ a khay hā aok‘ kya lha khye″ ka lā″” [The deteriorating state of male mentality]. Gyanaygyaw, January, 1518.Google Scholar
Maung, Maung. 1980. From Sangha to Laity: Nationalist Movements of Burma, 1920–1940. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Maxim, Sarah Heminway. 1992. “The Resemblance in External Appearance: The Colonial Project in Kuala Lumpur and Rangoon.” PhD diss., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Mendelson, E. Michael. 1975. Sangha and State in Burma: A Study of Monastic Sectarianism and Leadership. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Monin, P. 1940. “Kyvan‘up‘´ min‘″ ma kui pro me pā” [Please tell my wife]. Thuriya 23 (2): 5560.Google Scholar
Mya, Gale. 1934. “Min‘″ ma myā nhan‘´ pru pran re″” [Women and reforms]. Toetetyei: 5: 31.Google Scholar
Nwe Nwe, Myint. 1992. “Gantha loka cā cu cā raṅ‘″ (1938–1941)” [Ngan Hta Lawka magazine index, 1938–1941]. Master's thesis, Yangon University.Google Scholar
Nemoto, Kei. 2000. “The Concepts of Dobama (‘Our Burma’) and Thudo-Bama (‘Their Burma’) in Burmese Nationalism, 1930–1948.” Journal of Burma Studies 5:116.Google Scholar
Nordholt, Henk Schulte. 1997. Outward Appearances: Dressing State and Society in Indonesia. Leiden: KITLV Press.Google Scholar
O'Connor, Richard A. 1983. A Theory of Indigenous Southeast Asian Urbanism. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Peleggi, Maurizio. 2002. Lords of Things: The Fashioning of the Siamese Monarchy's Modern Image. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Roces, Mina. 2005. “Gender, Nation and the Politics of Dress in Twentieth-Century Philippines. Gender and History 17 (2): 354–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sato, Barbara Hamill. 2003. The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, Asia-Pacific. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Saw Moun, Nyin. 1976. Ba mā a myui″ sa mī″ [Burmese women]. Yangon: Thiha Poun Hneik Htaik.Google Scholar
Shwe Khaing, Thar. 1951. Chaṅ‘yaṅ‘thui″ phvaí mhu [Burmese clothes and hairdos]. Mandalay: Kyi Pwa Yei.Google Scholar
Silverberg, Miriam. 1991. “The Modern Girl as Militant.” In Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945, ed. Gail Lee, Bernstein, 239–66. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Singh, Surendra Prasad. 1980. Growth of Nationalism in Burma, 1900–1942. Calcutta: Firma KLM.Google Scholar
Smith, Donald Eugene. 1965. Religion and Politics in Burma. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Sarah E. 2003. “Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China.” NWSA Journal 15 (3): 82103.Google Scholar
Tarlo, Emma. 1996. Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jean Gelman. 1997. “Costume and Gender in Colonial Java, 1800–1940.” In Outward Appearances: Dressing State and Society in Indonesia, ed. Henk Schulte, Nordholt, 85116. Leiden: KITLV Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Robert. 1987. The State in Burma. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Trivedi, Lisa N. 2003. “Visually Mapping the ‘Nation’: Swadeshi Politics in Nationalist India, 1920–1930.” Journal of Asian Studies 62 (1): 1141.Google Scholar