From Schoolgirls to “Virtuous” Khmer Women:

[Kung-fu Hillbilly]

Emily Anderson and Kelly Grace
December 2018 

From Schoolgirls to “Virtuous” Khmer Women: Interrogating Chbab Srey and Gender in Cambodian Education Policy

Even though your husband curses you, go to bed and think it over. Come back to him and use gentle words to rectify his mistake. Even though your husband admonishes you, remember to keep it to yourself. If something goes wrong, don’t forget the advice which you were given. If you are not afraid and don’t listen to the advice which has been given to you, (you will) create only arguments.

Chbab Srey (Code of Conduct for Women) is an important piece of Khmer literature outlining expected behavior for girls and women in Cambodia. Pieces of the poem are taught in secondary school and interwoven into the educational experiences of girls and female teachers, yet there is little research on Chbab Srey in education. Using discourse analysis, this article considers the influence of Chbab Srey on gender-related education policy in Cambodia.

Chbab Srey is a poem that was orally passed down from the 14th to 19th centuries, and then codified in written form. It details a mother’s advice to her recently married daughter. The mother, as narrator, advises her daughter to maintain peace within the home, walk and talk softly, and obey and respect her husband

Women and girls are targeted as two specific target populations (Schneider & Ingram, 1993) across the document corpus. The social construction of target populations rely on normative, often stereotypical, constructions of identity that are reified through policy language. The Education Strategic Plan targets girls as a discrete population of interest and explicitly focuses on their schooling access as a policy priority.

Like the Teachers’ Code of Conduct, Chbab Srey is a directive that demands adherence to the rules for virtue, character, and ideal Khmer girlhood and womanhood. In the discussion that follows, we describe how Chbab Srey is implemented as official curriculum and evidence the ways girls’ schooling access, opportunity, and mobility are informed by the implementation of Chbab Srey as official curriculum. Building on these findings, we draw parallels between Chbab Srey and the Code of Conduct for Teachers to further highlight the disconnection between Cambodia’s education policy agenda and the poem’s implementation in girls’ education.

full.https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ion_Policy

[John Bingham]

Women and girls are targeted as two specific target populations..

No way.

[BklynBoy]

this is total bullshit archaic...

[Doc67]

The first three paragraphs were making perfect sense, albeit a little old fashioned, until the Education Industry Progressive goon squad got their hands on it, at which point it became an unintelligible word salad. What does reified mean anyway?

"Women and girls are targeted as two specific target populations (Schneider & Ingram, 1993) across the document corpus. The social construction of target populations rely on normative, often stereotypical, constructions of identity that are reified through policy language. The Education Strategic Plan targets girls as a discrete population of interest and explicitly focuses on their schooling access as a policy priority."

[canucklhead]

Who is being interrogated?

[Brody]

rules for virtue, character, and ideal Khmer womanhood.

I couldn't find the chapter detailing how wearing safety-shorts, sanction and legitimize dressing like a slut.

[newkidontheblock]

First, I though that it no longer taught in schools (and hasn’t been for quite a while).
Second, it could have many different interpretations. The most common one, woman turns into a metaphorical quivering mound of jello. (Not the actual mounds of jello western women turn into.). Another way of looking at it, is making maximum use of soft power. Manipulating the man to be a loving husband, without ever seeming to lift a finger doing it. Anyways, my interpretations.

Cambodian society is changing fast. Some girls now act like expats, or even worse, sex pats, eschewing all traditional Khmer teaching, just living in the moment.

It would be shame to find that all Cambodian girls and western girls have become indistinguishable from each other.

[fax]

How about Chbab Proh?! If the man wakes up early he must walk outside quietly to have smoke until the others wake up. The patriarchal society in which we live forces men to track the water in the well and get lung cancer.

Smash the patriarchy!!!

[John Bingham]

Cambodian society is changing fast. Some girls now act like expats, or even worse, sex pats....

How does a Khmer woman act like a sexpat?

[Ghostwriter]

"Chbab" sounds familiar to me, having lived in Indonesia.

Isn't it a word from the Muslims that might be brought through Cham culture ?